CHAPTER II.
During the days immediately following her arrival at Beechcote, Mrs.
Colwood applied herself to a study of Miss Mallory and her surroundings--none the less penetrating because the student was modest and her method unperceived.

She divined a nature unworldly, impulsive, steeped, moreover, for all its spiritual and intellectual force, which was considerable, in a kind of sensuous romance--much connected with concrete things and symbols, places, persons, emblems, or relics, any contact with which might at any time bring the color to the girl's cheeks and the tears to her eyes.

_Honor_--personal or national--the word was to Diana like a spark to dry leaves.

Her whole nature flamed to it, and there were moments when she walked visibly transfigured in the glow of it.

Her mind was rich, moreover, in the delicate, inchoate lovers, the half-poetic, half-intellectual passions, the mystical yearnings and aspirations, which haunt a pure expanding youth.