the one behind her; she
with the crimson skirt, dark jacket, brown hat and brown gloves.
Unmistakably that was the prettiest girl.

Having finally selected her, this idle spectator studied her as well as
he was able during each of her brief transits across his visual field.
She was absolutely unconscious of everything save the act of riding: her
features were rapt in an ecstatic dreaminess; for the moment she did not
know her age or her history or her lineaments, much less her troubles. He
himself was full of vague latter-day glooms and popular melancholies, and
it was a refreshing sensation to behold this young thing then and there,
absolutely as happy as if she were in a Paradise.

Dreading the moment when the inexorable stoker, grimily lurking behind
the glittering rococo-work, should decide that this set of riders had had
their pennyworth, and bring the whole concern of steam-engine, horses,
mirrors, trumpets, drums, cymbals, and such-like to pause and silence, he
waited for her every reappearance, glancing indifferently over the
intervening forms, including the two plainer girls, the old woman and
child, the two youngsters, the newly-married couple, the old man with a
clay pipe, the sparkish youth with a ring, the young ladies in the
chariot, the pair of journeyman-carpenters, and others, till his select
country beauty followed on again in her place. He had never seen a
fairer product of nature, and at each round she made a deeper mark in his
sentiments. The stoppage then came, and the sighs of the riders were
audible.

He moved round to the place at which he reckoned she would alight; but
she retained her seat. The empty saddles began to refill, and she
plainly was deciding to have another turn. The young man drew up to the
side of her steed, and pleasantly asked her if she had enjoyed her ride.

'O yes!' she said, with dancing eyes. 'It has been quite unlike anything
I have ever felt in my life before!'

It was not difficult to fall into conversation with her. Unreserved--too
unreserved--by nature, she was not experienced enough to be reserved by
art, and after a little coaxing she answered his remarks readily. She
had come to live in Melchester from a village on the Great Plain, and
this was the first time that she had ever seen a steam-circus; she could
not understand how such wonderful machines were made. She had come to
the city on the invitation of Mrs. Harnham, who had taken her into her
house