the
verdict an independent woman renders on herself by not marrying,
either through losing suitors or rejecting them. Everybody supposed
that these rejections were founded on secret reasons, always ill
interpreted. One said she was deformed; another suggested some hidden
fault; but the poor girl was really as pure as a saint, as healthy as
an infant, and full of loving kindness; Nature had intended her for
all the pleasures, all the joys, and all the fatigues of motherhood.

Mademoiselle Cormon did not possess in her person an obliging
auxiliary to her desires. She had no other beauty than that very
improperly called la beaute du diable, which consists of a buxom
freshness of youth that the devil, theologically speaking, could never
have,--though perhaps the expression may be explained by the constant
desire that must surely possess him to cool and refresh himself. The
feet of the heiress were broad and flat. Her leg, which she often
exposed to sight by her manner (be it said without malice) of lifting
her gown when it rained, could never have been taken for the leg of a
woman. It was sinewy, with a thick projecting calf like a sailor's. A
stout waist, the plumpness of a wet-nurse, strong dimpled arms, red
hands, were all in keeping with the swelling outlines and the fat
whiteness of Norman beauty. Projecting eyes, undecided in color, gave
to her face, the rounded outline of which had no dignity, an air of
surprise and sheepish simplicity, which was suitable perhaps for an
old maid. If Rose had not been, as she was, really innocent, she would
have seemed so. An aquiline nose contrasted curiously with the
narrowness of her forehead; for it is rare that that form of nose does
not carry with it a fine brow. In spite of her thick red lips, a sign
of great kindliness, the forehead revealed too great a lack of ideas
to allow of the heart being guided by intellect; she was evidently
benevolent without grace. How severely we reproach Virtue for its
defects, and how full of indulgence we all are for the pleasanter
qualities of Vice!

Chestnut hair of extraordinary length gave to Rose Cormon's face a
beauty which results from vigor and abundance,--the physical qualities
most apparent in her person. In the days of her chief pretensions,
Rose affected to hold her head at the three-quarter angle, in order to
exhibit a very pretty ear, which detached itself from the blue-veined
whiteness of her throat and temples, set off, as it w