her light-coloured skirt, white fichu, and straw hat were in the present fashion, but they struck me as rather dowdy in the general effect. She was so near us that I looked full at her, and she bent slightly forward to do the same.
I never doubted that we had both seen her, and three months after was astonished to hear that Miss Lamont had not done so. That sounds simple to others, to ourselves it is inexplicable. Miss Lamont had seen the plough, the cottage, the woman, and the girl, which I had not; but she is generally more observant than I, and there were other things to look at. At this moment there was nothing to see on the right, and merely a shady, damp-looking meadow on the left, and the lady was sitting in front of the house we had come to see, and were both eagerly studying. The lady was visible some way off; we walked side by side straight up to her, leaving her slightly on the left hand as we passed up the steps to the terrace, from whence I saw her again from behind, and noticed that her fichu had become a pale green.
The fact that she had not been seen at a moment when we were both a little exercised by our meeting with the men,—one looking so
