Before the middle one there was an easel, and the girl was in the
room, standing there in front of the canvas between me and the
light. She was seemingly entirely abstracted and absorbed. She was
completely motionless, and for the moment she communicated her
stillness to me.

I paused, silent, looking at her.

She was standing directly in front of me, facing the canvas, that
was perfectly blank at present.

One hand rested on her hip, the other was raised and pressed to her
head, as when a person looks into distance, and the arm and elbow
and wrist traced a delicate curve against the dull grey square of
London window pane.

A twist of hair about as thick as my arm fell nearly to her waist.
It was decidedly not gold; that is, it did not suggest dye and the
Haymarket; but it was fair and curly, and seemed to hold light
imprisoned amongst it.

The figure was tall, and erred, perhaps, on the side of slightness.

Certainly it would have been too slight for those men whose scale of
admiration runs--so much in the pound. But the architecture of the
form was perfect. Each line was worthy of study in itself as a thing
of beauty, and the harmony of them all in the whole figure, whether
it moved or was at rest, gave an indefinable pleasure to the eye.

What a lovely thing it was this form, seeming to hold in itself the