and was trying to catch some of the figures as they appeared up the path,
and a young girl was looking over his shoulder with an amused face, just
as he was getting an elderly man in a long flowing duster, straggling
gray hair, hat on the back of his head, large iron-rimmed spectacles,
with a baggy umbrella, who stopped breathless at the summit, with a wild
glare of astonishment at the view. This young girl, whom the careless
observer might pass without a second glance, was discovered on better
acquaintance to express in her face and the lines of her figure some
subtle intellectual quality not easily interpreted. Marion Lamont, let
us say at once, was of Southern origin, born in London during the
temporary residence of her parents there, and while very young deprived
by death of her natural protectors. She had a small, low voice, fine
hair of a light color, which contrasted with dark eyes, waved back from
her forehead, delicate, sensitive features--indeed, her face, especially
in conversation with any one, almost always had a wistful, appealing
look; in figure short and very slight, lithe and graceful, full of
unconscious artistic poses, fearless and sure-footed as a gazelle in
climbing about the rocks, leaping from stone to stone, and even making
her way up a tree that had convenient branches, if the whim took her,
using her hands and arms like a gymnast, and performing whatever feat of.
daring or dexterity as if the exquisitely molded form was all instinct
with her indomitable will, and obeyed it, and always with an air of
refinement and spirited breeding. A child of nature in seeming, but yet
a woman who was not to be fathomed by a chance acquaintance.

The old man with the spectacles was presently overtaken by a stout,
elderly woman, who landed in the exhausted condition of a porpoise that
has come ashore, and stood regardless of everything but her own weight,
while member after member of the party straggled up. No sooner did this
group espy the artist than they moved in his direction. "There's a