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She looked up, and in that moment she was mated.
We must needs put our imaginations to his stature to see the beauty he
saw. That unapproachable greatness that prevents our immediate sympathy
with her did not exist for him. There she stood, a gracious girl, the
first created being that had ever seemed a mate for him, light and
slender, lightly clad, the fresh breeze of the dawn moulding the subtly
folding robe upon her against the soft strong lines of her form, and
with a great mass of blossoming chestnut branches in her hands. The
collar of her robe opened to show the whiteness of her neck and a soft
shadowed roundness that passed out of sight towards her shoulders. The
breeze had stolen a strand or so of her hair too, and strained its
red-tipped brown across her cheek. Her eyes were open blue, and her lips
rested always in the promise of a smile as she reached among the
branches.
She turned upon him with a start, saw him, and for a space they regarded
one another. For her, the sight of him was so amazing, so incredible, as
to be, for some moments at least, terrible. He came to her with the
shock of a supernatural apparition; he broke all the established law of
her world. He was a youth of one-and-twenty then, slenderly built, with
his father's darkness and his father's gravity. He was clad in a sober
soft brown leather, close-fitting easy garments, and in brown hose, that
shaped him bravely. His head went uncovered in all weathers. They stood
regarding one another--she incredulously amazed, and he with his heart
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