the morning room. She laid open a book on the table, but then
lingered between that and the windows. At length she took a volume
of a lighter kind--in both senses--and, finding her garden hat in
the hall, went forth.

She was something less than twenty, and bore herself with grace
perchance a little too sober for her years. Her head was wont to
droop thoughtfully, and her step measured itself to the grave music
of a mind which knew the influence of mountain solitude. But her
health was complete; she could row for long stretches, and on
occasion fatigued her father in rambles over moor and fell. Face and
figure were matched in mature beauty; she had dark hair, braided
above the forehead on each side, and large dark eyes which regarded
you with a pure intelligence, disconcerting if your word uttered
less than sincerity.

When her mother died Annabel was sixteen. Three months after that
event Mr. Newthorpe left London for his country house, which neither
he nor his daughter had since quitted. He had views of his own on
the subject of London life as it affects young ladies. By nature a
student, he had wedded a woman who became something not far removed
from a fashionable beauty. It was a passionate attachment on both
sides at first, and to the end he loved his wife with the love which
can deny nothing. The consequence was that the years of his prime
were wasted, and the intellectual promise of his youth found no
fulfilment. Another year and Annabel would have entered the social
mill; she had beauty enough to achieve distinction, and the means of
the family were ample to enshrine her. But she never 'came out.' No
one would at first believe that Mr. Newthorpe's retreat was final;
no one save a close friend or two who understood what his life had