glory; but above
all she smiled with her mouth, just showing, but hardly showing, the
beauty of the pearls within. I never saw the face of a woman whose
mouth was equal in pure beauty, in beauty that was expressive of
feeling, to that of Madeline Staveley. Many have I seen with a richer
lip, with a more luxurious curve, much more tempting as baits to the
villainy and rudeness of man; but never one that told so much by
its own mute eloquence of a woman's happy heart and a woman's happy
beauty. It was lovely as I have said in its mirth, but if possible it
was still more lovely in its woe; for then the lips would separate,
and the breath would come, and in the emotion of her suffering the
life of her beauty would be unrestrained.

Her face was oval, and some might say that it was almost too thin;
they might say so till they knew it well, but would never say so when
they did so know it. Her complexion was not clear, though it would be
wrong to call her a brunette. Her face and forehead were never brown,
but yet she could not boast the pure pink and the pearly white which
go to the formation of a clear complexion. For myself I am not sure
that I love a clear complexion. Pink and white alone will not give
that hue which seems best to denote light and life, and to tell of
a mind that thinks and of a heart that feels. I can name no colour
in describing the soft changing tints of Madeline Staveley's face,
but I will make bold to say that no man ever found it insipid or
inexpressive.

And now what remains for me to tell? Her nose was Grecian, but
perhaps a little too wide at the nostril to be considered perfect
in its chiselling. Her hair was soft and brown,--that dark brown
which by some lights is almost black; but she was not a girl whose
loveliness depended much upon her hair. With some women it is their
great charm,--Neaeras who love to sit half sleeping in the shade,--but
it is a charm that possesses no powerful eloquence. All beauty of a
high order should speak, and Madeline's beauty was ever speaking. And
now that I have said that, I believe that I have told all that may
be necessary to place her outward form before the inward eyes of my
readers.

In commencing this description I said that I would begin with her
exterior; but it seems to me now that in speaking of these I have
sufficiently noted also that which was within. Of her actual thoughts
and deeds up to this period it is not necessary for our purposes that
an