breeze. Fanny O'Brien was one of those sylphs,--strong in tenderness,
invincible under misfortune, soft as the music of her voice, pure as the
azure of her eyes, of a delicate, refined beauty, blessed with a skin
that was silken to the touch and caressing to the eye, which neither
painter's brush nor written word can picture. Beautiful still at
forty-two years of age, many a man would have thought it happiness
to marry her as she looked at the splendors of that autumn coloring,
redundant in flowers and fruit, refreshed and refreshing with the dews
of heaven.

The baroness held the paper in the dimpled hand, the fingers of which
curved slightly backward, their nails cut square like those of an
antique statue. Half lying, without ill-grace or affectation, in her
chair, her feet stretched out to warm them, she was dressed in a gown
of black velvet, for the weather was now becoming chilly. The corsage,
rising to the throat, moulded the splendid contour of the shoulders and
the rich bosom which the suckling of her son had not deformed. Her hair
was worn in _ringlets_, after the English fashion, down her cheeks; the
rest was simply twisted to the crown of her head and held there with
a tortoise-shell comb. The color, not undecided in tone as other blond
hair, sparkled to the light like a filagree of burnished gold. The
baroness always braided the short locks curling on the nape of her
neck--which are a sign of race. This tiny braid, concealed in the mass
of hair always carefully put up, allowed the eye to follow with delight
the undulating line by which her neck was set upon her shoulders. This
little detail will show the care which she gave to her person; it
was her pride to rejoice the eyes of the old baron. What a charming,
delicate attention! When you see a woman displaying in her own home the
coquetry which most women spend on a single sentiment, believe me, that
woman is as noble a mother as she is a wife; she is the joy and the
flower of the home; she knows her obligations as a woman; in her soul,
in her tenderness, you will find her outward graces; she is doing good
in secret; she worships, she adores without a calculation of return; she
loves her fellows, as she loves God,--for their own sakes. And so one
might fancy that the Virgin of paradise, under whose care she lived, had
rewarded the chaste girlhood and the sacred life of the old man's wife
by surrounding her with a sort of halo which preserved her beauty from