He never did a decent thing in his life . '' A Soul That Was Not at Home There was a very fine sunset on the night Paul and Miss Trevor first met , and she had lingered on the headland beyond Noel 's Cove to delight in it . The west was splendid in daffodil and rose ; away to the north there was a mackerel sky of little fiery golden clouds ; and across the water straight from Miss Trevor 's feet ran a sparkling path of light to the sun , whose rim had just touched the throbbing edge of the purple sea . Off to the left were softly swelling violet hills and beyond the sandshore , where little waves were crisping and silvering , there was a harbour where scores of slender masts were nodding against the gracious horizon . Miss Trevor sighed with sheer happiness in all the wonderful , fleeting , elusive loveliness of sky and sea . Then she turned to look back at Noel 's Cove , dim and shadowy in the gloom of the tall headlands , and she saw Paul . It did not occur to her that he could be a shore boy -- she knew the shore type too well . She thought his coming mysterious , for she was sure he had not come along the sand , and the tide was too high for him to have come past the other headland . Yet there he was , sitting on a red sandstone boulder , with his bare , bronzed , shapely little legs crossed in front of him and his hands clasped around his knee . He was not looking at Miss Trevor but at the sunset -- or , rather , it seemed as if he were looking through the sunset to still grander and more radiant splendours beyond , of which the things seen were only the pale reflections , not worthy of attention from those who had the gift of further sight . Miss Trevor looked him over carefully with eyes that had seen a good many people in many parts of the world for more years than she found it altogether pleasant to acknowledge , and she concluded that he was quite the handsomest lad she had ever seen . He had a lithe , supple body , with sloping shoulders and a brown , satin throat . His hair was thick and wavy , of a fine reddish chestnut ; his brows were very straight and much darker than his hair ; and his eyes were large and grey and meditative . The modelling of chin and jaw was perfect and his mouth was delicious , being full without pouting , the crimson lips just softly touching , and curving into finely finished little corners that narrowly escaped being dimpled . His attire was a blue cotton shirt and a pair of scanty corduroy knickerbockers , but he wore it with such an unconscious air of purple and fine linen that Miss Trevor was tricked into believing him much better dressed than he really was . Presently he smiled dreamily , and the smile completed her subjugation . It was not merely an affair of lip and eye , as are most smiles ; it seemed an illumination of his whole body , as if some lamp had suddenly burst into flame inside of him , irradiating him from his chestnut crown to the tips of his unspoiled toes . Best of all , it was involuntary , born of no external effort or motive , but simply the outflashing of some wild , delicious thought that was as untrammelled and freakish as the wind of the sea . Miss Trevor made up her mind that she must find out all about him , and she stepped out from the shadows of the rocks into the vivid , eerie light that was glowing all along the shore . The boy turned his head and looked at her , first with surprise , then with inquiry , then with admiration .
Miss XXXXX , in a white dress with a lace scarf on her dark , stately head , was well worth admiring .
Cove Noel Paul Trevor daffodil first harbour left modelling outflashing