but created. Sunbeams like to follow me, I think. Now, when I stand in
one before this glass, infiltrated with the rich tinge, don't I look
like the spirit of it just stepped out for inspection? I seem to myself
like the complete incarnation of light, full, bounteous, overflowing,
and I wonder at and adore anything so beautiful; and the reflection
grows finer and deeper while I gaze, till I dare not do so any longer.
So, without more words, I'm a golden blonde. You see me now: not too
tall,--five feet four; not slight, or I couldn't have such perfect
roundings, such flexible moulding. Here's nothing of the spiny Diana and
Pallas, but Clytie or Isis speaks in such delicious curves. It don't
look like flesh and blood, does it? Can you possibly imagine it will
ever change? Oh!

Now see the face,--not small, either; lips with no particular outline,
but melting, and seeming as if they would stain yours, should you touch
them. No matter about the rest, except the eyes. Do you meet such eyes
often? You wouldn't open yours so, if you did. Note their color now,
before the ray goes. Yellow hazel? Not a bit of it! Some folks say
topaz, but they're fools. Nor sherry. There's a dark sardine base, but
over it real seas of light, clear light; there isn't any positive color;
and once when I was angry, I caught a glimpse of them in a mirror, and
they were quite white, perfectly colorless, only luminous. I looked like
a fiend, and, you may be sure, recovered my temper directly,--easiest
thing in the world, when you've motive enough. You see the pupil is
small, and that gives more expansion and force to the irides; but
sometimes in an evening, when I'm too gay, and a true damask settles in
the cheek, the pupil grows larger and crowds out the light, and under
these thick, brown lashes, these yellow-hazel eyes of yours, they are
dusky and purple and deep with flashes, like pansies lit by fire-flies,
and then common folks call them black. Be sure, I've never got such eyes