gone out. She also wore a thick plait of black hair all down her
back--another departed mode, and one not to be regretted, I think;
and she swung her books round her as she talked, with easy
movements, like a strong boy.

"That's Leah Gibson," says my sister; "the tall one, with the long
black plait."

Leah Gibson turned round and nodded to my sister and smiled--showing
a delicate narrow face, a clear pale complexion, very beautiful
white pearly teeth between very red lips, and an extraordinary pair
of large black eyes--rather close together--the blackest I ever saw,
but with an expression so quick and penetrating and keen, and yet so
good and frank and friendly, that they positively sent a little warm
thrill through me--though she was only twelve years old, and not a
bit older than her age, and I a fast youth nearly twenty!

And finding her very much to my taste, I said to my sister, just for
fun, "Oh--_that's_ Leah Gibson, is it? then some day Leah Gibson
shall be Mrs. Robert Maurice!"

From which it may be inferred that I looked on Leah Gibson, at the
first sight of her, as likely to become some day an extremely
desirable person.

She did.

The Gibsons lived in a very good house in Tavistock Square. They
seemed very well off. Mrs. Gibson had a nice carriage, which she
kept entirely with her own money. Her father, who was dead, had been
a wealthy solicitor. He had left a large family, and to each of them
property worth L300 a year, and a very liberal allowance of good
looks.

Mr. Gibson was in business in the City.

[Illustration: THREE LITTLE MAIDS FROM SCHOOL (1853)]

Leah, their only child, was the darling of their hearts and the apple of
their eyes. To dress her beautifully, to give her all the best masters
money could procure, and treat her to every amusement in
London--theatres, the opera, all the concerts and shows there were, and
give endless young parties for her pleasure--all this seemed the
principal interest of their lives.

Soon after my first introduction to Leah, Ida and I received an
invitation to a kind of juvenile festivity at the Gibsons', and
went, and spent a delightful evening. We were received by Mrs.
Gibson most cordially. She was such an extremely pretty person, and
so charmingly dressed, and had such winning, natural, genial
manners, that I fell in love with her at first sight; she was also
very playful and fond of romping; for she was young still, having
married at seventeen.