When she entered she ran to me with outstretched hands and a gleam of welcome in her eyes.  We had been rare friends when she was a child.

“Ah, Cousin Malcolm, what a fine surprise you have given us!” she exclaimed, clasping both my hands and offering me her cheek to kiss.  “Father’s delight will be beyond measure when he sees you.”

“As mine now is,” I responded, gazing at her from head to foot and drinking in her beauty with my eyes.  “Doll!  Doll!  What a splendid girl you have become.  Who would have thought that—­that—­” I hesitated, realizing that I was rapidly getting myself into trouble.

“Say it.  Say it, cousin!  I know what is in your mind.  Rusty red hair, angular shoulders, sharp elbows, freckles thickly set as stars upon a clear night, and so large and brown that they fairly twinkled.  Great staring green eyes.  Awkward!—­” And she threw up her hands in mimic horror at the remembrance.  “No one could have supposed that such a girl would have become—­that is, you know,” she continued confusedly, “could have changed.  I haven’t a freckle now,” and she lifted her face that I might prove the truth of her words by examination, and perhaps that I might also observe her beauty.

Neither did I waste the opportunity.  I dwelt longingly upon the wondrous red golden hair which fringed her low broad forehead, and upon the heavy black eyebrows, the pencilled points of whose curves almost touched across the nose.  I saw the rose-tinted ivory of her skin and the long jet lashes curving in a great sweep from her full white lids, and I thought full sure that Venus herself was before me.  My gaze halted for a moment at the long eyes which changed chameleon-like with the shifting light, and varied with her moods from deep fathomless green to violet, and from violet to soft voluptuous brown, but in all their tints beaming forth a lustre that would have stirred the soul of an anchorite.  Then I noted the beauty of her clean-cut saucy nose and the red arch of her lips, slightly parted for the purpose of showing her teeth.  But I could not stop long to dwell upon any one especial feature, for there were still to be seen her divine round chin, her large white throat, and the infinite grace in poise and curve of her strong young form.  I dared not pause nor waste my time if I were to see it all, for such a girl as Dorothy waits no man’s leisure—­that is, unless she wishes to wait.  In such case there is no moving her, and patience becomes to her a delightful virtue.

After my prolonged scrutiny Dorothy lowered her face and said laughingly:—­

“Now come, cousin, tell me the truth.  Who would have thought it possible?”

“Not I, Doll, not I, if you will pardon me the frankness.”

“Oh, that is easily done.”  Then with a merry ripple of laughter, “It is much easier, I fancy, for a woman to speak of the time when she was plain than to refer to the time when—­when she was beautiful.  What an absurd speech that is for me to make,” she said confusedly.