plump rose's? Do you like a thinnish fall of golden hair, or an abundant
cluster of nut-brown? Do you like your blonde with limpid blue eyes, or
prefer an endowment of sunny hazel? Finally, are you taken by an air of
artistic innocence winding serpentine about your heart's fibres; or is
blushing simplicity sweeter to you? Mrs. Lovell's eyebrows were the
faintly-marked trace of a perfect arch. The other young person's were
thickish, more level; a full brown colour. She looked as if she had not
yet attained to any sense of her being a professed beauty: but the fair
widow was clearly bent upon winning you, and had a shy, playful
intentness of aspect. Her pure white skin was flat on the bone; the lips
came forward in a soft curve, and, if they were not artistically stained,
were triumphantly fresh. Here, in any case, she beat her rival, whose
mouth had the plebeian beauty's fault of being too straight in a line,
and was not trained, apparently, to tricks of dainty pouting.

It was morning, and the cousins having sponged in pleasant cold water,
arranged themselves for exercise, and came out simultaneously into the
sitting-room, slippered, and in flannels. They nodded and went through
certain curt greetings, and then Algernon stepped to a cupboard and
tossed out the leather gloves. The room was large and they had a
tolerable space for the work, when the breakfast-table had been drawn a
little on one side. You saw at a glance which was the likelier man of
the two, when they stood opposed. Algernon's rounded features, full lips
and falling chin, were not a match, though he was quick on his feet, for
the wary, prompt eyes, set mouth, and hardness of Edward. Both had stout
muscle, but in Edward there was vigour of brain as well, which seemed to
knit and inform his shape without which, in fact, a man is as a ship
under no command. Both looked their best; as, when sparring, men always
do look.