CHAPTER XV.
MINDEN COTTAGE.
Stark naked though I was, she did not flinch as I came; only her eyes seemed to widen upon me in wonder.

And for all my desperate hurry I had time to see, first, that they were graver than other girls' eyes, and next that they were exceedingly beautiful.
In those days I had small learning (I have little enough, even now), or I might have fancied her some goddess awaiting me between the night and the dawn.

She stood, tall and erect, in a loose white wrapper, the collar of which had fallen open and revealed the bodice-folds of her nightgown--a cloud at the base of her firm throat.

Her feet were thrust into loose slippers: and her hair hung low on her neck in dark masses as she had knotted them for the night.
"Where do you come from, boy ?" she asked; but an instant later she put that question aside as an idle one.

"Someone has been ill-treating you! Come indoors!" She held out a hand and, as I clung to it, led me to the door; but turned with her other hand on the latch.