white cloak, an indescribable complexity of soft lace and airy
ruffles, round her shoulders. She wore no hat. Her hair,
brown and warm in shadow, sparkled, where it caught the light,
in a kind of crinkly iridescence, like threads of glass.

Peter's heart (for the best reasons in the world) was racing
perilously. "It's impossible--impossible--impossible"--the
words strummed themselves to its rhythm. Peter's wits (for had
not the impossible come to pass?) were in a perilous confusion.
But he managed to rise from his rustic bench, and to achieve a
bow.

She inclined her head graciously.

"You do not think it altogether bad--I hope?" she questioned,
in her crisp-cut voice, raising her eyebrows slightly, with a
droll little assumption of solicitude.

Peter's wits were in confusion; but he must answer her. An
automatic second-self, summoned by the emergency, answered for
him.

"I think one might safely call it altogether good."

"Oh--?" she exclaimed.

Her eyebrows went up again, but now they expressed a certain
whimsical surprise. She threw back her head, and regarded the
prospect critically.