‘So you are Ralph, or Rafe, as I love best to say it,’ she said. ‘Well, you are very welcome here, though your father and I got across at our last meeting. But I suppose he has thought better of my proposal, and sent you now.’ Here she looked at her watch, a massive gold and crystal globe that swung from her girdle. ‘The girl is a long time!’ she exclaimed. Before I could open my mouth to declare the truth about my father, a rustling of silks came, and a girl swept through the doorway. She was about fifteen years old, but might well have passed for twenty. Tall and slender in figure, and with a face so perfectly, so strangely lovely, it compelled me to make a simile of a flame resolving at the lambent crest into a star. She moved towards me, and with no assumption of modesty, threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. I have no idea how she was dressed, but as I write comes a recollection of the flower called ‘crown imperial,’ lying on a web of red-golden hair. Lady Barbara shrieked in affected dismay. ‘My dear Rachel!’ she cried, ‘you are forgetting yourself; Rafe is not a little boy--he’s seventeen--he’s a _man_!’ Rachel Verelst turned to her, uplifting luminous eyes: ‘O aunt,’ she said, with a sigh of relief, ‘it is most delicious to see a _man_. I am Miranda--he Ferdinand. Cousin (mincingly), you’re the first man I’ve seen for two years, except of course the servants, and they don’t count with such people as your lowly handmaid.’ Something about her--perhaps the fact that her manner was so opposed to that with which I had endowed my ideal woman--fascinated me at once. Never before had I seen such radiant beauty: never before had I known a woman lay herself out so coquettishly to attract attention. She was unlike anything I had ever dreamed of, and even as I stood I felt myself become enthralled. There was such admiration, too, in her glance--admiration of the most flattering kind. All suddenly I sprang high in self-esteem. ‘A handsome couple,’ the old woman said pointedly. ‘One fair as day: the other, as Shakespeare says somewhere, black as night. Yes, day and night! Now pray let me see you walk together to the breakfast-room. I will waive etiquette for once, and you shall take precedence. Ah, yes, sir, your arm was given gracefully; I am quite satisfied with your manner. You are a Verelst, though your name is Eyre.’ With many comments upon the picture we made, she followed us to a small parlour hung with red velvet, embossed with earl’s coronets in gilt. A light meal was spread. The aroma of coffee filled the air, and after the footman had brought in the hot dishes, a gust of fresher sweetness came as Mary, shyly bedecked with honeysuckle, entered and sat at my side. Lady Barbara took no heed of her appearance, so bent was she on her own plans.