Christabel's dark brown velvet gown and square point lace collar, the bright hair falling in shadowy curls over her forehead, and rolled into a loose knot at the back of her head, sinned in no wise against Mr. Hamleigh's notions of good taste. There was a picturesqueness about the style which indicated that Miss Courtenay belonged to that advanced section of womankind which takes its ideas less from modern fashion-plates than from old pictures. So long as her archaism went no further back than Vandyke or Moroni he would admire and approve; but he shuddered at the thought that to-morrow she might burst upon him in a mediæval morning-gown, with high-shouldered sleeves, a ruff, and a satchel. The picturesque idea was good, within limits; but one never knew how far it might go. There was nothing picturesque about the lady sitting before the tea-tray, who looked up brightly, and gave him a gracious bend of her small neat head, in acknowledgment of Mrs. Tregonell's introduction--"Mr. Hamleigh, Miss Bridgeman!" This was the companion--and the companion was plain: not unpleasantly plain, not in any manner repulsive, but a lady about whose looks there could be hardly any compromise. Her complexion was of a sallow darkness, unrelieved by any glow of colour; her eyes were grey, acute, honest, friendly, but not beautiful; her nose was sharp and pointed--not at all a bad nose; but there was a hardness about nose and mouth and chin, as of features cut out of bone with a very sharp knife. Her teeth were good, and in a lovelier mouth might have been the object of much admiration. Her hair was of that nondescript monotonous brown which has been unkindly called bottle-green, but it was arranged with admirable neatness, and offended less than many a tangled pate, upon whose locks of spurious gold the owner has wasted much time and money. There was nothing unpardonable in Miss Bridgeman's plainness, as Angus Hamleigh said of her later. Her small figure was neatly made, and her dark-grey gown fitted to perfection. "I hope you like the little bit of Cornwall that you have seen this afternoon, Mr. Hamleigh," said Christabel, seating herself in a low chair in the shadow of the tall chimney-piece, fenced in by her aunt's larger chair. "I am enraptured with it! I came here with the desire to be intensely Cornish. I am prepared to believe in witches--warlocks----" "We have no warlocks," said Christabel. "They belong to the North." "Well, then, wise women--wicked young men who play football on Sunday, and get themselves turned into granite--rocking stones--magic wells--Druids--and King Arthur. I believe the principal point is to be open to conviction about Arthur. Now, I am prepared to swallow everything--his castle--the river where his crown was found after the fight--was it his crown, by-the-by, or somebody else's? which _he_ found--his hair-brushes--his boots--anything you please to show me."