of expression, or
a dropsical, lethargic Madonna that you couldn't have told from an old
master, so bad it was. Her faculty of faithful reproduction even showed
itself in fanciful lettering,--and latterly in the imitation of fabrics
and signatures. Indeed, with her eye for beauty of form, she had always
excelled in penmanship at the Convent,--an accomplishment which the good
sisters held in great repute.

In person she was petite, with a still unformed girlish figure, perhaps
a little too flat across the back, and with possibly a too great
tendency to a boyish stride in walking. Her brow, covered by blue-black
hair, was low and frank and honest; her eyes, a very dark hazel, were
not particularly large, but rather heavily freighted in their melancholy
lids with sleeping passion; her nose was of that unimportant character
which no man remembers; her mouth was small and straight; her teeth,
white and regular. The whole expression of her face was piquancy that
might be subdued by tenderness or made malevolent by anger. At present
it was a salad in which the oil and vinegar were deftly combined.
The astute feminine reader will of course understand that this is the
ordinary superficial masculine criticism, and at once make up her mind
both as to the character of the young lady and the competency of the
critic. I only know that I rather liked her. And her functions are
somewhat important in this veracious history.

She looked up, started to her feet, leveled her black brows at the
intruder, but, at a sign from her uncle, showed her white teeth and
spake.

It was only a sentence, and a rather common-place one at that; but if
she could have put her voice upon her canvas, she might have retrieved
the Garcia fortunes. For it was so musical, so tender, so sympathizing,
so melodious, so replete with the graciousness of womanhood, that she
seemed to have invented the language. And yet that sentence was only
an exaggerated form of the 'How d'ye do,' whined out, doled out, lisped
out, or shot out from the pretty mouths of my fair countrywomen.

Miguel admired the paintings. He was struck particularly with a crayon
drawing of a mule. "Mother of God, it is the mule itself! observe how it
will not go." Then the crafty Victor broke in with, "But it is nothing
to her writing; look, you shall tell to me which is the handwriting
of Pio Pico;" and, from a drawer in the secretary, he drew forth two
signatures. One was affixed to a yellowish