She had her
sainted mother's great blue, soulful eyes, with finer features and more
brilliant coloring, and her father's gleaming teeth and clustering hair,
"brown in the shadow, gold in the sun," falling, like his, over a brow
of sculptured ivory. I was not alone in my appreciation of her
loveliness. It was a theme of universal remark. Even Mr. Bainrothe, who
could never forgive my father for having married his children's
governess, confessed that she had the "air noble," which he valued far
above beauty. "And where she got it from, Miriam, is sufficiently
plain," he said, one day, glancing at me with undisguised admiration as
he spoke. "Her mother was simple and unpretending enough, Heaven above
knows, but you Monforts, and you, especially, Miriam, are truly
_distingue_, which is a word that cannot often be justly applied in any
land to man or woman either."
"By-the-by, Miriam," he continued, "you are growing into a very
beautiful woman, after a somewhat unpromising childhood. You surpass
Evelyn as rubies do garnets, or diamonds _aqua marine_, or sapphires the
opaque turquoise. You do, indeed, my dear," and he attempted to take my
hand in the old fashion. I murmured something indicative of my
disapprobation.
"It is an exquisite hand!" he remarked, as I coldly drew it away; "I
have an artist's eye, and can admire beauty in the abstract, even though
I am an old man, you know.
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