Sapphire Eyes
HE was solitary and mysterious, and I was thought to be so, and that at once tells how we drifted together. My solitariness I grant, because it existed from two causes, neither of which was anything to be ashamed of: I did not desire to be pestered by the village scandalmongers, and was writing some papers for a magazine on the subject of botany —endeavoring, with mild insanity, to dress the matter in popular form; and my mystery was nothing more startling than rapid and weighty correspondence. My mail was assumed to be reports from my fellow conspirators of the Italian Carbonari; it was in reality something even more mischievous still—proof-sheets.
Hawksmere — a dark, morbidly suspicious and very proud man—nearly fell over me one day, as I was studying some plants beneath the brow of one of the hills on his domain; and our mutual apologies—I for my intrusion, and he for his awkwardness—served as sufficient introduction.