The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Helmet, Volume I, by Susan Warner

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Title: The Old Helmet, Volume I

Author: Susan Warner

Release Date: October 7, 2008 [EBook #26829]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD HELMET, VOLUME I ***

Produced by Daniel Fromont

[Transcriber's note: Susan Warner (1819-1885), _The Old Helmet_ (1864),
Tauchnitz edition 1864, volume 1]

THE OLD HELMET.

BY

THE AUTHOR OF "WIDE, WIDE WORLD."

AUTHORIZED EDITION.

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I.

LEIPZIG

BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ

1864.

NOTE TO THE READER.

The incidents and testimonies given in this work as matters of fact,
are not drawn from imagination, but reported from excellent
authority--though I have used my own words. And in the cases of
reported words of third parties, the words stand unchanged, without any
meddling.

THE AUTHOR.

THE OLD HELMET.

CHAPTER I.

THE RUINS.

"She look'd and saw that all was ruinous,
Here stood a shattered archway plumed with fern;
And here had fall'n a great part of a tower,
Whole, like a crag that tumbles from the cliff,
And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers,
And high above a piece of turret stair,
Worn by the feet that now were silent,
Bare to the sun."

The first thing noticeable is a gleam of white teeth. Now that is a
pleasant thing generally; yet its pleasantness depends, after all, upon
the way the lips part over the ivory. There is a world of character
discoverable in the curve of those soft lines. In the present case,
that of a lady, as it is undoubtedly the very first thing you notice,
the matter must be investigated. The mouth is rather large, with well
cut lips however; and in the smile which comes not infrequently, the
lips part freely and frankly, though not too far, over a wealth of
white, beautiful teeth. So free is the curve of the upper lip, and so
ready its revelation of the treasures beneath, that there is an instant
suspicion of a certain frankness and daring, and perhaps of a little
mischief, on the part of their possessor; so free, at the same time, as
to forbid t