A tall girl, evidently between sixteen and seventeen, for her hair was not "done up," but tied together at the back with a large bow, whence it streamed long and thick and wavy to her waist: abundant light brown hair, with just enough red in it to give it life and warmth.
His appraising eye took in the fact at once that all her clothes were old, shabby, and exceedingly well cut. Her hat was a shapeless soft felt with no trimming, save a rather ragged cord, and she wore it turned down all round. It had once been brown, but was now a mixture of soft faded tints like certain lichens growing on a roof. Her covert coat, rather too big, and quite nondescript in colour, washed by the rains of many winters, revealed in flowing lines the dim grace of the broad, yet slender shoulders beneath.
Her exceedingly short skirt was almost as weather-beaten as the coat, but it swung evenly with every step and there was no sagging at the back.
Last of all, his eyes dropped to her boots: wide welted, heavy brown boots; regular country boots; but here again was the charm of graceful line, and he knew instinctively that the feet they encased were slender and shapely and unspoiled.
He raised his eyes again to the serenely unconscious profile presented to his view: a very finished profile with nothing smudgy or uncertain about it. The little nose was high-bridged and decided, the red lips full and shut closely together, the upper short and deeply cleft in the centre.
He was just thinking that, in spite of his muddy hat, he would rather like her to look at him again, when she turned her large gaze upon him with the question:
"Were you preaching just before you fell down?"
He flushed hotly. "Certainly not—did it sound like . . . that?"
"Well, I wasn't sure. I thought if you were a curate trying a sermon you'd have said 'brethren,' but 'fellow men' would do, you know; and then I heard something about the 'house of the Lord,' and I was sure you must be a sucking parson; but when I came up I wasn't so sure. What were you saying over, if it wasn't a sermon?"
"It was stupid of me . . . but I do a good deal of public speaking, and I never dreamt anyone was within miles . . ."