with dark brown
hair, which she wore fastened in a knot at the back of her head,
after the simplest fashion. Her eyes were large and grey, and full
of lustre; but they were not eyes which would make you say that Mary
Lowther was especially a bright-eyed girl. They were eyes, however,
which could make you think, when they looked at you, that if Mary
Lowther would only like you, how happy your lot would be,--that if
she would love you, the world would have nothing higher or better to
offer. If you judged her face by any rules of beauty, you would say
that it was too thin; but feeling its influence with sympathy, you
could never wish it to be changed. Her nose and mouth were perfect.
How many little noses there are on young women's faces which of
themselves cannot be said to be things of beauty, or joys for ever,
although they do very well in their places! There is the softness
and colour of youth, and perhaps a dash of fun, and the eyes above
are bright, and the lips below alluring. In the midst of such sweet
charms, what does it matter that the nose be puggish,--or even a
nose of putty, such as you think you might improve in the original
material by a squeeze of your thumb and forefinger? But with Mary
Lowther her nose itself was a feature of exquisite beauty, a feature
that could be eloquent with pity, reverence, or scorn. The curves of
the nostrils, with their almost transparent membranes, told of the
working of the mind within, as every portion of human face should
tell--in some degree. And the mouth was equally expressive, though
the lips were thin. It was a mouth to watch, and listen to, and read
with curious interest, rather than a mouth to kiss. Not but that
the desire to kiss would come, when there might be a hope to kiss
with favour;--but they were lips which no man would think to ravage
in boisterous play. It might have been said that there was a want
of capability for passion in her face, had it not been for the
well-marked dimple in her little chin,--that soft couch in which one
may be always sure, when one sees it, that some little imp of Love
lies hidden.

It has already been said that Mary Lowther was tall,--taller than
common. Her back was as lovely a form of womanhood as man's eye ever
measured and appreciated. Her movements, which were never naturally
quick, had a grace about them which touched men and women alike. It
was the very poetry of motion; but its chief beauty consisted in
this, that it was w