"I do not feel that you owe anything to anybody, Mr. Auchester, for you would have gone to your own desires as resolutely through peril as through pleasure; at all events, if you are still as modest as you were, it is a great blessing now you have become a soul which bears so great a part. If I must speak truth, however, about your looks, you seem as delicate as you used to be, and I do not suppose you could be anything else. You have not altered except to have grown up." "And you, if I may say so, have not altered in growing up." Nor had she. She had not gained an inch in height. She could never have worn that black silk frock those years; yet the folds, so grave and costly, still shielded her gentle breast to meet the snow-soft ruffle that fringed her throat: nor had she ornament upon her,--neither bracelet nor ring upon the dimpled hands, the delicate wrists. Though her silken hair had lengthened into wreaths upon wreaths behind, she still preserved those baby-curls upon her temples, nor had a shade more majesty gathered to her brow,--the regal innocence was throned there, and looked forth from her eyes as from a shrine; but it was evident that there was nothing about her from head to foot on which she piqued herself,--a rare shortcoming of feminine maturity. The only perceptible difference in the face was when she spoke or smiled; and then the change, the deepened sweetness, can be no more given to description than the notion of music to the destitute ear. It was something of a reserve too inward to be approached, and too subtile to subdue its own influence,--like perfume from unseen flowers diffusing itself when the wind awakens, while we know neither whence the windy fragrance comes nor whither it flows. "Is it possible, Miss Benette," I continued,--for I forced myself absolutely to speak; I should so infinitely have preferred to watch her silently,--"that you can have passed through so much since I saw you?" "No, I have lived a very quiet life; it is you who have lived in all the stir until you fancy there is not any calm at all." "I should have certainly found calm here. But you, I thought, and indeed I know, have had every kind of excitement ready made to your hand, and only waiting for you to touch the springs." "I have had no excitement till I came here." "None? Why, who could have had more, and who could have borne the same so bravely? We have heard of you here, and it must have been a transcending tempest for the shock to echo so far." "I do not call singing in theatres, and acting, excitement. I always felt cool and collected in them, for I knew they were not real, and that I should get through them soon, and very glad should I be; so I was patient and did my best. You look at me shocked. I knew I should shock you after all our talk." "Oh, fie! Miss Benette, to talk so, then, and to shock yourself, as you must, if you are faithless."