My reader is probably desirous of hearing something about Aster's
face, notwithstanding the assumption that it was beautiful. As a rule
we expect to find chestnut eyes with ruddy-golden hair; but this was
not the fact in Aster's case. Her eyes were the colour which men like
Theophile Gauthier attribute to Venus: they were not blue, neither
were they brown; but they presented in the most fascinating _ensemble_
a grey which at night was a fathomless dusk, and by day that green
which you perceive where the sea is a hundred fathoms deep. With the
light upon her eye there was a glint of emerald, that witching glare
which made Becky Sharpe irresistible. Now imagine an eyebrow, dark as
the raven's quill, overarching such an eye, and contrasting itself
with the burning gold of the hair, and a skin of Parian white and
purity. Then contemplate a softness beside which the velvet upon the
petal of a pansy would seem rigid; and this eye large and timorous,
and fringed with long, dark lashes!

I do not like the work of cataloguing 'divine wares,' especially
when my most elaborate estimate must present a picture crude and
mathematical compared with the ideal.

This girl's nose was Roman in type; and was precisely like that
which the engraver gives to Annette Marton. The nostrils were finely
chiselled, betokening sensitiveness: and I may add that I have never
known anybody with a thick nostril to be sensitive.

For a moment Roland's eyes were fixed wistfully upon the girl's, and
he did not answer her question. But escape from the enquiring,
unflinching stare was out of the question; so he said, mustering all
the courage that he could: