about church-spires.

She was not pretty; but even when it expressed perplexed irritation her
face was most interesting and agreeable. Neither was she in her
first youth; yet, though slender, with a great deal of extremely
well-fashioned roundness of contour--a suggestion both of maturity and
flexibility--she carried her three and thirty years as a light-wristed
Hebe might have carried a brimming wine-cup. Her complexion was
fatigued, as the French say; her mouth was large, her lips too full, her
teeth uneven, her chin rather commonly modeled; she had a thick nose,
and when she smiled--she was constantly smiling--the lines beside it
rose too high, toward her eyes. But these eyes were charming: gray
in color, brilliant, quickly glancing, gently resting, full of
intelligence. Her forehead was very low--it was her only handsome
feature; and she had a great abundance of crisp dark hair, finely
frizzled, which was always braided in a manner that suggested some
Southern or Eastern, some remotely foreign, woman. She had a large
collection of ear-rings, and wore them in alternation; and they seemed
to give a point to her Oriental or exotic aspect. A compliment had once
been paid her, which, being repeated to her, gave her greater pleasure
than anything she had ever heard. "A pretty woman?" some one had said.
"Why, her features are very bad." "I don't know about her features," a
very discerning observer had answered; "but she carries her head like a
pretty woman." You may imagine whether, after this, she carried her head
less becomingly.

She turned away from the window at last, pressing her hands to her eyes.
"It 's too horrible!" she exclaimed. "I shall go back--I shall go back!"
And she flung herself into a chair before the fire.

"Wait a little, dear child," said the young man softly, sketching away
at his little scraps of paper.

The lady put out her foot; it was very small, and there was an immense
rosette on her slipper. She fixed her eyes for a while on this ornament,
and then she looked at the glowing bed of anthracite coal in the grate.
"Did you ever see anything so hideous as that fire?" she demanded.
"Did you ever see anything so--so affreux as--as everything?" She spoke
English with perfect purity; but she brought out this French epithet
in a manner that indicated that she was accustomed to using French
epithets.

"I think the fire is very pretty," said the young man, glancing at it
a moment. "Those little bl