sharp.

Such was Clara Desmond at sixteen. But still, even then, to those
who were gifted with the power of seeing, she gave promise of great
loveliness. Her eyes were long and large, and wonderfully clear.
There was a liquid depth in them which enabled the gazer to look
down into them as he would into the green, pellucid transparency of
still ocean water. And then they said so much--those young eyes of
hers: from her mouth in those early years words came but scantily,
but from her eyes questions rained quicker than any other eyes could
answer them. Questions of wonder at what the world contained,--of
wonder as to what men thought and did; questions as to the inmost
heart, and truth, and purpose of the person questioned. And all this
was asked by a glance now and again; by a glance of those long, shy,
liquid eyes, which were ever falling on the face of him she
questioned, and then ever as quickly falling from it.

Her face, as I have said, was long and thin, but it was the longness
and thinness of growing youth. The natural lines of it were full of
beauty, of pale silent beauty, too proud in itself to boast itself
much before the world, to make itself common among many. Her hair
was already long and rich, but was light in colour, much lighter
than it grew to be when some four or five more years had passed over
her head. At the time of which I speak she wore it in simple braids
brushed back from her forehead, not having as yet learned that
majestic mode of sweeping it from her face which has in subsequent
years so generally prevailed.

And what then of her virtues and her faults--of her merits and
defects? Will it not be better to leave them all to time and the