The thought passed through his mind that a woman never looked more graceful than when walking with her head bent over a book.

When he looked that way again, he found that she had come much nearer, still very intent upon her reading.

She had, in truth, a comely figure, one which suggested a face of the nobler kind.

She would look up presently.
Did not that form, that movement as she walked, stir memories?
Yes, he had known someone who might well have paced thus beneath spreading trees, with her eyes upon a book of poetry; not unlike this stranger, outwardly.

In what black, skyless, leafless town was she pursuing her lonely life ?--Lonely?
why should it be so?
Emily could not go on her way without meeting one whom her sweetness and her power would enthral, and the reasons, whatever they were, that had forbidden her marriage six or seven years ago, were not likely to resist time.