Cecilia was one of those unusual people whose outward personalities never look unsuitable to the life encompassing them, though their inward beings may be completely aloof from everything surrounding them physically. She sat down by the table, her gray gown melting into the background of the walls, and the whiteness of her long neck rising distinct from it. Her dress was cut open in front and bordered by a narrow line of brown fur which crossed on her bosom. Though she was so slim, the little emerald brooch which held the fastening of it together sank into the hollow made by her figure; her hair was drawn up on the top of her head, and piled in many rolls round a high, tortoiseshell comb. Her long eyes, under straight brows, seemed, in expression, to be holding something hidden behind the eyelashes, something intangible, elusive. To see her was to be reminded, consciously or unconsciously, of mists, of shadows, of moonlit things--things half seen, things remembered. Her lips closed evenly, though in beautiful lines, and the upper, not short enough for real beauty, had an outward curve, as it rested on its fellow, which held a curious attraction. She was very pale with a pallor that did not suggest ill-health. Though she was the only young inhabitant of Morphie, she existed among the dusty passages--dusty with the powdering of ages--and the sober unconventionality of the place as naturally as one of those white plants which haunt remote waterways exists among the hidden hollows and shadows of pools. She was very distantly related to Lady Eliza Lamont, but, when the death of both parents had thrown her on the world, a half-grown, penniless girl, she had come to Morphie for a month to gain strength after an illness, and remained there twelve years. Lady Eliza, ostentatiously grumbling at the responsibility she had imposed upon herself, found, at the end of the time, that she could not face the notion of parting with Cecilia. It was the anxiety of her life that, though she had practically adopted the girl, she had nothing she could legally leave her at her death but her own personal possessions.