stare."

Colonel Preston shook his head reproachfully, but eventually
retired, leaving the field to the enemy. The enemy, a little pink
in the cheeks, slightly tossed the delicate rings of its blonde
crest, settled its skirts again at the piano, but after turning
over the leaves of its music book, rose, and walked pettishly to
the window.

But here a spectacle presented itself that for a moment dismissed
all other thoughts from the girl's rebellious mind.

Not a dozen yards away, on the wind-swept parade, a handsome young
fellow, apparently halted by the sentry, had impetuously turned
upon him in an attitude of indignant and haughty surprise. To the
quick fancy of the girl it seemed as if some disguised rustic god
had been startled by the challenge of a mortal. Under an oilskin
hat, like the petasus of Hermes, pushed back from his white
forehead, crisp black curls were knotted around a head whose
beardless face was perfect as a cameo cutting. In the close-
fitting blue woolen jersey under his open jacket the clear outlines
and youthful grace of his upper figure were revealed as clearly as
in a statue. Long fishing-boots reaching to his thighs scarcely
concealed the symmetry of his lower limbs. Cricket and lawn-
tennis, knickerbockers and flannels had not at that period
familiarized the female eye to unfettered masculine outline, and
Cicely Preston, accustomed to the artificial smartness and
regularity of uniform, was perhaps the more impressed by the
stranger's lawless grace.