We must describe the young lady, though her charms outdo the powers of the vehicle of prose. She was tall, slim, and graceful, light of foot as a deer on the corrie. Her hair was black, save when the sun shone on it and revealed strands of golden brown; it was simply arrayed, and knotted on the whitest and shapeliest neck in Christendom. Her eyebrows were dark, her eyes large and lucid,
The greyest of things blue,
The bluest of things grey.
Her complexion was of a clear pallor, like the white rose beloved by her ancestors; her features were all
but classic, with the charm of romance; but what made her unique was her mouth. It was faintly upturned at the corners, as in archaic Greek art; she had, in the slightest and most gracious degree, what Logan, describing her once, called ‘the Æginetan grin.’ This gave her an air peculiarly gay and winsome, brilliant, joyous, and alert. In brief, to use Chaucer’s phrase,
She was as wincy as a wanton colt,
Sweet as a flower, and upright as a bolt.
She was the girl who was teaching the poet the elements of ping-pong. The poet usually missed the ball, for he was averse to and unapt for anything requiring quickness of eye and dexterity of hand. On a seat lay open a volume of the Poetry of the Celtic Renascence, which Blake had been reading to Miss Macrae till she used the vulgar phrase ‘footle,’ and invited him to be educated in ping-pong. Of these circumstances she cheerfully informed the new-comers, adding that Lord Bude had returned happy, having photographed a wild cat in its lair.
‘Did he shoot it?’ asked Blake.
‘No. He’s a sportsman!’ said Miss Macrae.
‘That is why I supposed he must have shot the cat,’ answered Blake.
‘What is Gaelic for a wild cat, Blake?’ asked Merton unkindly.