the very mind of the fastidious, twilight-loving bat, flitting about,
coming and going, like a thought we can not help. Most of Walter's
thoughts came and went thus. He had not yet learned to think; he was
hardly more than a medium in which thought came and went. Yet when a
thought seemed worth anything, he always gave himself the credit of
it!--as if a man were author of his own thoughts any more than of his
own existence! A man can but live so with the life given him, that this
or that kind of thoughts shall call on him, and to this or that kind he
shall not be at home. Walter was only at that early stage of development
where a man is in love with what he calls his own thoughts.

Even in the dark of the summer-house one might have seen that he was
pale, and might have suspected him handsome. In the daylight his gray
eyes might almost seem the source of his paleness. His features were
well marked though delicate, and had a notable look of distinction. He
was above the middle height, and slenderly built; had a wide forehead,
and a small, pale mustache on an otherwise smooth face. His mouth was
the least interesting feature; it had great mobility, but when at rest,
little shape and no attraction. For this, however, his smile made
considerable amends.

The girl was dark, almost swarthy, with the clear, pure complexion, and
fine-grained skin, which more commonly accompany the hue. If at first
she gave the impression of delicacy, it soon changed into one of
compressed life, of latent power. Through the night, where she now sat,
her eyes were too dark to appear; they sank into it, and were as the
unseen soul of the dark; while her mouth, rather large and exquisitely
shaped, with the curve of a strong bow, seemed as often as she smiled to
make a pale window in the blackness. Her hair came rather low down the
steep of her forehead, and, with the strength of her chin, made her face