"But think of his beard; it flows to his girdle, and birds might build their nests in it, as they did in the beard of Tregeagle; you remember our Cornish giant, Mr. Devereaux?" added Rose, with a glance at Denzil, whose colour rose, like that of a girl, with pleasure. Denzil was undoubtedly a very handsome lad, verging on manhood now; he had his mother's perfect regularity of features, with eyes of a blue so dark that at times they seemed black; yet they were wonderfully soft, especially when they turned to those of Rose Trecarrel; and his hair was very fair and curly, having almost a golden tint when the sunshine fell on it. The Indian summer, and the keen breeze from the hills of Kohistan, had already browned his boyish cheek; but some of England's bloom was lingering in it still; and to Rose, a regular "man-slayer," a naturally born flirt, the temptation to entangle him, when she felt intuitively how imperceptibly to himself he was allured by glances into loving her, was too great to resist, for Rose Trecarrel had all the art to win a heart, and yet retain her own entire and untouched. She and Denzil had many Cornish reminiscences, topics, and sympathies in common; and these afforded a grand basis of operations for Rose, though perilous enough for one so inexperienced as he in _affaires du coeur_, especially with one so beautiful, so gay, and, we grieve to say it, so artful; but "when gallantry becomes mingled with conversation, affection and passion come gradually to mix with gallantry, and queens, like village maidens, will listen longer than they should," so we shall see how it fared with Rose in the sequel. The intense, but too often silent devotion of a lad so handsome, flattered her; it was so different from the half-laughing love-making of such men of the world as Waller and Polwhele; yet she had as much idea of going further--in fact, of wedding an ensign--as of espousing a dancing dervish, or an Arab faquir. Of course, she thought in her heart that the Devereaux and Lamorna affair was very strange; but what did it matter there--beyond the Indus? His mother's unhappy story, his father's untimely fate, and, for some time past, the absence of all tidings from his sister Sybil, rendered Denzil at times intensely thoughtful, or, as Rose Trecarrel was inclined to deem it, interesting; and thus, in his craving for gentle sympathy from some one, (and from whom could it be more welcome than a bright-eyed young flirt?) made him an easy and a willing victim.