through the black lashes, like violets from a clump of dark leaves, it was scarcely possible to fancy that she had ever known a touch of care or sorrow, or that one of the anxieties of life had ever even brushed her lightly with its wing. She seemed the flower just opening to the morning sunshine--the fruit, before the bloom had been washed away by one shower. Her figure, too, was full of young grace; her movements were all quicker, more wild and free than her sister's; and as she rose to receive Sir Edward Digby, it was more with the air of an old friend than a new acquaintance. Indeed, she was the first of the family who had seen him, for hers were the eyes which had watched his approach from the window, so that she felt as if she knew him better than any of them. There was something very winning in the frank and cordial greeting with which she met him, and in an instant it had established a sort of communication between them which would have taken hours, perhaps days, to bring about with her sister. As Sir Edward Digby did not come there to fall in love, he would fain have resisted such influences, even at the beginning; and perhaps the words of old Mr. Croyland had somewhat put him upon his guard. But it was of no use being upon his guard; for, fortify himself as strongly as he would, Zara went through all his defences in an instant; and, seeming to take it for granted that they were to be great friends, and that there was not the slightest obstacle whatever to their being perfectly familiar in a ladylike and gentleman-like manner, of course they were so in five minutes, though he was a soldier who had seen some service, and she an inexperienced girl just out of her teens. But all women have a sort of experience of their own; or, if experience be not the right name, an intuition in matters where the other sex is concerned, which supplies to them very rapidly a great part of that which long converse with the world bestows on men. Too true that it does not always act as a safeguard to their own hearts--true that it does not always guide them right in their own actions,--but still it does not fail to teach them the best means of winning where they wish to win; and if they do not succeed, it is far more frequently that the cards which they hold are not good, than that they play the game unskilfully. Whether Sir Robert Croyland had or had not any forethought in his invitation of Sir Edward Digby, and, like a prudent father, judged that it would be quite as well his youngest daughter should marry a wealthy baronet, he was too wise to let anything like design appear; and though he suffered the young officer to pursue his conversation with Zara for two or three minutes longer than he had done with her sister, he soon interposed, by taking the first opportunity of telling his guest the names of those whom he had invited to meet him that day at dinner.