He saw before him a tall, handsome girl, flushed with her walk, with dark hair slightly dispersed by the wind from the sea, with hale cheeks, brown, agate-like, honest eyes, fresh flexible lips, and a well-moulded lower jaw and chin.
'Why are you picking and choosing among the stones?' he asked.
'Please, sir, I be looking for chalcedony.'
'You should say I am and not I be. But let that pass. Chalcedony——'
'And jasper.'
'And jasper; what do you know about them? Are you deficient in grammar and a proficient in mineralogy?'
Winefred looked at him with an odd expression of perplexity and humour in her brown eyes and a dimple forming in one cheek.
Now he saw that she had the eyes and features of Jane, but there was in her face something more—a reminiscence of a dearly loved and lost sister, who had been his companion in boyhood, his confidante, but who had died of decline just as she attained the age of this child.
'Tell me, my girl, what is your name?' There was a catch in his voice as he asked the question.
'Winefred.'