She stood with her hand on the head of a huge , tawny collie dog ; another dog was sitting on his haunches beside her . She was tall , with a great braid of shining chestnut hair , showing ruddy burnished tints where the sunlight struck it , hanging over her shoulder . The plain dark dress she wore emphasized the grace and strength of her supple form . Her face was oval and pale , with straight black brows and a finely cut crimson mouth -- a face whose beauty bore the indefinable stamp of race and breeding mingled with a wild sweetness , as of a flower growing in some lonely and inaccessible place . None of the Rexton girls looked like that . Who , in the name of all that was amazing , could she be ? As the thought crossed Alan 's mind the girl turned , with an air of indifference that might have seemed slightly overdone to a calmer observer than was the young minister at that moment and , with a gesture of command to her dogs , walked quickly away into the scrub spruces . She was so tall that her uncovered head was visible over them as she followed some winding footpath , and Alan stood like a man rooted to the ground until he saw her enter the grey house . Then he went homeward in a maze , all thought of sermons , doctrinal or otherwise , for the moment knocked out of his head . She is the most beautiful woman I ever saw , he thought . How is it possible that I have lived in Rexton for six months and never heard of her or of that house ? Well , I daresay there 's some simple explanation of it all . The place may have been unoccupied until lately -- probably it is the summer residence of people who have only recently come to it . I 'll ask Mrs. Danby . She 'll know if anybody will . That good woman knows everything about everybody in Rexton for three generations back . Alan found Isabel King with his housekeeper when he got home . His greeting was tinged with a slight constraint . He was not a vain man , but he could not help knowing that Isabel looked upon him with a favour that had in it much more than professional interest . Isabel herself showed it with sufficient distinctness .
Moreover , he felt a certain personal dislike of her and XXXXX her hard , insistent beauty , which seemed harder and more insistent than ever contrasted with his recollection of the girl of the lake shore .
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