retracing her steps, or entering a strange street; and while she
hesitated a troop of sheep went by, that made a piteous noise. She
followed them, thinking curiously of the something broken that appeared
to be in their throats. By-and-by, the thought flashed in her that they
were going to be slaughtered. She held her step, looking at them, but
without any tender movement of the heart. They came to a butcher's yard,
and went in.

When she had passed along a certain distance, a shiver seized her, and
her instinct pushed her toward the lighted shops, where there were
pictures. In one she saw the portrait of that Queen of Song whom she had
heard at Besworth. Two young men, glancing as they walked by arm in arm,
pronounced the name of the great enchantress, and hummed one of her
triumphant airs. The features expressed health, humour, power, every
fine animal faculty. Genius was on the forehead and the plastic mouth;
the forehead being well projected, fair, and very shapely, showing clear
balance, as well as capacity to grasp flame, and fling it. The line
reaching to a dimple from the upper lip was saved from scornfulness by
the lovely gleam, half-challenging, half-consoling, regal, roguish--what
you would--that sat between her dark eyelashes, like white sunlight on
the fringed smooth roll of water by a weir. Such a dimple, and such a
gleam of eyes, would have been keys to the face of a weakling, and it was
the more fascinating from the disregard of any minor charm notable upon
this grand visage, which could not suffer a betrayal. You saw, and there
was no effort to conceal, that the spirit animating it was intensely
human; but it was human of the highest chords of humanity, indifferent to
finesse and despising subtleties; gifted to speak, to inspire, and to
command all great emotions. In fact, it was the masque of a dramatic
artist in repose. Tempered by beauty, the robust frame showed that she
possessed a royal nature, and could, as a foremost qualification for Art,