ace close to
Matilda's face."

"I saw Joseph kiss Matilda!" Zo burst out, with a scream of triumph.
"Why doesn't Ovid kiss Carmina?"

A deep bass voice, behind them, answered gravely: "Because the governess
is in the way." And a big bamboo walking-stick pointed over their heads
at Miss Minerva. Zo instantly recognised the stick, and took it into her
own hands.

Teresa turned--and found herself in the presence of a remarkable man.

CHAPTER XII.

In the first place, the stranger was almost tall enough to be shown as a
giant; he towered to a stature of six feet six inches, English measure.
If his immense bones had been properly covered with flesh, he might have
presented the rare combination of fine proportions with great height. He
was so miserably--it might almost be said, so hideously--thin that his
enemies spoke of him as "the living skeleton." His massive forehead,
his great gloomy gray eyes, his protuberant cheek-bones, overhung
a fleshless lower face naked of beard, whiskers, and moustache. His
complexion added to the startling effect which his personal appearance
produced on strangers. It was of the true gipsy-brown, and, being darker
in tone than his eyes, added remarkably to the weird look, the dismal
thoughtful scrutiny, which it was his habit to fix on persons talking
with him, no matter whether they were worthy of attention or not. His
straight black hair hung as gracelessly on either side of his hollow
face as the hair of an American Indian. His great dusky hands, never
covered by gloves in the summer time, showed amber-coloured nails on
bluntly-pointed fingers, turned up at the tips. Those tips felt like
satin when they touched you. When he wished to be careful, he could
handle the frailest objects with the most exquisite delicacy. His dress
was of the recklessly loose and easy kind. His long frock-coat descended
below his knees; his flowing trousers were veritable bags; his lean and
wrinkled throat turned about in a widely-opened shirt-collar, unconfined
by any sort of neck-tie. He had a theory that a head-dress should
be solid enough to resist a chance blow--a fall from a horse, or the
dropping of a loose brick from a house under repair. His hard black hat,
broad and curly at the brim, might have graced the head of a bishop, if
it had not been secularised by a queer resemblance to the bell-shaped
hat worn by dandies in the early years of the present century. In one
word he was, both in himself