Rollicking robins were whistling joyously in the pines.

Jasper Dale's heart was filled to over-flowing with a realization of all the virgin loveliness around him; the feeling in his soul had the sacredness of a prayer.

At this moment he looked up and saw Alice Reade.
She was standing outside the garden fence, in the shadow of a great pine tree, looking not at him, for she was unaware of his presence, but at the virginal bloom of the plum trees in a far corner, with all her delight in it outblossoming freely in her face.

For a moment Jasper Dale believed that his dream love had taken visible form before him.

She was like--so like; not in feature, perhaps, but in grace and colouring--the grace of a slender, lissome form and the colouring of cloudy hair and wistful, dark gray eyes, and curving red mouth; and more than all, she was like her in expression--in the subtle revelation of personality exhaling from her like perfume from a flower.