He began to perceive that there was no coquetry in this beautiful girl. She was proud, with a calm, serene, half-tragic pride. There would be no flirtation by the side of the mill-stream. She looked as far above coquetry as she was above affectation. He liked the proud calm of her manner. She might have been a duchess holding court rather than a country girl sitting by a mill-wheel. The idea occurred to him; and then his wonder increased—who was she? and what was she doing here?
"Do you live near here?" he asked.
"Yes," she said, "behind the trees there you can see the chimneys of a farmhouse; it is called Rashleigh Farm; my uncle, Robert Noel, lives there; and I am his niece."
"His niece," repeated the young man, in an incredulous voice. She was a farmer's niece, then, after all; and yet she looked like a Spanish princess.
"You do not look like an English girl," he said, gravely.
"My father was English and my mother a Spanish lady; and I—well, I fear I have more of the hot fire of Spain than of the chill of England in my nature; my face is Spanish, so is my heart."
"A Spaniard is quick to love, quick to hate; forgives grandly and revenges mercilessly," he said.
"That is my character," she said; "you have described it exactly."
"I do not believe it; neither hate nor revenge could exist with a face like yours. Then your name is Noel?"
"Yes, my name is Leone Noel," she replied.