I should get wet.' 'Take an umbrella, then, but come.

Mind me, Signora Nina, I am the bearer of a message for you.' There was something almost disdainful in the toss of her head as she heard these words, and she hastily retired from the balcony and entered the room.
Atlee watched her, by no means certain what her gesture might portend.
Was she indignant with him for the liberty he had taken?
or was she about to comply with his request, and meet him?
He knew too little of her to determine which was the more likely; and he could not help feeling that, had he only known her longer, his doubt might have been just as great.

Her mind, thought he, is perhaps like my own: it has many turnings, and she's never very certain which one of them she will follow.

Somehow, this imputed wilfulness gave her, to his eyes, a charm scarcely second to that of her exceeding beauty.

And what beauty it was! The very perfection of symmetry in every feature when at rest, while the varied expressions of her face as she spoke, or smiled, or listened, imparted a fascination which only needed the charm of her low liquid voice to be irresistible.
How she vulgarises that pretty girl, her cousin, by mere contrast! What subtle essence is it, apart from hair and eyes and skin, that spreads an atmosphere of conquest over these natures, and how is it that men have no ascendencies of this sort--nothing that imparts to their superiority the sense that worship of them is in itself an ecstasy?
'Take my message into town,' said he to a fellow near, 'and you shall have a sovereign when you come back with the horses'; and with this he strolled away across a little paddock and entered the garden.