It was dark-brown hair, not soft and delicately fine like
Sophie's, but vigorous and crisp, each hair seeming to be distinct, and
yet harmonizing with the rest. As it was loosened and fell voluminously
spreading over her shoulders, she paused, resting against the table, and
looked at her face in the glass with critical earnestness. The candle,
standing at one side of the mirror, cast soft and deep shadows beneath
the darkly-defined eyebrows, and against the straight line of the nose,
and around the clear, short curves of the mouth and upper lip. The light
rested tenderly on her firm, oval cheeks, so deep-toned, yet pale, and
brought out an almost invisible dimple on each cheek-bone beneath the
eye, usually only to be distinguished when she laughed or smiled. The
forehead, so far as it could be seen beneath the hair, was smooth and
straight, neither high nor especially wide. The ears were small and
white, but rather too much cut away below to be in perfect proportion.
Over all seemed spread a mellow, rich, transparent, laughing medium,
that was better than beauty, and without which beauty would have seemed
cold and tame, or at least passionless. There was a delicate mystery in
the face, too, not conscious or self-woven, but of that impalpable and
involuntary sort which sometimes looks from the eyes of young unmarried
women, whose natures have developed sweetly and freely, without warping
or forcing.
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