I was on horseback one day, passing leisurely in an idle mood out of the mouth of a ravine that led to an open valley, when I saw a lady, in a riding-habit, mounted at no great distance from me. Her horse was apparently picking his way slowly through the hillocks that dotted the surface of the sward. The appearance of a lady alone loitering in so unfrequented a spot surprised me. Had I seen an apparition I could not have been more astonished. As she moved past toward the opposite side she turned her head, and her clear, pensive eyes, fell full upon my face with an expression of ineffable sweetness. Where had I seen those features before? They seemed quite familiar to me. The dress, the action of her arm as she reined up her horse, and, above all, the sad beauty of her eyes, I could have protested I had seen a hundred times. Yet an instant's reflection would have sufficed to convince me that I was under a mistake, for visitors or friends like her there were none in our lonely house. Her brief, quiet glance, had something in it of a look of recognition. I felt as if there was a recognition on both sides. I felt, too, or imagined, that she was slightly agitated by it. I knew that my own heart fluttered wildly. My solitary life had rendered me nervous, and the dangerous lore with which my head was filled gave to the incident an immediate coloring of romance. A new sensation had taken possession of me, a new world was opening to me; the solitude and remoteness of the place, and the unexpectedness of that vision rising up among the wild flowers and the dark green heather, acted like a charm upon me, and awakened me to a sense of bewildering delight I had never experienced before.