As she looked down at us, and we looked up at her, I discovered with alarming suddenness that Miss Grace Trentham had a pair of eyes of remarkable beauty, large and clear, and very blue, indeed, with long dark lashes drooping on her cheeks. She had also the colouring that one only sees in the English girl grown in the open air. In itself it was a pastoral, as sweet as a mown hayfield in a sunny June. It was of the purest light brown, not quite dark enough for chestnut, but, as I happen to be a promising batsman, and not a budding novelist, I am utterly at a loss to describe exactly the kind of tint I mean. Therefore, you must excuse my limitations, particularly as you _may_ find me playing for the County one day, if I confess that the utmost my literary art can do for Miss Grace Trentham’s skin is to say that it most resembled in the richness of its hue a cup of strong tea with plenty of thick cream in it. She had heavy coils of hair of a similar baffling shade, and a mischievous curl or two that made her eyebrows laugh. She was an early-morning girl, English to the bone, and clean and limber as a thorough-bred. I should not have suspected her of afterthoughts, and do not doubt that had I asked her what her opinion was of “Treasure Island,” she would have said without the slightest hesitation, “Oh, isn’t it just ripping!” When on her invitation we climbed to the seats beside her, we found that she was scoring with a diligence as wonderful as it was artistic. She had two fountain pens--one of black ink, to put down the runs; the other of red, to take the bowling analysis. “Awfully jolly pleased, Mr. Dimsdale, to see you out so soon,” she said. “Oh!” said I; my jaw fell. “You were shaping a great deal too well, you know,” she added. My jaw resumed its normal position. “You played Charlie like a book,” she said. “Met him before?” “Oh, no,” I said briskly. “Then you batted real well,” she said. “For Charlie’s the best bowler in England now that Tom Richardson’s stale. He’s top of the averages this week. One hundred and fifty-five wickets for 13·83, and he’s certain to get another fifty before the season’s done. At Lord’s he fairly had Oxford on toast; they _were_ in a frightful funk.” “Yes, yes,” I groaned; feebly adding to cover my distress, “what one would call the bluest of the blue, Miss Trentham.” Miss Trentham transfixed me with a look of whimsical enquiry. Then she said quickly: “Oh, I’m _so_ sorry I didn’t notice your cap. Why weren’t you there to stop the rot? And why didn’t you get your blue when you were up? They only gave you a show in the Freshers’.” “Nothing near good enough,” I said humbly. But how the deuce did she know that I’d only had a show in the Freshers’? I had yet to learn that her full family title was Grace, the Walking Wisden, because she was so well grounded in that indispensable work that she could repeat even its advertisements by heart. “’Would be now, Grace, don’t you think?” said the friendly Optimist.