Then once more through the mist came the young girl, this time without her song, and stood before him; she was very beautiful, but with a pale face and frightened eyes. "She is crazed, poor soul," thought Richard; and he smiled upon her with genuine pity. She put her hand to her side, as though in pain, or to repress some tumult of her heart.
"To Gethin; where there is an inn, I believe. Is it not so?"
"Yes, Sir." Her words were sane and concise enough, but the tone in which they were spoken was tremulous and alarmed.
"You are not afraid of me, are you?" said Richard, in the voice that he had inherited from his mother.
"No, Sir, no," answered she, hurriedly; "only the fog was so thick, and I was startled. I did not expect to find any body here. It is very lonely about Gethin, and we do not in general see any of the quality who come to sketch and such like"--and she pointed to his portfolio--"until much later in the year."
"I am not the quality," rejoined Richard, smiling, "but only a wandering artist, who has heard of the beauties of Gethin. What has been told me, however, comes far short of the reality, believe me;" and he cast a glance of genuine admiration upon the blushing girl.
A slender fair-haired maiden she was, with soft blue eyes, over which the lids were modestly but attractively drooped. One who had a great experience of the sex--if not a very respectable one--has left on record a warning against eyelids. "A wicked woman," says he, "will take you with her eyelids."
It does not, however, require wickedness to ensnare a young gentleman by these simple means.
"I wish, my pretty damsel," said Richard, softly, "that I painted figures instead of landscapes, for then I should ask you to be my model."
It was not modesty so much as sheer ignorance which kept the young girl silent; she had never heard of a painter's model; but the tone in which her new acquaintance spoke implied a compliment, and she looked more confused than ever.
"Have you often so thick a fog as this at Gethin?"
"Not often, Sir; this is a very bad one, and you might have come to harm in it. Some folks believe that in such weather the Pixies come abroad, as they do at night, to mislead travelers who have lost their way; and, indeed, the clifftop lies not a hundred yards in front of you."