hinking that some things seemed much easier to her
before she had tried them.

As she sat at the table with a faultless morning-gown, with a bunch of
English violets in her bosom, an artist could have desired no better
subject. Many people thought her eyes her best feature; they were large
brown eyes, yet not always brown, green at times, liquid, but never
uncertain, apt to have a smile in them, yet their chief appealing
characteristic was trustfulness, a pure sort of steadfastness, that
always conveyed the impression of a womanly personal interest in the
person upon whom they were fixed. They were eyes that haunted one like a
remembered strain of music. The lips were full, and the mouth was drawn
in such exquisite lines that it needed the clear-cut and emphasized chin
to give firmness to its beauty. The broad forehead, with arching
eyebrows, gave an intellectual cast to a face the special stamp of which
was purity. The nose, with thin open nostrils, a little too strong for
beauty, together with the chin, gave the impression of firmness and
courage; but the wonderful eyes, the inviting mouth, so modified this
that the total impression was that of high spirit and great sweetness of
character. It was the sort of face from which one might expect
passionate love or unflinching martyrdom. Her voice had a quality the
memory of which lingered longer even than the expression of her eyes; it
was low, and, as one might say, a fruity voice, not quite clear, though
sweet, as if veiled in femineity. This note of royal womanhood was also
in her figure, a little more than medium in height, and full of natural
grace. Somehow Edith, with all these good points, had not the reputation
of a belle or a beauty--perhaps for want of some artificial splendor--but
one could not be long in her company without feeling that she had great
charm, without which beauty becomes insipid and even commonplace, and
with which the plainest woman is attractive.

Edith's theory of life, if one may so dignify the longings of a young
girl, had been very simple, and not at all such as would be selected by
the heroine of a romance. She had no mission, nor was she afflicted by
that modern form of altruism which is a yearning for notoriety by
conspicuous devotion to causes and reforms quite outside her normal
sphere of activity. A very sincere person, with strong sympathy for
humanity tempered by a keen perception of the humorous side of things,
she had a purpose,