brilliant smile. Brilliant is indeed the word at this moment for his
strongly-lighted face. He was eight and twenty years old; he had a
short, slight, well-made figure. Though he bore a noticeable resemblance
to his sister, he was a better favored person: fair-haired, clear-faced,
witty-looking, with a delicate finish of feature and an expression at
once urbane and not at all serious, a warm blue eye, an eyebrow finely
drawn and excessively arched--an eyebrow which, if ladies wrote sonnets
to those of their lovers, might have been made the subject of such a
piece of verse--and a light moustache that flourished upwards as if
blown that way by the breath of a constant smile. There was something
in his physiognomy at once benevolent and picturesque. But, as I have
hinted, it was not at all serious. The young man's face was, in this
respect, singular; it was not at all serious, and yet it inspired the
liveliest confidence.

"Be sure you put in plenty of snow," said his sister. "Bonte divine,
what a climate!"

"I shall leave the sketch all white, and I shall put in the little
figures in black," the young man answered, laughing. "And I shall call
it--what is that line in Keats?--Mid-May's Eldest Child!"

"I don't remember," said the lady, "that mamma ever told me it was like
this."

"Mamma never told you anything disagreeable. And it 's not like
this--every day. You will see that to-morrow we shall have a splendid
day."

"Qu'en savez-vous? To-morrow I shall go away."