So the maiden grew in favour. Her beauty, both inward and outward, was
that of the twilight, of a morning cloudy with high clouds, or of a
silvery sea: it was a spiritual beauty for the most part. And her
sorrow gave a quiet grace to her demeanour, peacefully ripening it into
what is loveliest in ladyhood. She always looked like one
waiting???-sometimes like one listening, as she waited, to "melodies
unheard."
CHAPTER XCI.
One night, in the end of October, James Dow was walking by the side of
his cart along a lonely road, through a peat-moss, on his way to the
nearest sea-port for a load of coals. The moon was high and full. He
was approaching a solitary milestone in the midst of the moss. It was
the loneliest place. Low swells of peat-ground, the burial places of
old forests, rolled away on every side, with, here and there, patches
of the white-bearded canna-down, or cotton-grass, glimmering doubtfully
as the Wind woke and turned himself on the wide space, where he found
nothing to puff at but those same little old fairies sunning their
hoary beards in the strange moon. As Dow drew near to the milestone he
saw an odd-looking figure seated upon it.
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