Beautiful—­save in the sense of symmetry—­she can never have been to the ordinary man; inasmuch as she would subscribe to no arbitrary standard of his dictating.  She had a high, rich colour; but her complexion must always have been rough, and a pronounced little moustache crossed her upper lip, like an accent to the speech that was too distinct and uncompromising to be melodious.  Her every limb and feature, however, was instinct with capability, and, in her presence, one must always be moved to marvel over that indescribable worship of disproportion that has grown to be the religion of a shapely race.

* * * * *

How I first became acquainted with Miss Groom it is unnecessary to explain.  During the last three years of her life I was fortunate to be her guest in the Wiltshire retreat for an aggregate of many months.  She took a fancy to me—­to my solitariness and moroseness, perhaps—­and she not only liked to have me with her, but, after a time, she fell into something of a habit of recalling for my benefit certain passages and experiences of her past life.  In doing this, there was no suggestion of confidence; and I am breaking no faith in alluding to them.  She was a fine talker—­rugged, unpicturesque, but with an instinctive capacity of selection in words.  If I quote her, as I wish to do, I cannot reproduce her style; and that, no doubt, would appear bald on paper.  But, at least, the matter is all her own.

Now, I must premise that I arrogate to myself no exhibitory rights in this lady.  She was familiar with and to many from the foremost ranks of those who “follow knowledge like a sinking star”; those great and restless spirits to whom inaction reads stagnation.  To such, in all probability, I tell, in speaking of Dinah Groom, a twice-told tale; and, therefore—­inasmuch as I make it my business only to print what is hitherto unrecorded—­to them I give the assurance that I do not claim to have “discovered” their friend.

* * * * *

On a wall of the little embowered sitting-room hung a queer picture, by Ernest Griset, of the “Overwhelming of the Mammoths in the Ice.”  From the first this odd conception had engaged my curiosity,—­purely for its fanciful side,—­and one evening, in alluding to it, I made the not very profound remark that Imagination had no anatomy.

“They are true beasts,” said Dinah.

“They are the mastodons of Cuvier, no doubt; but, then, Cuvier never saw a mastodon, you know.”

“But I have; and I tell you Griset and Cuvier are very nearly right.”

I expressed no surprise.

“In what were they astray?” I asked.

“The mammoth, as I saw it, had a huge hump—­like the steam-chest of an enormous engine—­over its shoulders.”

“And where did you see it, and when?”

“You are curious to know?”

“Yes, I think I am; and there is a quiet of expectancy abroad.  I hear the ghost of my dead brother walking in the corridor, Dinah; and we are all waiting for you to speak.”