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A Crystal Age by W. H. (William Henry) Hudson
page 109 of 195 (55%)
gazing like one fascinated, until Yoletta took my hand and gently drew
me away. Still, in spite of the absorbing nature of the matter on which
I was bound, that strange face continued to haunt me, and glancing up
and down through that long array of calm-browed, beautiful women, I
could see no one that was like it.

Arrived at the end of the gallery, we ascended the broad stone steps,
and came to a landing twenty or thirty feet above the level of the floor
we had traversed. Here Yoletta pushed a glass door aside and ushered me
into another apartment--the Mother's Room. It was spacious, and, unlike
the gallery, well-lighted; the air in it was also warm and balmy, and
seemed charged with a subtle aroma. But now my whole attention was
concentrated on a group of persons before me, and chiefly on its central
figure--the woman I had so much desired to see. She was seated, leaning
back in a somewhat listless attitude, on a very large, low, couch-like
seat, covered with a soft, violet-colored material. My very first glance
at her face revealed to me that she differed in appearance and
expression from other inmates of the house: one reason was that she was
extremely pale, and bore on her worn countenance the impress of
long-continued suffering; but that was not all. She wore her hair, which
fell unbound on her shoulders, longer than the others, and her eyes
looked larger, and of a deeper green. There was something wonderfully
fascinating to me in that pale, suffering face, for, in spite of
suffering, it was beautiful and loving; but dearer than all these things
to my mind were the marks of passion it exhibited, the petulant, almost
scornful mouth, and the half-eager, half-weary expression of the eyes,
for these seemed rather to belong to that imperfect world from which I
had been severed, and which was still dear to my unregenerate heart. In
other respects also she differed from the rest of the women, her dress
being a long, pale-blue robe, embroidered with saffron-colored flowers
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