"Good morning, Robert," she said.
The new-comer took the friendly, outstretched hand.
"I was coming to pay a disgracefully early morning call," he said. "I am awfully glad we have met."
"I knew you would come over the fields this way," she said. "I came because I wanted to see you."
He flushed crimson with pleasure.
"That was decent of you, Nora. You are not always so kind."
"This is an exceptional occasion," she answered gravely.
She perched herself on the stile and sat there gazing thoughtfully in front of her. In that moment she made a sweet and pleasing picture of English girlhood. The sunlight played through the trees on to her hair, picking out the shining red-gold threads, and touching with warmer glow the softly tinted skin. The clean-cut, patrician features, dark-arched eyebrows, and proud, rather full lips seemed to contrast strangely with the extreme simplicity of her flowered muslin frock. And indeed she came of another race of women than that of which Delford and its inhabitants were accustomed—something finer, more delicate, more keenly tempered. It was almost impossible to think of her as the Rev. John's daughter—quite impossible as Miles Ingestre's sister. One could only understand the small, aristocratic features when one remembered that Mrs. Ingestre was her mother. Captain Arnold remembered the fact keenly that moment.
"I declare you are Mrs. Ingestre's miniature!" he exclaimed. "This morning, one would positively think she had been made twenty years younger, and perched up there as a surprise-packet."
Nora turned on him with a pleased smile.