They caught the beholder and held him, as might the sudden sight of a rose in snow, or the morning star hanging luminous among the mists of dawn.

Also, although they were so gentle and modest, if that beholder chanced to be a man on the good side of fifty it was often long before he could forget them, especially if he were privileged to see how well they matched the hair of chestnut, shading into black, that waved above them and fell, tress upon tress, upon the shapely shoulders and down to the slender waist.
Peter Brome, for he was so named, looked a little anxiously about him at the crowd, then, turning, addressed Margaret in his strong, clear voice.
"There are rough folk around," he said; "do you think you should stop here?
Your father might be angered, Cousin." Here it may be explained that in reality their kinship was of the slightest, a mere dash of blood that came to her through her mother.
Still they called each other thus, since it is a convenient title that may mean much or nothing.
"Oh! why not ?" she answered in her rich, slow tones, that had in them some foreign quality, something soft and sweet as the caress of a southern wind at night.

"With you, Cousin," and she glanced approvingly at his stalwart, soldier-like form, "I have nothing to fear from men, however rough, and I do greatly want to see the king close by, and so does Betty.

Don't you, Betty ?" and she turned to her companion.
Betty Dene, whom she addressed, was also a cousin of Margaret, though only a distant connection of Peter Brome.

She was of very good blood, but her father, a wild and dissolute man, had broken her mother's heart, and, like that mother, died early, leaving Betty dependent upon Margaret's mother, in whose house she had been brought up.