t upward.

She was pretty; she was not pretty; she charmed, she disappointed, she
charmed again. Tried by recognized line and rule, she was too short and
too well developed for her age. And yet few men's eyes would have wished
her figure other than it was. Her hands were so prettily plump and
dimpled that it was hard to see how red they were with the blessed
exuberance of youth and health. Her feet apologized gracefully for her
old and ill fitting shoes; and her shoulders made ample amends for the
misdemeanor in muslin which covered them in the shape of a dress. Her
dark-gray eyes were lovely in their clear softness of color, in their
spirit, tenderness, and sweet good humor of expression; and her hair
(where a shabby old garden hat allowed it to be seen) was of just that
lighter shade of brown which gave value by contrast to the darker
beauty of her eyes. But these attractions passed, the little attendant
blemishes and imperfections of this self-contradictory girl began again.
Her nose was too short, her mouth was too large, her face was too round
and too rosy. The dreadful justice of photography would have had no
mercy on her; and the sculptors of classical Greece would have bowed
her regretfully out of their studios. Admitting all this, and more, the
girdle round Miss Milroy's waist was the girdle of Venus nevertheless;
and the passkey that opens the general heart was the key she carried,
if ever a girl possessed it yet. Before Allan had picked up his second
handful of flowers, Allan was in love with her.

"Don't! pray don't, Mr. Armadale!" she said, receiving the flowers under
protest, as Allan vigorously showered them back into the lap of her
dress. "I am so ashamed! I didn't mean to invite myself in that bold way
into your garden; my tongue ran away with me--it did, indeed! What can I
say to excuse myself? Oh, Mr. Armadale, what must you think of me?"

Allan suddenly saw his way to a compliment, and tossed it up to her
forthwith, with the third handful of flowers.

"I'll tell you what I think, Miss Milroy," he said, in his blunt, boyish
way. "I think the luckiest walk I ever took in my life was the walk this
morning that brought me here."

He looked eager and handsome. He was not addressing a woman worn out
with admiration, but a girl just beginning a woman's life; and it did
him no harm, at any rate, to speak in the character of master of Thorpe
Ambrose. The penitential expression on Miss Milroy's face gently