Imagine a beautiful, an almost faultlessly-beautiful face, rising from the delicate harmony of color--imagine a pair of dark eyes, now blue, now violet, as she stood in repose or smiled, and fringed, by long, silken lashes--and you may imagine the bare material outward beauty of Lenore Beauchamp, but no words can describe what really was the charm of the face--its wonderful power of expression, its eloquent mobility, which, even when the eyes and lips were in repose, drew you to watching and waiting for them to speak. Stella, though she had scarcely heard those lips utter a word knew what her uncle meant when he said that there was a peculiar fascination about her which went beyond her mere beauty; and, as she looked, a strange feeling crossed Stella's mind. She remembered an old story which she had heard years ago, when she was sitting on the lap of her Italian nurse--the story of the strange and beautiful Indian serpent which sits beneath the tree, and fixing its eyes upon the bird overhead, draws and charms it with its spell, until the bird drops senseless and helpless to its fate. But even as she thought of this she was ashamed of the idea, for there is nothing serpent-like in Lenore's beauty; only this Stella thought, that if ever those eyes and lips smiled and murmured to a man "I love you," that man must drop; resistance would be vain and useless. All this takes long to write; it flashed across Stella's mind in a moment, even as they looked at each other in silence; then at last Lady Lenore spoke. "Have you been gathering primroses to-day?" she said, with a smile. It was a strange way of beginning an acquaintance, and Stella felt the color mount to her face; the words recalled the whole of the scene of yesterday morning. The speaker intended that they should. "No," she said, "not to-day." "Miss Etheridge gathered enough yesterday for a week, did you not?" said Lord Leycester, and the voice sounded to Stella like an assistance. She half glanced at him gratefully, and met his eyes fixed on her with a strange light in them that caused hers to drop again. "I must find this wonderful flower-land," said Lady Lenore. "Lilian was quite eloquent about it last night." "We shall be happy to act as pioneers in the discovery," he said, and Stella could not help noticing the "we." Did he mean she and he? At that moment Lady Wyndward came toward them, and murmured something to him, and he left them and offered his arm to a lady at the other end of the room; then Lady Wyndward waved her fan slightly and smiled, and a tall, thin, fair-haired man came up. "Lord Charles, will you take charge of Miss Etheridge?" Lord Guildford bowed and offered his arm. "I shall be delighted," he said, and he smiled down at Stella in his frank way. There was a general movement, ladies and gentlemen were pairing off and moving toward the door, beside which stood the two footmen, with the solemn air of soldiers attending an execution.