The baby morn has flung aside its robes, and grown to perfect strength. The day is well advanced. Already it is making rapid strides towards rest and evening; yet still no cooling breeze has come to refresh the heart of man. Below, in the quiet fields, the cattle are standing, knee-deep in water, beneath the spreading branches of the kindly alder. They have no energy to eat, but munch, sleepily, the all-satisfying cud, and, with gentle if expressionless eyes, look out afar for evening and the milkmaid. "'Tis raging noon; and, vertical, the sun Darts on the head direct his forceful rays. O'er heaven and earth, far as the ranging eye Can sweep, a dazzling deluge reigns; and all, From pole to pole, is undistinguished blaze. Distressful Nature pants! The very streams look languid from afar, Or, through th' unsheltered glade, impatient, seem To hurl into the covert of the grove." A tender stillness reigns over everything. The very birds are mute. Even the busy mill-wheel has ceased to move. Bright flashes of light, that come and go ere one can catch them, dart across the gray walls of the old mill,--that holds its gaunt and stately head erect, as though defying age,--and, slanting to the right, fall on the cottage, quaint and ivy-clad, that seems to nestle at its feet. The roses that climb its walls are drooping; the casements all stand wide. No faintest breath of air comes to flutter Ruth's white gown, as she leans against the rustic gate. All millers' daughters should be pretty. It is a duty imposed upon them by tradition. Romance, of the most floral description, at once attaches itself to a miller's daughter. I am not at all sure it does not even cast a halo round the miller himself. Ruth Annersley at least acknowledges this fact, and does her duty nobly; she gives the lie to no old legends or treasured nursery superstitions; she is as pretty as heart can desire,-- "Fresh as the month, and as the morning fair." She is small, piquant, timid, with large almond-shaped eyes and light-brown hair, a rounded supple figure, and hands delicately white. Perhaps there is a lack of force in her face, an indefinable want, that hardly detracts from her beauty, yet sets one wondering, vaguely, where it lies, and what it can be. The mouth, mobile and slightly parted, betrays it most. Her lashes, covering her brown eyes, are very long, and lie a good deal on her cheeks. Her manner, without a suspicion of _gaucherie_, is nervous, almost appealing; and her smile, because so rare, is very charming, and apt to linger in the memory.