Mr. Caryll observed--and be it known that he had the very shrewdest eye for a woman, as became one of the race from which on his mother's side he sprang--that she was middling tall, chastely slender, having, as he judged from her high waist, a fine, clean length of limb. All this he observed and approved, and prayed for a glimpse of the face which her silken hood obscured and screened from his desiring gaze. She raised it at that moment--raised it in a timid, frightened fashion, as one who looks fearfully about to see that she is not remarked--and Mr. Caryll had a glimpse of an oval face, pale with a warm pallor--like the pallor of the peach, he thought, and touched, like the peach, with a faint hint of pink in either cheek. A pair of eyes, large, brown, and gentle as a saint's, met his, and Mr. Caryll realized that she was beautiful and that it might be good to look into those eyes at closer quarters. Seeing him, a faint exclamation escaped her, and she turned away in sudden haste to enter the inn. The fine gentleman looked up and scowled; the parson looked up and trembled; the ostler and his boy looked up and grinned. Then all swept forward and were screened by the porch from the wondering eyes of Mr. Caryll. He turned from the window with a sigh, and stepped back to the table for the tinder-box, that for the eleventh time he might relight his pipe. He sat down, blew a cloud of smoke to the ceiling, and considered. His nature triumphed now over his recent preoccupation; the matter of the moment, which concerned him not at all, engrossed him beyond any other matter of his life. He was intrigued to know in what relation one to the other stood the three so oddly assorted travellers he had seen arrive. He bethought him that, after all, the odd assortment arose from the presence of the parson; and he wondered what the plague should any Christian--and seemingly a gentleman at that--be doing travelling with a parson. Then there was the wild speed at which they had come. The matter absorbed and vexed him. I fear he was inquisitive by nature. There came a moment when he went so far as to consider making his way below to pursue his investigations in situ. It would have been at great cost to his dignity, and this he was destined to be spared. A knock fell upon his door, and the landlady came in. She was genial, buxom and apple-faced, as becomes a landlady. “There is a gentleman below--” she was beginning, when Mr. Caryll interrupted her. “I would rather that you told me of the lady,” said “La, sir!” she cried, displaying ivory teeth, her eyes cast upwards, hands upraised in gentle, mirthful protest. “La, sir! But I come from the lady, too.” He looked at her. “A good ambassador,” said he, “should begin with the best news; not add it as an afterthought. But proceed, I beg. You give me hope, mistress.” “They send their compliments, and would be prodigiously obliged if you was to give yourself the trouble of stepping below.”