r had not forgotten how to come and go there at
fitting seasons; at any rate, the grand clear white could never be
mistaken for an unhealthy pallor. An extraordinarily good constitution
was ever part of a Tresilyan's inheritance; and if you doubted whether
her blood circulated freely you had only to compare her cheek on a
bitter March day with some red-and-white ones, when a sharp east wind
had forced those last to mount _all_ the stripes of the tricolor. By the
way, are not the "roses dipped in milk" going out of fashion just now? A
humble but stanch adherent of the house of York, I like to think--how
many battle-fields, since Towton, our Flower has won!

But if Cecil's face was not faultless, her figure _was_. Had one single
proportion been exaggerated or deficient, she could never have carried
off her height so lithely and gracefully. She might take twenty _poses_
in a morning, and people always thought they would choose the last one
to have her painted in. Here, she was quite inimitable. For instance,
women, I believe, used to practice in their own room for hours to catch
her peculiar way of half-reclining in an arm-chair; but the most
painstaking of them all never achieved any thing beyond a caricature.
Yet no one could accuse her of studying stage-effects. If a trifle of
the _Incedo Regina_ marked her walk and carriage, it was a l'Eugenie,
not a la Statira.

Indeed, she was thoroughly natural all over; cleverer and more
fascinating, certainly, than ninety-nine women out of every hundred; but
not one bit more strong-minded, or heroic, or self-denying. She had been
very well brought up, and had undeniably good principles; but she would
yield to occasional small temptations with perfect grace and facility.
Great ones she had never yet encountered; for Cecil, if not quite
fancy-free, had only read and perhaps dreamed of passions. She had known
one remorse, of which you may hear hereafter (not a heavy allowance,
considering her opportunities), and one grief--the death of her mother.
She entertained a remarkable reverence for all ministers of the
Established Church; yet she was about the last woman alive to have
married a clergyman, and would have considered the charge of the old
women and schools of a country parish as a lingering and unsatisfactory
martyrdom. There never was a more constant attendant at all sorts of
divine service; though perhaps the most casual of worshipers had never
been more bored than she was by