omething so wonderful that I forgot my manners and stared at her as
one fascinated--as indeed I was, for never had I seen such loveliness
and hardly dreamed it.

Pretty women I had seen in plenty, for my aunts and my mother were
counted fair, but my uncle's wife was as little like to them as a
sunset glow to pale moonshine or a crimson rose to white day-lilies.

Nor can I paint her to you in words as I saw her then, with the long
tongues of firelight licking her white neck and wavering over the rich
masses of her red-gold hair.

She was tall--so tall that my aunts looked but insignificant beside
her, and they were of no mean height, as became their race; yet no
queen could have carried herself more royally, and all the passion and
fire of her foreign nature burned in her splendid eyes, that might
have been dark or light for aught that I could ever tell, but which
seemed always like pools of warm flame, now tender, now fierce.

Her skin was like a delicate white rose leaf, and when she spoke I
told my foolish self that never had I heard music before; nor do I
ever again think to hear a voice so sweet, so liquid, as that which
rippled over her ripe lips.

I had often in my own mind pictured this, my first meeting with
Alicia, now in one way, now in another, but never had I dreamed of her
speaking to me at all, so that it came to me as a great surprise when
she turned and, holding out her lovely hands, said very graciously:

"And is this the little Beatrice? I have heard much of you--come, kiss
me, child."

And I went, despite my Aunt Elizabeth's black frown, for the glamour
of her loveliness was upon me, and I no longer wondered that my Uncle
Hugh should have loved her.

Very proud of her was he too; yet I felt, rather than saw--for I was
sensitive and quick of perception, as old-young children ever
are--that there was something other than pride and love in his face
when he looked on her, and more in his manner than the fond lover--as
it were, a sort of lurking mistrust.

Nor could I think, though to me the thought seemed as treason, that
she loved her husband overmuch, for she seemed half condescending and
half disdainful to him; yet one thought not of this in her presence,
but only remembered it when she had gone.

When she went out it seemed to me that nothing was left, so I crept
lonesomely away to the wing hall and sat down by a window to dream of
her; and she filled my thoughts so fully that it was no su