and was apparently an invalid.  Her long raven locks hung with careless grace, partly behind, and partly over, a neck that might have served as a model for the sculptor.  She was looking wistfully on a bunch of flowers in her hand, which I felt pleasure in recognising to be the same I had seen on the piece of embroidery.  I feared to advance, lest I should give offence; but I felt also unable to retreat.  I fancied I saw one of those lovely and dignified females which the writers in your language describe so well.  But a sudden movement of the fair damsel to get up, bringing me full in her view, she started back with alarm and surprise, and in a moment afterwards her cheek, which had been before pale, almost to European whiteness, was deeply suffused.  I respectfully approached her, and inquired if she was one of my cousins.  She answered in the negative; said she was on a visit to the family, to whom she was related:  added that she had not expected to see any one in the garden; but this was said as if she meant rather to apologise for her undress, than to reproach me for my intrusion.  These remarks were uttered with a propriety and sweetness that won upon me yet more than her beauty.  I then, in return, assured her that I had not supposed any of the family had remained at home, when I strolled to this part of the mansion.  I begged she would not regard me with the formality of a stranger; and insisted that, as she was the cousin of my relation, she was also mine.  To this ingenious argument she answered with so much good sense, and at the same time, so much gentleness and artlessness, that I thought I could have listened to her for ever.  While I spoke, she continued to move on.  I entreated to know if she was satisfied with my apology; repeated that I had not meant to intrude on her privacy.  She mildly replied that she was.  I then asked permission to call her cousin.  She said she should not object, if it would gave me pleasure.  It was, my dear Atterley, her ineffable sweetness of disposition, and of manners so entirely free from pride, coquetry, or affectation, in which this lovely creature excelled all other women, yet more than in beauty and grace.  I then inquired when I should again see my lovely cousin.  She replied, “I walk in the great garden sometimes with my companions, when their brothers are away; but the girls will not think it proper to walk when you are there.”  Perceiving that I looked chagrined, she added:  “It is said, you know, that the light from mens’ eyes is yet worse for womens’ faces than the light of the sun;” and she blushed as if she had said something wrong.  I stammered out I know not what extravagant compliment in reply, and entreated that I might have an opportunity of seeing and conversing with her sometimes:  to which she promptly answered that she should not object, if her mother approved it.  I inquired why she had not attended the exhibition; when I learnt from her, that, as she had been slightly indisposed the day before, and her mother being unwilling she should expose herself to the heat of the weather and the crowd, she had been left under the care of her nurse; but that finding herself better, she had permitted her attendants to walk over the grounds, while she amused herself in embroidery; and that she had come into the garden to get a fresh supply of the flowers she was working.