carried with it if he had lived in the times of the Classical
Dictionary. So much, indeed, is the reverse the case that the
assertion creates an awkwardness in saying anything more about him.
The beautiful youth usually verges so perilously on the incipient
coxcomb, who is about to become the Lothario or Juan among the
neighbouring maidens, that, for the due understanding of our present
young man, his sublime innocence of any thought concerning his own
material aspect, or that of others, is most fervently asserted, and
must be as fervently believed.

Such as he was, there the lad sat. The sun shone full in his face,
and on his head he wore a black velvet skull-cap, leaving to view
below it a curly margin of very light shining hair, which accorded
well with the flush upon his cheek.

He had such a complexion as that with which Raffaelle enriches the
countenance of the youthful son of Zacharias,--a complexion which,
though clear, is far enough removed from virgin delicacy, and
suggests plenty of sun and wind as its accompaniment. His features
were sufficiently straight in the contours to correct the beholder's
first impression that the head was the head of a girl. Beside him
stood a little oak table, and in front was the telescope.

His visitor had ample time to make these observations; and she may
have done so all the more keenly through being herself of a totally
opposite type. Her hair was black as midnight, her eyes had no less
deep a shade, and her complexion showed the richness demanded as a
support to these decided features. As she continued to look at the
pretty fellow before her, apparently so far abstracted into some
speculative world as scarcely to know a real one, a warmer wave of