He turned and seemed as startled as if he had, for standing by him and looking inquiringly into his face was a being that, with her brilliant eyes and exquisitely clear and delicate complexion, seemed as beautiful, and at the same time as frail and ready to vanish, as the snow-wreaths without. She saw the strong admiration and almost wonder depicted on his open face, though she seemed so innocently oblivious of it, and for a moment left him under the spell, then said, "Are you so resentful at my desertion last evening that you won't speak to me?" "Look there," he replied, and he pointed to the fairy-land without. Lottie's wonder and delight were almost equal to his own, for she had never witnessed such a scene before. "I am so glad I came!" she said. "We see nothing like this in the city. Look at those snowy mountains. How vast and white they are!" "And look at that little tree with its red berries gleaming against the snowy foil. They look like those rulsy ear-rings against the whiteness of your neck." She looked at him quickly and humorously, asking, "Where did you learn the art of complimenting?" "I had no thought of trivial compliment in the presence of a scene like this," he answered gravely; "I was awed by the beauty I saw, and it seemed as if the Great Artist must be near. I wished to call your attention to the truth that, like all His work, the least thing is perfect. That little tree with its red berries is beautiful as well as the mountain. I now am glad too that you came, though I dreaded any one's coming before, and the necessity of returning to common-place life. But suddenly, and as silently as one of those snow-flakes, you appear, and I am startled to find you in keeping with the scene, instead of an intrusion." "And do I seem to you like a snow-flake--as pure and as cold?" she asked, bending upon him her brilliant eyes. "Not as cold, I trust, and if you were as pure you would not be human. But your beauty seemed to me as marvellous as that of the scene I had been wondering at. I am not versed in society's disguises, Miss Marsden, and can better express my thoughts than hide them. You know you are very beautiful. Why should I not say so as well as involuntarily express the fact in my face as I did a moment ago, and as every one does, I suppose, who meets you. There is nothing brought to your attention more often, and more pressed upon you. It must be so. Does not your beauty cause you much anxiety?" "What a funny question!" laughed Lottie. "Your frankness is certainly as transparent as those snow-crystals there. I cannot say that it does. Why should it, even granting that it exists independently of your disordered imagination?"