called a Junoesque type--decidedly plump, with firm white hands and
well-formed feet. Her face was of a whitish tint, more like marble
than flesh, and appeared as if modelled from the antique--with the
straight Greek nose, high and smooth forehead, and full red mouth,
with firmly-closed lips. She had dark and piercing eyes, with heavy
arched eyebrows above them, and her hair, of a bluish-black hue, was
drawn smoothly over the forehead, and coiled in thick wreaths at the
top of her small, finely-formed head. Altogether a striking-looking
woman, but with an absence of animation about her face, which had a
calm, serene expression, effectually hiding any thoughts that might
be passing in her mind, and which resembled nothing so much in its
inscrutable look as the motionless calm which the old Egyptians gave
to their sphinxes. She was dressed for coolness in a loose white
dress, tied round her waist with a crimson scarf of Indian silk; and
her beautifully modelled arms, bare to the elbow, and unadorned by
any trinkets, were folded idly in front of her as she looked out at
the landscape, which was mellowed and full of warmth under the
bright yellow glare of the setting sun.

The cottage--for it was nothing else--stood on a slight rise
immediately in front of a dark wood of tall gum-trees, and there was
a long row of them on the right, forming a shelter against the
winds, as if the wood had thrown a protecting arm around the
cottage, and wanted to draw it closer to its warm bosom. The country
was of an undulating character, divided into fields by long rows of
gorse hedges, all golden with blossoms, which gave out a faint,
peach-like odour. Some of these meadows were yellow with corn--some
a dull red with sorrel, others left in their natural condition of
bright green grass--while here and there stood up, white and ghost-
like, the stumps of old trees, the last remnants of the forests,