This was the picture he saw--a beautiful but by no means a common one. In the trellised arbor, which contained a stand and one or two chairs, was a young girl of tall, slender figure, with a fair, sweet face, inexpressibly lovely, lilies and roses exquisitely blended--eyes like blue hyacinths, large, bright, and starlight, with white lids and dark long lashes, so dark that they gave a peculiar expression to the eyes--one of beauty, thought, and originality. The lips were sweet and sensitive, beautiful when smiling, but even more beautiful in repose. The oval contour of the face was perfect; from the white brow, where the veins were so clearly marked, rose a crown of golden hair, not brown or auburn, but of pure pale gold--a dower of beauty in itself. The expression of the face was one of shy virgin beauty. One could imagine meeting it in the dim aisles of some cathedral, near the shrine of a saint, as an angel or a Madonna; one could imagine it bending over a sick child, lighting with its pure loveliness the home of sorrow; but one could never picture it in a ball-room. It was a face of girlish, saintly purity, of fairest loveliness--a face where innocence, poetry, and passion all seemed to blend in one grand harmony. There was nothing commonplace about it. One could not mistake it for a plebeian face; "patrician" was written on every feature. Lord Arleigh looked at her like one in a dream. "If she had an aureole round her head, I should take her for an angel," he thought to himself, and stood watching her. The same secret subtle harmony pervaded[4] every action; each new attitude seemed to be the one that suited her best. If she raised her arms, she looked like a statue. Her hands were white and delicate, as though carved in ivory. He judged her to be about eighteen. But who was she, and what had brought her there? He could have stood through the long hours of the sunny day watching her, so completely had she charmed him, fascinated his very senses. "Love is fate!" How often had he said that to himself, smiling the while? Now here his fate had come to him all unexpectedly--this most fair face had found its way to the very depths of his heart and nestled there. He could not have been standing there long, yet it seemed to him that long hours parted him from the life he had known before. Presently he reproached himself for his folly. What had taken place? He had seen a fair face, that was all--a face that embodied his dream of loveliness. He had realized his ideal, he had suddenly, and without thinking of it, found his fate--the figure, the beauty that he had dreamed of all his life. Nothing more than that; yet the whole world seemed changed. There was a brighter light in the blue skies, a new beauty had fallen on the flowers; in his heart was strange, sweet music; everything was idealized--glorified. Why? Because he had seen the face that had always filled his thoughts.