'She scarcely looked at me.' 'They are the loveliest hazel!' exclaimed Hester. 'Hazel--rather green, I think; but you know, I prefer eyes of violet blue or gray to all others, Hester.' She laughed, as she knew her own were the eyes referred to; but now the gong--a trophy of Sir Harry's from Jhansi--sounded, and Annot came hurrying downstairs, and clasped one of Hester's arms within her own so caressingly, with her white fingers interlaced. To Roland now, at second sight, she looked wonderfully _petite_ and gentle, pure and fair--'fair as a snow-flake and nearly just as fragile,' Sir Harry once said, and she clung lovingly and confidingly to Hester, but it seemed as if, of necessity, Annot must always be clinging to someone or something. CHAPTER VII. 'IS SHE NOT PASSING FAIR?' When she took her seat at table to partake of a meal which was something between a late dinner and an early supper, Roland saw how exquisitely fair Annot Drummond was, as with a pretty air of childishness she clung to Hester--an air that became her _petite_ figure and _mignonne_ face, but not her years, as she was some months older than her cousin, who with her dark hair and eyes he thought looked almost brown beside this flaxen fairy, that seemed to realize the comment of old Cambden, who says--'The women of the family of Drummond, for charming beauty and complexion, are beyond all others, and in so much that they have been most delighted in by kings.' She had, however, greenish hazel eyes--greenish they were decidedly, yet lovely and sparkling, shaded by brown lashes and eyebrows, with golden hair, wonderful in quantity and tint, that rippled and shone. Her complexion was pure and pale, while her pouting lips seemed absolute scarlet, rather than coral; and her eyes spoke as freely as her tongue, lighting and brightening with her subject, whatever it was. Annot's was indeed a tiny face; at times a laughing, a loving and petulant face, and puzzling in so far that one knew not when it was prettiest, or what expression became it most; yet Hester--a very close observer--thought there was something cunning and watchful in it at times now. Seeing that Roland was closely observing the new arrival, she said: 'Would you ever imagine, cousin Roland, that Annot and I are just about an age? she looks like fifteen, and I was eighteen my last birthday.' 'Eighteen,' thought Roland Lindsay, toying with a few grapes; 'can it be?--that golden-haired dolly--old enough to be the heroine of a novel or a tragedy--old enough to be a wife and the mistress of a household? By Jove, it seems incredible.'