and the print-shop windows--and the sentence must have inevitably
followed. "She has not a single good feature in her face."

There was nothing individually remarkable about Miss Silvester, seen in
a state of repose. She was of the average height. She was as well made
as most women. In hair and complexion she was neither light nor dark,
but provokingly neutral just between the two. Worse even than this,
there were positive defects in her face, which it was impossible to
deny. A nervous contraction at one corner of her mouth drew up the
lips out of the symmetrically right line, when, they moved. A nervous
uncertainty in the eye on the same side narrowly escaped presenting the
deformity of a "cast." And yet, with these indisputable drawbacks, here
was one of those women--the formidable few--who have the hearts of men
and the peace of families at their mercy. She moved--and there was some
subtle charm, Sir, in the movement, that made you look back, and suspend
your conversation with your friend, and watch her silently while she
walked. She sat by you and talked to you--and behold, a sensitive
something passed into that little twist at the corner of the mouth, and
into that nervous uncertainty in the soft gray eye, which turned defect
into beauty--which enchained your senses--which made your nerves thrill
if she touched you by accident, and set your heart beating if you looked
at the same book with her, and felt her breath on your face. All this,
let it be well understood, only happened if you were a man.

If you saw her with the eyes of a woman, the results were of quite
another kind. In that case you merely turned to your nearest female
friend, and said, with unaffected pity for the other sex, "What _can_
the men see in her!"

The eyes of the lady of the house and the eyes of the governess met,