elligent, like an animal's, which to us always seem
unintelligent. I should have mentioned, for Mr. Robson noticed it at
once, that her hair was unconfined, and that, so far as he could make
out, she wore but a single garment--a sleeveless frock, confined at
the waist and reaching to her knees. It was of the colour of
unbleached flax and of a coarse web. Her form showed through, and the
faint flush of her skin. She was a finely made girl. Her legs and feet
were bare. Immodest as such an appearance would have been in one of
the village maids, he did not feel it to be so with her. Her look was
so entirely foreign to his experience that there was no standard of
comparison. Everything about her seemed to him to be quite what one
would have expected, until one came, so to speak, in touch with her
soul. That, if it lay behind her inscrutable, sightless and dumb eyes,
betrayed her. There was no hint of it. Human in form, visibly and
tangibly human, no soul sat in her great eyes that a man could
discern. That, however, is not now the point. Rather it is that, to
all appearance a modest and beautiful girl, she was remarkably
undressed. It was inconceivable that a modest and beautiful girl could
so present herself, and yet a modest and beautiful girl she was.

Mr. Robson put it to himself this way. There are birds--for instance,
jays, kingfishers, goldfinches--which are, taken absolutely, extremely
brilliant in colouring. Yet they do not jar, are not obtrusive. So it
was with her. Her dress was, perhaps, taken absolutely, indecorous.
Upon her it looked at once seemly and beautiful. Upon Bessie Prawle it
would have been glaring; but one had to dissect it before one could
discover any fault with it upon its wearer. She was very pale, even to
the lips, which were full and parted, as if she must breathe through
her mouth. He noticed immediately the shortness of her breath. It was
very distressing, and after a little while induced the same thing in
himself. And not in him only, but I can fancy that the whole group of
them sitting round her where she was crouched against Miranda King's
knees, were panting away like steam-engines before they had done with
her. While Mr. Robson was there Miranda never took her arm off her
shoulder for a moment; but the girl's eyes were always fixed upon
Andrew, who called himself her husband, unless her apprehensions were
directly called elsewhere. In that case she would look in the required
direction fo