, and
even plants seem to revive and get new life from the touch of her small
fingers, as though feeling the necessity of growing like her. Her beauty
may not last. It is not of the imperious kind, nor even quite classic,
but it has a wonderful fineness and delicacy. Her soft brown hair coils
closely on her small, well-shaped head; her gentle, serious blue eyes
look tenderly on all that lives and has being within the circle of her
sight; her small mouth smiles graciously and readily, though sometimes a
little sadly; and her pleasant voice has a frank ring in it that is good
to hear. Her slight fingers, neither too long nor too short, are often
busy, but her labors are generally labors of love, and she is never
weary of them. Of middle height, she has the grace of a taller woman,
and the ease in motion which comes only from natural, healthy, elastic
strength, not weakened by enforced idleness, not overdeveloped by
abominable and unwomanly gymnastic exercises. Everything she does is
graceful.

It is very strange and interesting to see in her the combination of such
different elements. Even her aunt Chrysophrasia's queer nature is
represented, though it needs some ingenuity to trace the resemblance
between the two. There are indeed tones of the voice, phrases and
expressions, which seem to belong to particular families, and by which
one may sometimes discover the relationship. But the modification of
leading characteristics in the individual is not so easily detected.
Miss Dabstreak is eccentric, but the wild ideas which continue to
flourish in the aesthetic cells of Chrysophrasia's brain are softened and
made more gentle and delicate in Hermione, so that even if they were
inconsequent they would not seem offensive; though one might not admire
them, one could not despise them. The young girl loves all that is
beautiful: not as Chrysophrasia loves it, by sheer force of habitual
affectation, without discernment and without real enjoyment, but from
the bottom of her heart, from the well-springs of her own beautiful
soul; knowing and understanding the great divisions between the graceful
and the clumsy, between the true and the false, the lovely and the
unlovely. The extraordinary passion for the eccentric is tempered to an
honest and natural craving after the beautiful; the admixture of the
gentleness the girl has inherited from her saintly mother and of the
genuine common sense which characterizes her father has produced a