he visitor had gone upstairs
Anastasia found it too dark to read in the kitchen; so she took her
book, and sat in the window-seat of Mr Sharnall's room.

It was a favourite resort of hers, both when Mr Sharnall was out, and
also when he was at home; for he had known her from childhood, and liked
to watch the graceful girlish form as she read quietly while he worked
at his music. The deep window-seat was panelled in painted deal, and
along the side of it hung a faded cushion, which could be turned over on
to the sill when the sash was thrown up, so as to form a rest for the
arms of anyone who desired to look out on a summer evening.

The window was still open, though it was dusk; but Anastasia's head,
which just appeared above the sill, was screened from observation by a
low blind. This blind was formed of a number of little green wooden
slats, faded and blistered by the suns of many summers, and so arranged
that, by the turning of a brass, urn-shaped knob, they could be made to
open and afford a prospect of the outer world to anyone sitting inside.

It had been for some time too dark for Anastasia to read, but she still
sat in the window-seat; and as she heard Lord Blandamer come down the
stairs, she turned the brass urn so as to command a view of the street.
She felt herself blushing in the dusk, at the reiterated and voluminous
compliments which her aunt was paying in the hall. She blushed because
Westray's tone was too off-handed and easy towards so important a
personage to please her critical mood; and then she blushed again at her
own folly in blushing. The front-door shut at last, and the gaslight
fell on Lord Blandamer's active figure and straight, square shoulders as
he went down the steps. Three thousand years before, another maiden had
looked between the doorpost and the door, at the straight broad back of
another great stranger as he left her father's palace; but Anastasia was
more fortunate than Nausicaa, for there is no record that Ulysses cast
any backward glance as he walked down to the Phaeacian ship, and Lord
Blandamer did turn and look back.

He turned and looked back; he seemed to Anastasia to look between the
little blistered slats into her very eyes. Of course, he could not have
guessed that a very foolish girl, the niece of a very foolish landlady
in a very commonplace lodging-house, in a very commonplace country town,
was watching him behind a shutter; but he turned and looked, and
Anasta