war. For the rest, his figure was well-built and active, and his voice
when he spoke, which was seldom, clear and distinct to loudness, but
cultivated and pleasant--again, not the voice of a merchant.

Of the lady's figure little could be seen because of the long cloak that
hid it, but the face, which appeared within its hood when she turned and
the dying sunlight filled her eyes, was lovely indeed, for from her
birth to her death-day Margaret Castell--fair Margaret, as she was
called--had this gift to a degree that is rarely granted to woman.
Rounded and flower-like was that face, most delicately tinted also,
with rich and curving lips and a broad, snow-white brow. But the wonder
of it, what distinguished her above everything else from other beautiful
women of her time, was to be found in her eyes, for these were not blue
or grey, as might have been expected from her general colouring, but
large, black, and lustrous; soft, too, as the eyes of a deer, and
overhung by curling lashes of an ebon black. The effect of these eyes of
hers shining above those tinted cheeks and beneath the brow of ivory
whiteness was so strange as to be almost startling. They caught the
beholder and held him, as might the sudden sight of a rose in snow, or
the morning star hanging luminous among the mists of dawn. Also,
although they were so gentle and modest, if that beholder chanced to be
a man on the good side of fifty it was often long before he could forget
them, especially if he were privileged to see how well they matched the
hair of chestnut, shading into black, that waved above them and fell,
tress upon tress, upon the shapely shoulders and down to the
slender waist.

Peter Brome, for he was so named, looked a little anxiously about him at
the crowd, then, turning, addressed Margaret in his strong, clear voice.