, she stands bathed in the soft light of the many candles
that beam down with mild kindliness upon her. It seems as though they
love to rest upon her,--to add yet one more charm, if it may be, to the
sweet, graceful figure, the half-angry, wholly charming attitude, the
tender, lovable, fresh young face.

Her eyes, large, dark, and blue,--true Irish eyes, that bespeak her
father's race,--shine with a steady clearness. They do not sparkle, they
are hardly brilliant; they look forth at one with an expression so soft,
so earnest, yet withal so merry, as would make one stake their all on
the sure fact that the heart within her must be golden.

Her nut-brown hair, drawn back from her low brow into a loose coil
behind, is enriched here and there with little sunny tresses, while
across her forehead a few wavy locks--veritable love-locks, in Molly's
case--wander idly, not as of a set purpose, but rather as though they
have there drifted of their own gay will.

Upon her cheeks no roses lie,--unless they be the very creamiest roses
that ever eye beheld. She is absolutely without color until such
occasions rise as when grief or gladness touch her and dye her lovely
skin with their red glow.

But it is her mouth--at once her betrayer and her chief charm--that one
loves. In among its many curves lies all her wickedness,--the beautiful
mouth, so full of mockery, laughter, fun, a certain decision, and
tenderness unspeakable.

She smiles, and all her face is as one perfect sunbeam. Surely never has
she looked so lovely. The smile dies, her lips close, a pensive
sweetness creeps around them, and one terms one's self a fatuous fool to
have deemed her at her best a moment since; and so on through all the
many changes that only serve to show how countless is her store of
hidden charms.

She is slender, but not lean, round, yet certainly not full, and of a
middle height. For herself, she is impulsive; a little too quick at
times, fond of life and laughter, as all youth should be, while perhaps
(that I should live to say it!) down deep within her, somewhere, there
hides, but half suppressed and ever ready to assert itself, a wayward,
turbulent vein that must be termed coquetry.

Now, at this instant the little petulant frown, born of "hope deferred,"
that puckers up her forehead has fallen into her eyes, notwithstanding
the jealous guard of the long curling lashes, and, looking out defiantly
from thence, gives her all the appearance o