Miss Custer liked being considered a brunette, and directed all the arts of her toilette to the bringing out of that idea. She had not much to commence with, however. Her eyes were brown, it is true, but they were a sort of amber-brown, large and serene, with dusky, long-fringed lids drooping over them; and her hair, which was dark in the shadow of the veranda, all hemmed in with trees in thick foliage, was bright gold in certain lights. She was an amply-framed, finely-proportioned person, and rejoiced in her physique, having a masculine pride in her breadth of shoulders and depth of chest. But in all other respects she was exquisitely feminine: she never displayed either strength or agility. Westbrook was a country place, and in the young folks' rambles about town and out over the hills she was more often fatigued than anybody else, and obliged to accept support from some one of the gentlemen, all of whom were eager enough to offer their services. She had been in Westbrook only two weeks--she had come to rest herself from the burdens of fashionable life--but she was already very much at home with the place and the people. She was one of those persons who immediately interest the whole neighborhood, and of whom people say, "Have you met her? Have you been introduced to her?" She was not an entire stranger: there were a good many people in Westbrook who had known her parents years before, and who took her at once upon the credit of her family. Ruth looked tired and warm, I say, as she came up the path. It was after four o'clock, and school was just out. She was the teacher of the grammar department in the ugly red-brick school-house down at the other end of the town, and she had had a tiresome walk through the heat. Miss Custer dropped her work, some delicate embroidery, in her lap and folded her white hands upon it, and smiled down at her. She liked Ruth, and was glad to see her coming: the afternoon had been rather dull because she was alone, and she was not constituted for solitude. Doctor Ebling had said at the dinner-table that, with Ruth's permission--at which Ruth blushed and said something rather saucy, for her--he would read _The Spanish Gypsy_ to Miss Custer out in the shade. "It is so confoundedly healthy at this particular season," he said, "especially up among these Connecticut hills, that a physician's occupation's gone." First, however, he went down town--going part of the way with Ruth--to make sure that no orders were awaiting him at his office, intending to come back immediately. Miss Custer stepped across the hall from the dining-room into the sitting-room, made cool by having the blinds closed, and struck a few chords on the piano. Herbert Bruce, a young attorney of some wealth and some renown, and bosom friend of Doctor Ebling, followed her, and stood, hat in hand, with his shoulder against the door-jamb. "So you have never read _The Gypsy_?" he remarked.