Wheeling his horse quickly, he rode toward it; and what he now saw was a tall, blonde girl of eighteen or thereabouts, who arose slowly from where she had been hiding, and came forward with a dignity that savored of defiance, although there seemed to be a smile lurking in the corners of her mouth.
Her gypsy hat hung by its blue ribbons on one white rounded arm, bared to the elbow, as the fashion of her sleeve left it. The neck of her pale blue gown was low cut; but a small cape of the same material was over it,—crossed, fichu-wise, on her bosom, and then carried under the arms, to be knotted at the back.
Her round white throat rose out of the sheer blue drapery in fine, strong lines, to support a regal head, crowned with a glory of pale brown hair, now bared to the sun, and glinting as though golden sparkles were caught in its silky meshes.
As she approached, the rider held up his horse, and sat motionless, staring at her, while a merry peal of laughter, silvery as chiming bells, broke from sixteen-year-old Dorothy.
"Mary Broughton!" the young man exclaimed at length, as he looked wonderingly at the fair-haired girl.
She paused a yard away and swept him a mocking courtesy as she said,—and her musical voice was of the quality we are told is "good in woman,"—"Aye; at your service, Master John Devereux."
"Then you have been with our madcap here?" he asked, now finding his tongue more readily.
"All the afternoon—an it please you, sir," she replied in the same tone of playful irony.
"It does please me," he said, now with a smile, "for it was much better than had Dot been alone, as I supposed at first. But think you it is safe for you two girls to come wandering over here by yourselves?" And in the look of his dark eyes, in the very tone of his voice, there was something different,—more caressing than had been found even for his small sister, who had now drawn close to them.
Mary Broughton slipped her arm through Dorothy's, and the mockery left her face.