for days.' She indicated to him a figure on the lawn towards the left,
looking upon the same flashing scene as that they themselves beheld.

'It is your own particular one,' continued Faith. 'Yes, I see the blue
flowers under the edge of her cloak.'

'And I see her squirrel-coloured hair,' said Christopher.

Both stood looking at this apparition, who once, and only once, thought
fit to turn her head towards the front of the house they were gazing
from. Faith was one in whom the meditative somewhat overpowered the
active faculties; she went on, with no abundance of love, to theorize
upon this gratuitously charming woman, who, striking freakishly into her
brother's path, seemed likely to do him no good in her sisterly
estimation. Ethelberta's bright and shapely form stood before her critic
now, smartened by the motes of sunlight from head to heel: what Faith
would have given to see her so clearly within!

'Without doubt she is already a lady of many romantic experiences,' she
said dubiously.

'And on the way to many more,' said Christopher. The tone was just of
the kind which may be imagined of a sombre man who had been up all night
piping that others might dance.

Faith parted her lips as if in consternation at possibilities.
Ethelberta, having already become an influence in Christopher's system,
might soon become more--an indestructible fascination--to drag him about,
turn his soul inside out, harrow him, twist him, and otherwise torment
him, according to the stereotyped form of such processes.