"
She wore a plain dress of some white flowing material, with a knot of
scarlet ribbons on her fair neck; her shining hair was drawn from her
white brow and fell in luxuriant waves; in it she wore one rose half
shrouded in green leaves, and never in all her gorgeous magnificence had
Lady Amelie looked one-half as fair. She was seated in her own boudoir,
where the white daphnes shone like stars in the rosy light. A picture
that would have ravished the heart of any man that gazed upon it, and
Lady Amelie knew that it was perfect, even down to the graceful attitude
and half sad, half languid expression of her face.
It was not much after two when he came. Her reception of him was
perfect--unstudied, graceful, natural; and he looking at her, thought
her more beautiful than ever.
"You were reading," he said; "have I disturbed you?"
"No; Owen Meredith is a favorite poet of mine; there is something very
unworldly and beautiful about his verses."
"That is why you like them--you are so unworldly yourself."
"Perhaps so, in one sense. I have just sufficient tinge of it about me
to teach me that whatever are my thoughts and opinions, if they differ
much from other people's, I must keep them to myself, unless, as is the
case now, I meet a congenial soul."
A view of the subject which was quite new to Basil.
"I thought originality was a sign of genius," he replied, "and that
people admired it.
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