Back in Albemarle, in his dead mother's room, there hung a looking-glass, but it was cracked and blurred, and he seldom gazed within it.

This chance mirror of the woods was more to the purpose.

The moments slipped away while he studied the stranger and familiar in the pool below him.

The image was not formed or coloured like young Narcissus, of whom he had never heard, but he observed it with interest.

He was fourteen, and old for his years.