There, at the other side of the fire, sat a girl, half
smiling and half blushing as she looked up from her work. The candles
between them had hid her from him. He advanced, and she rose and held
out her hand. He was confused; she was perfectly collected, although
the colour rose a little more in her cheek. She might have been a year
older than Alec.
"So you are a cousin of mine, Mr Forbes!" she said, when they were all
seated by the blazing fire--she with a piece of plain work in her
hands, he with a very awkward nothing in his, and the professor
contemplating his swathed leg on the chair before him.
"So your uncle says," he answered, "and I am very happy to believe him.
I hope we shall be good friends."
Alec was recovering himself.
"I hope we shall," she responded, with a quick, shy, asking glance from
her fine eyes.
Those eyes were worth looking into, if only as a study of colour. They
were of many hues marvellously blended. I think grey and blue and brown
and green were all to be found in them. Their glance rather discomposed
Alec. He had not learned before that ladies' eyes are sometimes very
discomposing. Yet he could not keep his from wandering towards them;
and the consequence was that he soon lost the greater part of his
senses.
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