The elder was a Mrs. Martha Garland, a landscape-painter's widow,
and the other was her only daughter Anne.

Anne was fair, very fair, in a poetical sense; but in complexion she
was of that particular tint between blonde and brunette which is
inconveniently left without a name. Her eyes were honest and
inquiring, her mouth cleanly cut and yet not classical, the middle
point of her upper lip scarcely descending so far as it should have
done by rights, so that at the merest pleasant thought, not to
mention a smile, portions of two or three white teeth were uncovered
whether she would or not. Some people said that this was very
attractive. She was graceful and slender, and, though but little
above five feet in height, could draw herself up to look tall. In
her manner, in her comings and goings, in her 'I'll do this,' or
'I'll do that,' she combined dignity with sweetness as no other girl
could do; and any impressionable stranger youths who passed by were
led to yearn for a windfall of speech from her, and to see at the
same time that they would not get it. In short, beneath all that
was charming and simple in this young woman there lurked a real
firmness, unperceived at first, as the speck of colour lurks
unperceived in the heart of the palest parsley flower.

She wore a white handkerchief to cover her white neck, and a cap on
her head with a pink ribbon round it, tied in a bow at the front.
She had a great variety of these cap-ribbons, the young men being
fond of sending them to her as presents until they fell definitely
in love with a special sweetheart elsewhere, when they left off
doing so. Between the border of her cap and her forehead were
ranged a row of round brown curls, like swallows' nests under eaves.