"She is like Heloise.

Yes, the quaint old French fits her to a nicety: 'Elle ne fu oscure ne brune, Ains fu clere comme la lune, Envers qui les autres estoiles Ressemblent petites chandoiles.' Mrs.Browning must have known such a woman: 'Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace; You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face;' and yet 'She was not as pretty as women I know.' Was she not ?" mused the lover.

"Is she not?
Yes," he cried suddenly, as he saw a scarlet petticoat gleaming in the distance, and a bright young face under a little black turban hat--prettiest and most bewitching of all feminine headgear, let fashion change as it may.

"Yes," he cried, "she is the loveliest creature in the world, and I love her to distraction." He rose, and went to meet the loveliest creature in the world, whose earthly name was Charlotte Halliday.

She was walking with Diana Paget, who, to more sober judges, might have seemed the handsomer woman of the two.