one would like to know;” a girl would have dubbed him “nice-looking;” and a middle-aged woman—­and most women do not really understand the immense difference between men until they are getting on that way—­ would have recognized in him a young man by no means uninteresting, and one who might, according to the circumstances of his life, develop into anything or—­nothing in particular.

Presently, drawn by some unguessed attraction, Arthur took his eyes off an industrious water-hen, who was building a nest in a hurried way, as though she were not quite sure of his intentions, and perceived a large raven standing on one leg on the grass, about three yards from him, and peering at him comically out of one eye.  This was odd.  But his glance did not stop at the raven, for a yard or two beyond it he caught sight of a white skirt, and his eyes, travelling upwards, saw first a rounded waist, and then a bust and pair of shoulders such as few women can boast, and at last, another pair of eyes; and he then and there fell utterly and irretrievably in love.

“Good heavens!” he said, aloud—­poor fellow, he did not mean to say it, it was wrung from the depths of his heart—­“good heavens, how lovely she is!”

Let the reader imagine the dreadful confusion produced in that other pair of eyes at the open expression of such a sentiment, and the vivid blush that stained the fair face in which they were set, if he can.  But somehow they did not grow angry—­perhaps it was not in the nature of the most sternly repressive young lady to grow angry at a compliment which, however marked, was so evidently genuine and unpremeditated.  In another moment Arthur bethought him of what he had said, and it was his turn to blush.  He recovered himself pretty well, however.  Rising from his stone seat, he took off his hat, and said, humbly,

“I beg your pardon, but you startled me so, and really for a moment I thought that you were the spirit of the place, or,” he added, gracefully, pointing to a branch of half-opened hawthorn bloom she held in her hand, “the original Queen of the May.”

Angela blushed again.  The compliment was only implied this time; she had therefore no possible pretext for getting angry.

For a moment she dropped the sweet eyes that looked as though they were fresh from reading the truths of heaven before his gaze of unmistakable admiration, and stood confused; and, as she stood, it struck Arthur that there was something more than mere beauty of form and feature about her—­an indescribable something, a glory of innocence, a reflection of God’s own light that tinged the worship her loveliness commanded with a touch of reverential awe.

“The angels must look like that,” he thought.  But he had no time to think any more, for next moment she had gathered up her courage in both her hands, and was speaking to him in a soft voice, of which the tones went ringing on through all the changes of his life.