reality, speaking of women, I have seen many beautiful figures, but
hardly one except Agnes that could, without hyperbole, be styled truly
and memorably magnificent. Though in the first order of tall women,
yet, being full in person, and with a symmetry that was absolutely
faultless, she seemed to the random sight as little above the ordinary
height. Possibly from the dignity of her person, assisted by the
dignity of her movements, a stranger would have been disposed to call
her at a distance a woman of _commanding_ presence; but never,
after he had approached near enough to behold her face. Every thought
of artifice, of practised effect, or of haughty pretension, fled before
the childlike innocence, the sweet feminine timidity, and the more than
cherub loveliness of that countenance, which yet in its lineaments was
noble, whilst its expression was purely gentle and confiding. A shade
of pensiveness there was about her; but _that_ was in her manners,
scarcely ever in her features; and the exquisite fairness of her
complexion, enriched by the very sweetest and most delicate bloom that
ever I have beheld, should rather have allied it to a tone of
cheerfulness. Looking at this noble creature, as I first looked at her,
when yet upon the early threshold of womanhood

'With household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty'

you might have supposed her some Hebe or young Aurora of the dawn. When
you saw only her superb figure, and its promise of womanly development,
with the measured dignity of her step, you might for a moment have
fancied her some imperial Medea of the Athenian stage--some Volumnia
from Rome,

'Or ruling bandit's wife amidst the Grecian isles.'