He waltzed with this young creature, who was pretty and daintily dressed, and who asked him various questions about Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge, evidently with the idea that she was adapting her conversation to the locality. When the dance was over, she refused his offer of an ice, and suggested a turn in the garden; so Allan found himself among the meanderers under the moonlit sky; but there was no plucking of roses or murmuring of "Loves me not, loves me, loves me not," no thought of Gretchen's impassioned love-dream as the Dresden-china young lady and he promenaded solemnly up and down the broad gravel terrace in front of the open windows, still conversing sagely about Salisbury Cathedral and the decoration of the Chapter House. While parading slowly up and down, Allan found his attention wandering every now and then from the young lady at his side to another young lady who passed and repassed with an elderly cavalier. A tall, slim young lady, with black hair and eyes, a pale brunette complexion, and an elegant simplicity of dress and _chevelure_ which Allan at once recognized as Parisian. No English girl, he thought, ever had that air of being more plainly dressed than other girls, and yet more distinguished and fashionable. He had seen no frock like this girl's frock, but he felt assured that she was dressed in that Parisian fashion which is said to antedate London fashion by a twelvemonth. She was in white from head to foot, and her gown was made of some dead-white fabric which combined the solidity of satin with the soft suppleness of gauze. The bodice was rather short-waisted, and the young lady wore a broad satin belt clasped with a diamond buckle, which flashed with many coloured gleams in the moonlight, as she passed to and fro; and whereas most young women at that time displayed a prodigious length of arm broken only by a narrow shoulder-strap, this young lady wore large puffed sleeves which recalled the portraits of Sir Thomas Lawrence. The large puffed sleeves became common enough a year later, but they were unknown in Wiltshire when Mrs. Mornington gave her dance. The damsel's silky black hair was coiled with artistic simplicity at the back of the prettily shaped head, while a cloud of little careless curls clustered above the broad, intelligent forehead. She was talking gaily with her companion, Colonel Fordingbridge, a retired engineer, settled for some fifteen years in the outskirts of Matcham, and an intimate friend of Mr. Mornington's. He was telling her about the neighbourhood, holding it up to contempt and ridicule in a good-natured way which implied that, after all, it was the best neighbourhood in the world. "It suits an old fellow like me," Allan heard him say; "plenty of sport of a mildish order. Huntin', fishin', shootin', hawkin', and golf." "Hawking!" cried the young lady. "Do you really mean that? I thought there were no more hawks left in the world. Why, it sounds like the Middle Ages."