like the softened tracing of a pencil at the distant
junction of the waters with the horizon.

The windows that commanded this prospect were now open;
and through that which was nearest to the gate, half
reclined the elegant, slight, and somewhat petite form
of a female, who, with one small and delicately formed
hand supporting her cheek, while the other played almost
unconsciously with an open letter, glanced her eye
alternately, and with an expression of joyousness, towards
the vessel that lay beyond, and the point in which the
source of the Sinclair was known to lie. It was Clara de
Haldimar.

Presently the vacant space at the same window was filled
by another form, but of less girlish appearance--one that
embraced all the full rich contour of the Medicean Venus,
and a lazy languor in its movements that harmonised with
the speaking outlines of the form, and without which the
beauty of the whole would have been at variance and
imperfect. Neither did the face belie the general expression
of the figure. The eyes, of a light hazel, were large,
full, and somewhat prominent--the forehead broad, high,
and redolent with an expression of character--and the
cheek rich in that peculiar colour which can be likened
only to the downy hues of the peach, and is, in itself,
a physical earnest of the existence of deep, but not
boisterous--of devoted, but not obtrusive affections;
an impression that was not, in the present instance,
weakened by the full and pouting lip, and the rather