though you may tell me as you go, how it was you discovered my
lordliness."

"Oh! by your look, my lord: I should have discovered it at once,"
replied the groom of the chambers; "but his grace told me that your
lordship was likely to call."

"Oh, ho!" cried Lord Sherbrooke, with a laughing look to Wilton. But
the next moment the servant threw open a glass door, and they issued
forth into the gardens, which were very beautiful, and extended down
to the river, filled with fine old trees, and spread out in soft
green terraces and gravel walks. Lord Sherbrooke gazed round at
first, with a look of criticising inquiry, upon the gardens; but the
eyes of Wilton had fixed immediately upon the figure of a lady who
was walking slowly along on the terrace, some way beneath them, at
the very edge of the river. She did not remark the opening of the
glass door in the centre of the house, which was at the distance of
about two hundred yards from the spot where she was at the time; but
continued her walk with her eyes bent upon the ground, and one hand
playing negligently with the bracelet which encircled the wrist of
the other arm. Her thoughts were evidently deeply busied with matters
of importance, at least to herself. She was walking slowly, as we
have said--a thing that none but a high-bred woman can do with
grace--and though the great beauty of her figure was, in some degree,
hidden by the costume of the day, yet nothing could render its easy,
gliding motion aught but exquisitely graceful, and (if I may use a
far-fetched term, but, perhaps, the only one that will express my
meaning clearly,) musical to the eye. It must not be understood that,
though she was walking slowly, the grace with which she did so had
anything of the cold and stately air which those who assume it call