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a picturesque fair head set on broad shoulders with that peculiarly graceful spring which one sees in classic marbles, or in a snake preparing to strike, or in a wave that bends backward for an instant before it falls on the shore. Her eyes are bright and full of laughter—nothing more; they have no language. Her colouring is not good—there is too much pink in it, and it reminds one somehow of aniline dyes; but the outline of her low Greek forehead, delicate nose, and above all the drawing of her upper lip and the round firmly-finished Pagan chin is really beautiful to a degree one seldom sees. Very few pretty faces (of the present day at least) could survive being copied in marble, but Mrs. Austin’s features would rather gain by the translation; they seem to require the delicate whiteness of alabaster to bring out their statuesque moulding to its full advantage. One feels in looking at her that she must have come out of some museum, ‘No. 314, Girl with Vase,’ or, ‘Figure from a Greek sarcophagus, supposed time of Phidias,’ and that she ought to wear a sketchy peplum studded with stars and a slim-necked urn supported on her shoulder by one rounded arm, instead of a tailor-made dress, a sailor hat, and a parasol.

“‘So you have come to live in our village,’