"He turned his beast and was for galloping up the hill again, I suppose to inform his relations; but the donkey refused with many kicks, one of which sent Alfred plunging amongst the stones, and we were rubbing him down just as the rest of the party came upon us. Miss Quigley looked very grim on an old white pony; my aunt was on a black horse that might have turned grey, he is so old. Then came two donkeys-full of children, with Kuhn as supercargo; then Ethel on donkey back, too, with a bunch of wild flowers in her hand, a great straw hat with a crimson ribbon, a white muslin jacket, you know, bound at the waist with a ribbon of the first, and a dark skirt, with a shawl round her feet, which Kuhn had arranged. As she stopped, the donkey fell to cropping greens in the hedge; the trees there chequered her white dress and face with shadow. Her eyes, hair, and forehead were in shadow, too, but the light was all upon her right cheek. Upon her shoulder down to her arm, which was of a warmer white, and on the bunch of flowers which she held, blue, yellow, and red poppies, and so forth. "J. J. says, 'I think the birds began to sing louder when she came.' We have both agreed that she is the handsomest woman in England. It's not her form merely, which is certainly as yet too thin and a little angular; it is her colour. I do not care for women or pictures without colour. Oh, ye carnations! Oh, such black hair and solemn eyebrows. It seems to me the roses and carnations have bloomed again since we saw them last in London, when they were drooping from the exposure to night air, candle light, and heated ballrooms. "Here I was in the midst of a regiment of donkeys bearing a crowd of relations; J. J. standing modestly in the background, beggars completing the group. Throw in the Rhine in the distance flashing by the Seven Mountains--but mind and make Ethel the principal figure: if you make her like she certainly _will_ be, and other lights will be only minor fires. You may paint her form, but can't paint her colour."