The White Gauntlet

Volume One, Chapter I.

A woman in a wood--encountered accidentally, and alone. 'Tis an
encounter to challenge curiosity--even though she be but a gipsy, or a
peasant girl gathering sticks.

If a high-born dame, beautiful,--and, above all, bright-haired,--
curiosity is no longer the word; but admiration, involuntary,
unrestrained--bordering upon adoration. It is but the instinct of man's
heart to worship the fairest object, upon which man's eye may rest; and
this is a beautiful woman, with bright hair, met in the middle of a
wood.

Marion Wade possessed all the conditions to merit such exalted
admiration. She was high-born, beautiful, and bright-haired. She was
alone in a wood.

It did not detract from the interest of the situation, that she was
mounted on a white horse, carried a hawk on her hand, and was followed
by a hound.

She was unaccompanied by human creature--hawk, hound, and horse being
her only companions.

It must have been her choice to be thus unattended. Wishing it, the
daughter of Sir Marmaduke Wade might have had for escort a score of
retainers.

Autumn was in the sky: and along with it a noon-day sun. The golden
light straggling through the leaves was reflected upon a field of blue,
brilliant as the canopy whence it came. It was not the blue of the
hyacinth gleaming in the forest glade, nor the modest violet that
empurples the path. In October it could not be either. More attractive
was that cerulean tint, seen in the iris of a woman's eye--the eye of
Marion Wade.

The sunbeams danced upon her yellow hair, with apparent delight, kissing
its tresses of kindred colour--kissing her radiant cheek, that, even
under the shadow of the trees, looked luminous.