tment or mortified pride. She was certainly very beautiful,
and perhaps, had I now seen them both for the first time, I might have
acquiesced in the truth of Eveena's self-depreciation. As it was,
nothing could associate with the bright intelligent face, the clear
grey eyes and light brown hair, the lithe active form instinct with
nervous energy, that charm which from our first acquaintance their
expression of gentle kindness, and, later, the devoted affection
visible in every look, had given to Eveena's features.

It is, I suppose, hardly natural to man to feel actual unkindness
towards a young and beautiful girl who has given no personal offence.
Having once admitted, the justice of Eveena's plea, and feeling that
she would be more pained by the omission than by the fulfilment of the
forms which courtesy and common kindness imperatively demanded, I
kissed Eunane's brow and spoke a few words to her, with as much of
tenderness as I could feel or affect for Eveena's rival, after what
had passed to endear Eveena more than ever. The latter waited a
little, to allow me spontaneously to perform the same ceremony with
the other girls; but seeing my hesitation, she came forward again and
presented severally four others--Enva ("Snow" = Blanche), Leenoo
("Rose"), Eirale, Elfe, all more or less of the usual type of female
beauty in Mars, with long full tresses varying in tinge from flax to
deep gold or the lightest brown; each with features almost faultless,
and with all the attraction (to me unfailing) possessed for men who
have passed their youth by _la beaute du Diable_--the bloom of pure
graceful girlhood. Eive, the sixth of the party, standing on the right
of the others, and therefore last in place according to Martial usage,
was smaller and slighter than Eveena herself, and made an individual
impression on my attention by a manifest timidity and agitation
greater than any of the rest had evinced. As I removed her veil I was
struck by the total unlikeness which her face and form presented to
those I had just saluted. Her hair was so dark as by contrast to seem
black; her complexion less fair than those of her companions, though
as fair as that of an average Greek beauty; her eyes of deepest brown;
her limbs, and especially the hands and feet, marvellously perfect in
shape and colour, but in the delicacy and minuteness of their form
suggesting, as did all the proportions of her tiny figure, the
peculiar grace of childhood; an