In another moment Arthur bethought him of what he had
said, and it was his turn to blush. He recovered himself pretty well,
however. Rising from his stone seat, he took off his hat, and said,
humbly,
"I beg your pardon, but you startled me so, and really for a moment I
thought that you were the spirit of the place, or," he added,
gracefully, pointing to a branch of half-opened hawthorn bloom she
held in her hand, "the original Queen of the May."
Angela blushed again. The compliment was only implied this time; she
had therefore no possible pretext for getting angry.
For a moment she dropped the sweet eyes that looked as though they
were fresh from reading the truths of heaven before his gaze of
unmistakable admiration, and stood confused; and, as she stood, it
struck Arthur that there was something more than mere beauty of form
and feature about her--an indescribable something, a glory of
innocence, a reflection of God's own light that tinged the worship her
loveliness commanded with a touch of reverential awe.
"The angels must look like that," he thought. But he had no time to
think any more, for next moment she had gathered up her courage in
both her hands, and was speaking to him in a soft voice, of which the
tones went ringing on through all the changes of his life.
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