The De Courcys had never been plain. There was too much hauteur, too
much pride, we may perhaps even fairly say, too much nobility in their
gait and manners, and even in their faces, to allow of their being
considered plain; but they were not a race nurtured by Venus or
Apollo. They were tall and thin, with high cheek-bones, high
foreheads, and large, dignified, cold eyes. The De Courcy girls all
had good hair; and, as they also possessed easy manners and powers of
talking, they managed to pass in the world for beauties till they were
absorbed in the matrimonial market, and the world at large cared no
longer whether they were beauties or not. The Misses Gresham were made
in the De Courcy mould, and were not on this account the less dear to
their mother.

The two eldest, Augusta and Beatrice, lived, and were apparently likely
to live. The four next faded and died one after another--all in the
same sad year--and were laid in the neat, new cemetery at Torquay. Then
came a pair, born at one birth, weak, delicate, frail little flowers,
with dark hair and dark eyes, and thin, long, pale faces, with long,
bony hands, and long bony feet, whom men looked on as fated to follow
their sisters with quick steps. Hitherto, however, they had not
followed them, nor had they suffered as their sisters had suffered; and
some people at Greshamsbury attributed this to the fact that a change
had been made in the family medical practitioner.

Then came the youngest of the flock, she whose birth we have said was
not heralded with loud joy; for when she came into the world, four
others with pale temples, wan, worn cheeks, and skeleton, white arms,
were awaiting permission to leave it.

Such was the family when, in the year 1854, the eldest son came of