There was a little spluttering fire in a vast old grate, and before this—standing gazing into the weak flames and the smoke, but turning as she heard my step, and starting, and blinking—there was Miss Maud Lilly, the mistress of the house, that all our plot was built on.
I had expected her, from all that Gentleman had said, to be quite out of the way handsome. But she was not that—at least, I did not think her so as I studied her then, I thought her looks rather commonplace. She was taller than me by an inch or two—which is to say, of an ordinary height, since I am considered short; and her hair was fairer than mine—but not very fair—and her eyes, which were brown, were lighter. Her lip and her cheek were very plump and smooth—she did lick me there, I will admit, for I liked to bite my own lip, and my cheeks had freckles, and my features as a rule were said to be sharp. I was also thought young-looking; but as to that—well, I should have liked the people who thought it to have studied Maud Lilly as she stood before me now. For if I was young, then she was an infant, she was a chick, she was a pigeon that knew nothing. She saw me come, and started, as I have said; and she took a step or two to meet me, and her pale cheek fired up crimson. Then she stopped, and put her hands before her, neatly, at her skirt. The skirt—I had never seen such a thing before, on a girl her age— the skirt was full and short and showed her ankles; and about her waist—that was astonishingly narrow—there was a sash. Her hair was caught in a net of velvet. On her feet were slippers, of red prunella. Her hands had clean white gloves upon them, buttoned up tight at the wrist. She said,