"And how did you get on with Mr. Fairlie?" inquired Miss Halcombe,
as we left the lawn and turned into a shrubbery. "Was he
particularly nervous this morning? Never mind considering about
your answer, Mr. Hartright. The mere fact of your being obliged
to consider is enough for me. I see in your face that he WAS
particularly nervous; and, as I am amiably unwilling to throw you
into the same condition, I ask no more."

We turned off into a winding path while she was speaking, and
approached a pretty summer-house, built of wood, in the form of a
miniature Swiss chalet. The one room of the summer-house, as we
ascended the steps of the door, was occupied by a young lady. She
was standing near a rustic table, looking out at the inland view
of moor and hill presented by a gap in the trees, and absently
turning over the leaves of a little sketch-book that lay at her
side. This was Miss Fairlie.

How can I describe her? How can I separate her from my own
sensations, and from all that has happened in the later time? How
can I see her again as she looked when my eyes first rested on
her--as she should look, now, to the eyes that are about to see
her in these pages?

The water-colour drawing that I made of Laura Fairlie, at an after
period, in the place and attitude in which I first saw her, lies
on my desk while I write. I look at it, and there dawns upon me
brightly, from the dark greenish-brown background of the summer-
house, a light, youthful figure, clothed in a simple muslin dress,
the pattern of it formed by broad alternate stripes of delicate