There is a beauty in woman that takes the stranger, and another the changeful charm of which wins its way deeper and deeper daily into the heart of man; but in the person of Harry Trevethick these two beauties were combined. Richard thought he had never seen any face half so fair as that which shone upon him through the mist on the first day when he came to Gethin; and when he had dwelt there for weeks he was of the same opinion still. Harry was innocent, tender-hearted, and gay, and so far the expression of her features told you truth; but it also told you more than that, which you must needs believe, though it was not the fact. Her face was not the index of her mind in all respects; it was rather like the exquisite and costly dial-plate of a time-piece the works of which are indifferent. Her air was spiritual; her voice thrilled your being with its sweet tone; her eyes were full of earnest tenderness; but she was weak of purpose, vacillating rather than impulsive, credulous, and given (not from choice, but fear) to dissimulation. That last fault Richard willingly forgave her, since it worked to his advantage; and to the others he would have been more than human had he not been blind. For Harry loved him. She had never said so; he had never asked her to say so; but it was taken for granted on both sides. They were thrown much together, for Dunloppel--a treasure-house, which proved richer and richer the more it yielded--monopolized the attention of both Trevethick and Solomon; they were in high good-humor, and not at all disposed for quarrel or suspicion. Harry had always been the mistress of her own movements, and she went, as usual, whither she liked, and Richard went with her. The spring was advancing, and brought its soft hues even to the barren moors of Gethin, and bathed its gray rocks in sunshine. There was much to see that was worth seeing, and who so fit as Harry to point out these objects of attraction with which she had been familiar from her childhood? They strolled along the beach to Polwheel, and she snowed him how the harbor there had been silted up through the wrath of the mermaids, or "merry maids," as she called them, still (under favorable circumstances) sometimes seen sitting on the slate cliff ledges beneath the clear blue sea. Far from ridiculing her superstitions, he led her on to talk of them; he did not much mind what she talked about so long as he could look at her and listen. "But why were the Polwheel mermaids so cruel, Harry? I always imagine them bright and beautiful beings, with golden hair almost as long as yours, and with nothing to do but to comb it." "That is so, when they are let alone," said Harry, simply; "but even the weakest creatures love revenge, and will get it if they can." "And quite right too," interrupted Richard; "but for fear of that the strong would be more uncivil even than they are."