Most unwillingly he yielded to the steady pressure of my elbow; and we moved on, he turning his handsome head continually. After a while he laughed.

“Nevertheless,” said he, “there stands the rarest essence of real beauty I have ever seen, in lady born or beggar; and I am an ass to go my way and leave it for the next who passes.”

I said nothing.

He grumbled for a while below his breath, then:

“Yes, sir! Sheer beauty — by the roadside yonder — in ragged ribbons and a withered rose. Only — such Puritans as you perceive it not.”

After a silence, and as we entered the gateway to the manor house:

“I swear she wore no paint, Loskiel —