"Face elongated and pale-"

"Sallow, John, decidedly sallow."

"Be it so, sallow. Big eyes, much given to observation, which means
hard staring. Take them off me, Phineas, or I'll not lie on the
grass a minute longer. Thank you. To return: Imprimis and finis
(I'm grand at Latin now, you see)--long hair, which, since the powder
tax, has resumed its original blackness, and is--any young damsel
would say, only we count not a single one among our acquaintance--
exceedingly bewitching."

I smiled, feeling myself colour a little too, weak invalid as I was.
I was, nevertheless, twenty years old; and although Jael and Sally
were the only specimens of the other sex which had risen on my
horizon, yet once or twice, since I had read Shakspeare, I had had a
boy's lovely dreams of the divinity of womanhood. They began, and
ended--mere dreams. Soon dawned the bare, hard truth, that my
character was too feeble and womanish to be likely to win any woman's
reverence or love. Or, even had this been possible, one sickly as I
was, stricken with hereditary disease, ought never to seek to
perpetuate it by marriage. I therefore put from me, at once and for
ever, every feeling of that kind; and during my whole life--I thank
God!--have never faltered in my resolution. Friendship was given me
for love--duty for happiness. So best, and I was satisfied.

This conviction, and the struggle succeeding it--for, though brief,
it was but natural that it should have been a hard struggle--was the
only secret that I had kept from John. It had happened some months