Now if these few sentences, uttered by those two young people in the
noisy railway station, be taken by themselves and regarded, they will be
found to consist of the dullest commonplace. No two strangers in all
that crowd could have addressed each other in a more indifferent
fashion. But the trivial nothings which the mouth utters may become
possessed of awful import when accompanied by the language of the eyes;
and the poor commonplace sentences may be taken up and translated so
that they shall stand written across the memory in letters of flashing
sunlight and the colors of June. "_Ought we to take tickets?_" There was
not much poetry in the phrase but she lifted her eyes just then.

And now Colonel Ross and his wife appeared, accompanied by the only
other friend they could get at such short notice to join this scratch
party--a demure little old lady who had a very large house on Campden
Hill which everybody coveted. They were just in time to get comfortably
seated in the spacious saloon carriage that had been reserved for them.
The train slowly glided out of the station, and then began to rattle
away from the midst of London. Glimpses of a keener blue began to
appear. The gardens were green with the foliage of the early summer;
martins swept across the still pools, a spot of white when they got into
the shadow. And Miss White would have as many windows open as possible,
so that the sweet June air swept right through the long carriage.

And was she not a very child in her enjoyment of this sudden escape into
the country? The rapid motion, the silvery light, the sweet air, the
glimpses of orchards, and farm-houses, and millstreams--all were a
delight to her; and although she talked in a delicate, half-reserved,
shy way with that low voice of hers, still there was plenty of vivacity
and gladness in her eyes. They drove from Gravesend station to the
river-side. They passed through the crowd waiting to see the yachts