But more than form and colour and that enchanting variability was
the look of intelligence, which at the same time seemed
complementary to and one with the all-seeing, all-hearing
alertness appearing in her face; the alertness one remarks in a
wild creature, even when in repose and fearing nothing; but
seldom in man, never perhaps in intellectual or studious man.
She was a wild, solitary girl of the woods, and did not
understand the language of the country in which I had addressed
her. What inner or mind life could such a one have more than
that of any wild animal existing in the same conditions? Yet
looking at her face it was not possible to doubt its
intelligence. This union in her of two opposite qualities,
which, with us, cannot or do not exist together, although so
novel, yet struck me as the girl's principal charm. Why had
Nature not done this before--why in all others does the
brightness of the mind dim that beautiful physical brightness
which the wild animals have? But enough for me that that which
no man had ever looked for or hoped to find existed here; that
through that unfamiliar lustre of the wild life shone the
spiritualizing light of mind that made us kin.

These thoughts passed swiftly through my brain as I stood
feasting my sight on her bright, piquant face; while she on her
part gazed back into my eyes, not only with fearless curiosity,
but with a look of recognition and pleasure at the encounter so
unmistakably friendly that, encouraged by it, I took her arm in
my hand, moving at the same time a little nearer to her. At that
moment a swift, startled expression came into her eyes; she
glanced down and up again into my face; her lips trembled and
slightly parted as she murmured some sorrowful sounds in a tone