My feelings as I approached the parlour were anything but happy. Some voice seemed to warn me that I was in the presence of something sinister, that some unknown peril stalked at my elbow. This third party--this "she"--filled me with forebodings. If ever anybody had a presentiment, I had one, and all I can say now is that within thirty seconds of opening the parlour door, I had ceased to believe in presentiments, entirely and finally. The vision I beheld nearly took my breath away. "Let me introduce you to my sister, Miss Burnett," said Tiel. "She is so devoted to her brother that she has insisted on coming to look after him for the few days he is forced to spend in this lonely manse." He said this with a smile, and of course never intended me to believe a word of his statement, yet as he gave her no other name, and as that was the only account of her circulated in the neighbourhood, I shall simply refer to her in the meantime as Miss Burnett. It is the only name that I have to call her by to her face. As to her appearance, I can only say that she is the most beautiful woman I have ever met in my life. The delicacy and distinction of her features, her dark eyebrows, her entrancing eye, and her thoughtful mouth, so firm and yet so sweet, her delicious figure and graceful carriage--heavens, I have never seen any girl to approach her! What is more, she has a face which I _trust_. I have had some experience of women, and I could feel at the first exchange of glances and of words that here was one of those rare women on whom a man could implicitly rely. "Have you just landed upon these islands?" I inquired. "Not to-day," she said; and indeed, when I came to think of it, she would not have had time to reach the house in that case. "Did you have much difficulty?" I asked. "The minister's sister is always admitted," said Tiel with his dry smile. I asked presently if she had travelled far. She shrugged her shoulders, gave a delightful little laugh, and said-- "We get so used to travelling that I have forgotten what 'far' is!" Meanwhile tea was brought in, and Miss Burnett sat down and poured it out with the graceful nonchalant air of a charming hostess in her own drawing-room, while Tiel talked of the weather and referred carelessly to the lastest news just like any gentleman who might have called casually upon her. I, on my part, tried as best I could to catch the same air, and we all talked away very pleasantly indeed. We spoke English, of course, all the time, and indeed, any one overhearing us and not seeing my uniform would never have dreamt for a moment that we were anything but three devoted subjects of King George.