Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/36

 at her over the golden flowers of the coronilla and the broom.

'May I speak one word to you?' he said gently.

The man who drew near her was about thirty years old; he was tall and strongly made; his face was delicate and full of thought; it had not much beauty, except that which was due to the luminance of expression, and the colour and largeness, of his clear blue eyes. It was a physiognomy strange to her, for it was entirely northern.

He came on as quickly as the prickly shrubs, and the creepers that laced them together, would allow him to do. He was looking at her with an expression of keen interest, and she stood awaiting him with knitted brows and dark suspicious glances, ankle-deep in cinquefoil and saintfoin.

'Are you not she whom the shore people call the Velia and the Musoncella?'

'Yes,' she answered angrily; 'what is that to you?'

'It is much, he said gently, being as fearful of her taking flight ere she could hear him as the bird-catcher is of alarming the lapwing when it is turning its crested head