Small and well-modelled ears were half covered by dark brown
hair that had been almost black in childhood, and which fell to her
shoulders in broad waves, in the fashion used by the Queen. While
Gilbert looked and remained motionless, the girl rose lightly to her
feet, and he saw that she was shorter than he had expected, but slight
and delicately made. With one hand he could have lifted her from the
ground, with two he could have held her in the air like a child. She
was not the Beatrix he remembered, though he had known her instantly;
she was not the solemn, black-eyed maiden of whom he sometimes dreamed;
she was a being full of individual life and thought, quick, sensitive,
perhaps capricious, and charming, if she could charm at all, by a spell
that was quite her own.
Half-frightened at last by his motionless attitude and his silence, she
called him by name.
"Gilbert! What is the matter?"
He shook his broad shoulders as if waking to consciousness, and the
smile in her face was reflected in his own.
The voice, at least, had not changed, and the first tones called up the
long-cherished record of childish years; for scent and sound can span
the wastes of years and the deserts of separation, when sight is dull
and even touch is unresponsive.
Gilbert came forward, holding out both hands; and Beatrix took them
when he was close to her, and held them in hers. The little tears had
started in her eyes, that were glad as flowers at dewfall, and in her
very clear, pale cheeks the colour lightened like the dawn.
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