pale thing—shaped like man, but made of spray—transparent, tremulous, awful: it stands not alone: they are all human figures that wanton in the rocks—a crowd of foam-women—a band of white, evanescent Nereides.
Hush!—Shut the book: hide it in the satchel.—Martin hears a tread. He listens: NoYes: Once more, the dead leaves, lightly crushed, rustle on the wood-path. Martin watches: the trees part, and a woman issues forth.
She is a lady dressed in dark silk, a veil covering her face. Martin never met a lady in this wood before—nor any female, save, now and then, a village-girl come to gather nuts. To-night, the apparition does not displease him. He observes, as she approaches, that she is neither old nor plain, but, on the contrary, very youthful; and, but that he now recognises her for one whom he has often wilfully pronounced ugly, he would deem that he discovered traits of beauty behind the thin gauze of that veil.
She passes him, and says nothing. He knew she would: all women are proud monkeys—and he knows no more conceited doll than that Caroline Helstone. The thought is hardly hatched in his mind, when the lady retraces those two steps she had got beyond him, and, raising her veil, reposes her glance on his face, while she softly asks:—
"Are you one of Mr. Yorke's sons?"
No human evidence would ever have been able to persuade Martin Yorke that he blushed when thus addressed; yet blush he did, to the ears.
