'How little that cloud has changed its form! I should like to stay here
and watch it till sunset. In a week I suppose I shall be looking at some
such cloud over Mont Blanc. And you, in Dunfield.'

'No, there we have only mill-smoke.'

She smiled, and passed from the hollow to the road.





CHAPTER II

BEATRICE REDWING




Midway in breakfast next morning, at a moment when Mrs. Rossall was
describing certain originalities of drawing-room decoration observed on
the previous day at a house in town, the half-open door admitted a young
lady who had time to glance round the assembled family before her
presence was observed. In appearance she was very interesting. The tints
of her fine complexion were warmed by exercise in the morning air, and
her dark eyes brightened by pleasurable excitement; she carried her hat
in her hand, and seemed to have been walking bare-headed, for there were
signs of wind-play in her abundant black hair. But neither face nor
attire suggested rusticity: the former was handsome, spirited, with a
hint of uncommon things in its changeful radiance; the latter was the