A sudden tremulousness swept along his pulses, and then they seemed to pause; he drew a deep breath that was almost a sigh, and remained motionless.
He had no preconceived idea of falling in love with Miss Sally at first sight, nor had he dreamed such a thing possible.

Even the girlish face that he had seen in the locket, although it had stirred him with a singular emotion, had not suggested that.

And the ideal he had evolved from it was never a potent presence.

But the exquisitely pretty face and figure before him, although it might have been painted from his own fancy of her, was still something more and something unexpected.

All that had gone before had never prepared him for the beautiful girl who now stood there.