and nobody, looking at her face, could wish to do any thing but please
her--so kind was the gaze of her deep blue eyes, so pleasant the
frankness of her gentle forehead, so playful the readiness of rosy lips
for a pretty answer or a lovely smile. But if any could be found so
callous and morose as not to be charmed or nicely cheered by this,
let him only take a longer look, not rudely, but simply in a spirit of
polite inquiry; and then would he see, on the delicate rounding of each
soft and dimpled cheek, a carmine hard to match on palette, morning sky,
or flower bed.

Lovely people ought to be at home in lovely places; and though this can
not be so always, as a general rule it is. At Anerley Farm the land was
equal to the stock it had to bear, whether of trees, or corn, or cattle,
hogs, or mushrooms, or mankind. The farm was not so large or rambling
as to tire the mind or foot, yet wide enough and full of change--rich
pasture, hazel copse, green valleys, fallows brown, and golden
breast-lands pillowing into nooks of fern, clumps of shade for horse
or heifer, and for rabbits sandy warren, furzy cleve for hare and
partridge, not without a little mere for willows and for wild-ducks. And
the whole of the land, with a general slope of liveliness and rejoicing,
spread itself well to the sun, with a strong inclination toward the
morning, to catch the cheery import of his voyage across the sea.

The pleasure of this situation was the more desirable because of all
the parts above it being bleak and dreary. Round the shoulders of the
upland, like the arch of a great arm-chair, ran a barren scraggy ridge,
whereupon no tree could stand upright, no cow be certain of her own
tail, and scarcely a crow breast the violent air by stooping ragged
pinions, so furious was the rush of wind when any power awoke the
clouds; or sometimes, when the air was jaded with continual conflict, a