e, she would recollect herself and fall back; and every time
she did so that same look of tenderness would overspread her face.

At last she said, 'What makes you stare at me so, little boy?'

I blushed and turned my head another way, for I had been feasting my
eyes upon her complexion, and trying to satisfy myself as to what it
really was like. Indeed, I thought it quite peculiar then, when I had
seen so few lovely faces, as I always did afterwards, when I had seen
as many as most people. It was, I thought, as though underneath the
sunburn the delicate pink tint of the hedge-rose had become mingled
with the bloom of a ripening peach, and yet it was like neither peach
nor rose. But this tone, whatever it was, did not spread higher than
the eyebrows. The forehead was different. It had a singular kind of
pearly look, and her long slender throat was almost of the same tone:
no, not the same, for there was a transparency about her throat
unlike that of the forehead. This colour I was just now thinking
looked something like the inside of a certain mysterious shell upon
my father's library shelf.

As she asked me her question she stopped, and looked straight at me,
opening her eyes wide and round upon me. This threw a look of
innocent trustfulness over her bright features which I soon learnt
was the chief characteristic of her expression and was altogether
peculiar to herself. I knew it was very rude to stare at people as I
had been staring at her, and I took her question as a rebuke,
although I still was unable to keep my eyes off her. But it was not
merely her beauty and her tenderness that had absorbed my attention.
I had been noticing how intensely she seemed to enjoy the delights of
that summer afternoon. As we passed along that road, where sea-scents
and land-scents were mingled, she would stop whenever the sunshine
fell full upon her face; her eyes would sparkle and widen with
pleasure, and a half-smile would play about her lips, as if some one
had kissed her. Every now and then she would stop to listen to the
birds, putting up her finger, and with a look of childish wisdom say,
'Do you know what that is? That's a blackbird--that's a
thrush--that's a goldfinch. Which eggs do you like best--a
goldfinch's or a bullfinch's? _I_ know which _I_ like best.'

III

While we were walking along the road a sound fell upon my ears which
in my hale days never produced any very unpleasant sensations, but
which did now. I m