But it was not so much her eyes that took hold of me, open though they did by degrees, wider and wider, until I wondered when they would cease opening; nor her coal-black hair, dressed as you may see it in the likenesses by Sir Thomas Lawrence; nor her rosy mouth; nor her even teeth; nor her figure full of grace, _svelte_ as the French call it, for which we have no answering word. It was not these, or any of them. It was the carolling of her few words, so free and unconcerned in tone. If I had not met her subsequently, I might have forgotten her looks; I doubt whether her voice could have passed from me. I need not tax my memory or my invention about the trifling though happy events of that day. It was pretty evident who was mistress of the house, though the fond and proud mother of Mary Verner had the air of a dignified and well-bred woman. Silent or talking, it was Mary who dispensed the honours, at least so far as the stranger was concerned. Probably it was the same with all comers; but this is only a surmise. Well; the whole holiday came to an end, and we were driven back to the old school by the old coachman, our pockets full of chestnuts, and our boyish hearts full of a sense of supreme enjoyment, such we believe as, in later life, women feel after the best ball of the season, and men after a splendid whitebait dinner at Blackwall. I recollect telling the fellows in the dormitory what a jolly time we had been having, and how capitally George's pony leaped the fence on the common, round the corner, out of sight of the house. By the way, it was partly owing to that pony having engrossed so much of our time, that I had not regularly fallen in love with Mary Verner. Partly, I say, because I was further saved from this predicament by a standing devotion to my pretty cousin Rose, which the temptation had been strong enough, but not long enough to disturb. I never went to George's house again; and ere long the image of his sister was stowed away on one of the upper shelves of my memory. There it might have been smothered in dust, or even converted into it, if chance had not taken it down and given it an airing. II Twenty-one--what a change from fourteen! How the pulse of life beats and bounds! I was running a tilt at the pastimes, and doffing aside the cares of early manhood, when for the second time, I came across Mary Verner. Plump upon her, I would say, if I thought you would pardon the coarseness of the expression. At any rate--and to be genteel--it was unexpectedly. Twenty-one gives very few thoughts to fourteen. It may be a much longer distance thither, when one starts at seventy to go back; but it is surprising how much more quickly you get over the intermediate ground. Let that be; only I don't believe I had given a thought to Mary Verner, since the week or two that followed my first interview with her.