, she was able to find
food for mental growth. Even, in the last year, she had reached a point
of development whereat she began to study seriously her own position in
the world's economy, to meditate on a method of bettering it. Under this
impulse, hope mounted high in her heart. Ambition was born. By candid
comparison of herself with others about her, she realized the fact that
she possessed an intelligence beyond the average. The training by her
father, too, had been of a superior kind. There was as well, at the back
vaguely, the feeling of particular self-respect that belongs inevitably
to the possessor of good blood. Finally, she demurely enjoyed a modest
appreciation of her own physical advantages. In short, she had
beauty, brains and breeding. Three things of chief importance to any
woman--though there be many minds as to which may be chief among the
three.

I have said nothing specific thus far as to the outer being of Mary
Turner--except as to filmed eyes and a huddled form. But, in a happier
situation, the girl were winning enough. Indeed, more! She was one of
those that possess an harmonious beauty, with, too, the penetrant charm
that springs from the mind, with the added graces born of the spirit.
Just now, as she sat, a figure of desolation, there on the bed in
the Tombs cell, it would have required a most analytical observer to
determine the actualities of her loveliness. Her form was disguised by
the droop of exhaustion. Her complexion showed the pallor of sorrowful
vigils. Her face was no more than a mask of misery. Yet, the shrewd
observer, if a lover of beauty, might have found much for delight, even
despite the concealment imposed by her present condition. Thus, the
stormy glory of her dark hair, great masses that ran a riot of shining
ripples and waves. And the straight line of the nose, not too thin, yet
fine enough for the rapture of a Praxiteles. And the pink daintiness of
the ear-tips, which peered warmly from beneath the pall of tresses. One
could know nothing accurately of the complexion now. But it were easy to
guess that in happier places it would show of a purity to entice, with a
gentle blooming of roses in the cheeks. Even in this hour of unmitigated
evil, the lips revealed a curving beauty of red--not quite crimson,
though near enough for the word; not quite scarlet either; only, a red
gently enchanting, which turned one's thoughts toward tenderness--with
a hint of desire. It was, too, a g