What had seemed to be a periwig at a little distance was now revealed for the man's own lustrous coiling black hair.
Out of a brown, shaven, saturnine face two eyes that were startlingly blue considered her gravely.

The man would have passed on but that she detained him.
"I think I know you, sir," said she.
Her voice was crisp and boyish, and there was something of boyishness in her manner--if one can apply the term to so dainty a lady.

It arose perhaps from an ease, a directness, which disdained the artifices of her sex, and set her on good terms with all the world.

To this it may be due that Miss Arabella had reached the age of five and twenty not merely unmarried but unwooed.

She used with all men a sisterly frankness which in itself contains a quality of aloofness, rendering it difficult for any man to become her lover.
Her negroes had halted at some distance in the rear, and they squatted now upon the short grass until it should be her pleasure to proceed upon her way.
The stranger came to a standstill upon being addressed.
"A lady should know her own property," said he.
"My property ?" "Your uncle's, leastways.