Instantly every eye was fixed upon a young dark-eyed brunette not more than seventeen years of age, whose delicately olive shaded complexion was incardined with the richest blood; her long-fringed eyelids were cast to the floor, and she stood silent, beautiful, conscious--her pretty fingers picking in pieces a rose bud. Never was a maiden of seventeen lovelier than she who now stood confessed before them, the shrine of the handsome horseman's adoring reverence.