At Fagle's

By 1e. M.

NASHA was painfully ugly. The Moon and Saturn were her

dominating astrological mflu- cncees, and the planet of fatality had written all his signatures upon her. She was tall) thin, high-shouldered, and pale; her arms were long and bony, her movements slow and awkward. She had nonc of the roundness or gracc of youth, and her sallow skin, rusty Llack hair, and hollow cheeks scemed ke those of a woman prematurely old. Her dark, strangcly lambent eyes, shaded by heavy brows that met above her thin nose, failed to inspirc terror only because they were infinitely sad. Her Tips rarely smiled, but their want of fulness betokened scll- repression and strength of will rather than coldness or cgotisnt. Silent and sensi- tive, the gl ap- pearcd weighed down by the con- sciousness of - her entire lack of heauty. She walked listlessly, with down- cast cyes, and she loved solitude.

Thoughtless people, afraid — to scorn her ugly face, sometimes spoke of her as a witeh ; but Nasha had a soul so beautiful that it attached to her all things innocent and sweet. Love of the beautiful was a pas- cjon with her, and this was the seeret of the power which drew to her all that might otherwise have been repelled by her unlovely face. She scemed to possess a subtle influence that made the lowers hasten to bud and blossom under her hand, so that her garden in the wild mountain pass was a marvel of colour from carly spring to late autumn.

Dogs would show an almost human joy at the sound of her voice, and little children would leave their mothers’ skirts to run to her, All women who were sad or suffer-

SOUPTTLE CHILDREN WOULD KUN TO 1HER

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ing hailed her coming with delight 5 but no onc could have told you cxactly why they loved her, for they were wiser than they themselves knew. They discerned the true Nasha bcehind the mask of her ugliness— that mean outer garb which was but the matrix that contained the gem.

The real woman was the pure, heroie soul, the faithful, mysterious, invisible being who walked the moun- tains, who pondered in loncliness, who was thrilled by the music of Nature’s thousand voices and the breath of Nature’s thousand perfumes. It was for a ghmpse of this beneficent mys- tery that the chil- dren clung to her cgown, the sorrowful women sought her, and the dumb crea- turcs were glad in her presence ; and but for this com- radeship - Nasha's - must indeed have been a sorry Iife. Home, to her, meant simply the grim, grey

building, wedged between great rocks, and called the Iagle's Giorge. Her only ostensible mends were Getha, the old woman who waited upon her, and Lyolf, her Russian wolt- hound. "T'he great complex world

was only accessible to her through the crowded bookshelves of the fibrary, in the blue-ceilinged chapel, with its tawdry altar and its shabby prie-dice, and in the mountains round her home. The castle belonged to Nasha, not heeause the mother, who left it her, bore her any special affection, but because the articles of the loveless marriage from which Nasha sprang stipulated that the little cstate in the mountains should descend to female children, while the husband, out of his own resources, should provide for his sons. As it happened, one daughter and onc son were the only offspring of the union,