When Will Anerley reached the bottom of the valley, he found a number of St. Mary-Kirby people walking in isolated groups, towards Woodhill church; but one only of these people had chosen a somewhat circuitous route through the meadows lying on the south side of the river. Why she had chosen this route was probably known only to herself; but, at any rate, Will paused by the side of a stile to which the path through the meadows led. He had recognised from a considerable distance the slate-grey silk dress and brown velvet jacket which she wore; and now, as he watched her coming along, he saw that she, too, had recognised him, and that there was a pleased look in her eyes.
"Why did you come this way?" he asked, as she drew near.
"Because I thought I should meet you," she replied, with a frank smile.
He helped her up and down the rude wooden steps, and as she alit upon the other side she suffered him to touch her cheek with his lips.
"Good morning, Will. I made up my mind to scold you dreadfully; and all the way over from St. Mary I have been thinking what I should say to you; and now I haven’t it in my heart to say a single word."
"Heaght" for "heart," she said, and "woghd" for "word;" and there was a quaint softness in this purring, half-foreign pronunciation which made her utterances all the more tender, and seemed to harmonize with the childlike prettiness of the large violet eyes set in the delicate face, which was surrounded by crisp and wavy light-brown hair.
"That’s a good girl," he said; and then she put her hand on his arm, and they walked away between the green hedges, towards Woodhill Church.
It was at a concert in St. James’s Hall that I first saw Dove Anerley; and while the people sang "Athalie," I sate and wondered what was the story written on that beautiful, almost sad face. It was one of those rare faces which tantalize you in the very act of admiring them. There was nothing in it of that mature, vigorous, definite beauty of form and complexion which a man may calmly observe and criticise in the face of a woman; but a tender uncertainty, a half-suggested and shrinking loveliness, which made one vaguely conscious that this frail and beautiful smile of nature might suddenly vanish from the fine features. It was not that the girl seemed unwell, or even in any degree fragile; but simply that one, in looking at her face, could not help regretting that her loveliness was not less delicate and more pronounced, that there was not more life and less sensitiveness in her large violet eyes. How beautiful she looked that evening! The passionate music seemed to have called up a flush upon her bright complexion, and lent some strange wistfulness to her big eyes; and then, when she turned to her companions and smiled, her pretty mouth and nut-white teeth might have driven a painter mad. Indeed, I know of at least one artist then present who forgot all about Mendelssohn in trying so to fix her expression on his memory that he might afterwards reproduce it on canvas—her expression, her face, and the loose golden-brown hair bound down by a band of dark-blue velvet. It was two years afterwards that accident threw me in the way of the Anerleys. I had never forgotten the meaning apparently written on that sensitive face; but Dove’s story, as I then heard it, differed entirely from what I had imagined.