As Stafford climbed the hill steadily, he wondered who the girl was. It
did not occur to him that she might be the daughter of the Mr. Heron to
whom the stream belonged and from whose family name the whole dale had
taken its own; for, though she had looked and spoken like a lady, the
habit, the gauntlets, the soft felt hat were old and weather-stained:
and her familiarity with the proper treatment of a sheep in difficulty
indicated rather the farmer's daughter than that of the squire.

She was not by any means the first pretty girl Stafford had seen--he
had a very large acquaintance in London, and one or two women whose
beauty had been blazoned by the world were more than friendly
with the popular Stafford Orme--but he thought as he went up
the hill, which seemed to have no end, that he had never seen a more
beautiful face than this girl's; certainly he had never seen one which
had impressed him more deeply. Perhaps it was the character of the
loveliness which haunted him so persistently: it was so unlike the
conventional drawing-room type with which he was so familiar.

As he thought of her it seemed to him that she was like a wild and
graceful deer--one of the deer which he had seen coming down to a
mountain stream to drink on his father's Scotch moor; hers was a wild,
almost savage loveliness--and yet not savage, for there had been the
refinement, the dignity of high race in the exquisite grey eyes, the
curve of the finely cut lips. Her manner, also, prevented him from
forgetting her.