and a soul to endure, she thought enough. She believed in herself,
thinking of herself, that should it ever be her lot to be a man's wife,
she would be to him a true, loving friend and companion, living in his
joys, and fighting, if it were necessary, down to the stumps of her nails
in his interests. But of what she had to give over and above her heart and
intellect she never thought at all. Of personal beauty she had very little
appreciation even in others. The form and face of Lady Eustace, which
indeed were very lovely, were distasteful to her; whereas she delighted to
look upon the broad, plain, colourless countenance of Lydia Fawn, who was
endeared to her by frank good-humour and an unselfish disposition. In
regard to men, she had never asked herself the question whether this man
was handsome or that man ugly. Of Frank Greystock she knew that his face
was full of quick intellect; and of Lord Fawn she knew that he bore no
outward index of mind. One man she not only loved, but could not help
loving. The other man, as regarded that sort of sympathy which marriage
should recognise, must always have been worlds asunder from her. She knew
that men demand that women shall possess beauty, and she certainly had
never thought of herself as beautiful; but it did not occur to her that on
that account she was doomed to fail. She was too strong-hearted for any
such fear. She did not think much of these things, but felt herself to be
so far endowed as to be fit to be the wife of such a man as Frank
Greystock. She was a proud, stout, self-confident, but still modest little
woman, too fond of truth to tell lies of herself even to herself. She was
possessed of a great power of sympathy, genial, very social, greatly given
to the mirth of conversation--though in talking she would listen much and
say but little. She was keenly alive to humour, and had at her command a
great fund of laughter, which would illumine her whole face without
producing a sound from her mouth. She knew herself to be too good to be a
governess for life; and yet how could it be otherwise with her?