if we may borrow that strong term from legal phraseology. She had the
plump arms of the Auvergnat women, the red and dimpled hand of a
barmaid, and her strong but well-shaped feet were in keeping with the
rest of her figure.

At times there seemed to pass within her a marvellous and delightful
phenomenon which promised to Love a woman concealed thus far from
every eye. This phenomenon was perhaps one cause of the admiration her
father and mother felt for her beauty, which they often declared to be
divine,--to the great astonishment of their neighbors. The first to
remark it were the priests of the cathedral and the worshippers with
her at the same altar. When a strong emotion took possession of
Veronique,--and the religious exaltation to which she yielded herself
on receiving the communion must be counted among the strongest
emotions of so pure and candid a young creature,--an inward light
seemed to efface for the moment all traces of the small-pox. The pure
and radiant face of her childhood reappeared in its pristine beauty.
Though slightly veiled by the thickened surface disease had laid
there, it shone with the mysterious brilliancy of a flower blooming
beneath the water of the sea when the sun is penetrating it. Veronique
was changed for a few moments; the Little Virgin reappeared and then
disappeared again, like a celestial vision. The pupils of her eyes,
gifted with the power of great expansion, widened until they covered
the whole surface of the blue iris except for a tiny circle. Thus the
metamorphose of the eye, which became as keen and vivid as that of an
eagle, completed the extraordinary change in the face. Was it the
storm of restrained passions; was it some power coming from the depths
of the soul, which enlarged the pupils in full daylight as they
sometimes in other eyes enlarge by night, darkening the azure of those
celestial orbs?