Who in Lindsay could play a violin like that ? And who was playing so here , in this deserted old orchard , of all places in the world ? He rose and walked up the long white avenue , going as slowly and silently as possible , for he did not wish to interrupt the player . When he reached the open space of the garden he stopped short in new amazement and was again tempted into thinking he must certainly be dreaming . Under the big branching white lilac tree was an old , sagging , wooden bench ; and on this bench a girl was sitting , playing on an old brown violin . Her eyes were on the faraway horizon and she did not see Eric . For a few moments he stood there and looked at her . The pictures she made photographed itself on his vision to the finest detail , never to be blotted from his book of remembrance . To his latest day Eric Marshall will be able to recall vividly that scene as he saw it then -- the velvet darkness of the spruce woods , the overarching sky of soft brilliance , the swaying lilac blossoms , and amid it all the girl on the old bench with the violin under her chin . He had , in his twenty-four years of life , met hundreds of pretty women , scores of handsome women , a scant half dozen of really beautiful women . But he knew at once , beyond all possibility of question or doubt , that he had never seen or imagined anything so exquisite as this girl of the orchard . Her loveliness was so perfect that his breath almost went from him in his first delight of it . Her face was oval , marked in every cameo-like line and feature with that expression of absolute , flawless purity , found in the angels and Madonnas of old paintings , a purity that held in it no faintest strain of earthliness . Her head was bare , and her thick , jet-black hair was parted above her forehead and hung in two heavy lustrous braids over her shoulders . Her eyes were of such a blue as Eric had never seen in eyes before , the tint of the sea in the still , calm light that follows after a fine sunset ; they were as luminous as the stars that came out over Lindsay Harbour in the afterglow , and were fringed about with very long , soot-black lashes , and arched over by most delicately pencilled dark eyebrows . Her skin was as fine and purely tinted as the heart of a white rose . The collarless dress of pale blue print she wore revealed her smooth , slender throat ; her sleeves were rolled up above her elbows and the hand which guided the bow of her violin was perhaps the most beautiful thing about her , perfect in shape and texture , firm and white , with rosy-nailed taper fingers . One long , drooping plume of lilac blossom lightly touched her hair and cast a wavering shadow over the flower-like face beneath it . There was something very child-like about her , and yet at least eighteen sweet years must have gone to the making of her . She seemed to be playing half unconsciously , as if her thoughts were far away in some fair dreamland of the skies .
But presently she looked away from `` the bourne of sunset , '' and her lovely eyes fell XXXXX Eric , standing motionless before her in the shadow of the apple tree .
To about after at beneath beyond from of on with