And yet the picture before him could have scarcely been unpleasing to
the most fastidious eye. The girl's face, drooping over her work, was
very fair. The features were delicate and statuesque in their form; the
large hazel eyes were very beautiful--all the more beautiful, perhaps,
because of a soft melancholy that subdued their natural brightness; the
smooth brown hair rippling upon the white forehead, which was low and
broad, was of a colour which a duchess might have envied, or an empress
tried to imitate with subtle dyes compounded by court chemists. The
girl's figure, tall, slender, and flexible, imparted grace and beauty to
a shabby cotton dress and linen collar, that many a maid-servant would
have disdained to wear; and the foot visible below the scanty skirt was
slim and arched as the foot of an Arab chief.

There was something in Margaret Wentworth's face, some shade of
expression, vague and transitory in its nature, that bore a likeness to
her father; but the likeness was a very faint one, and it was from her
mother that the girl had inherited her beauty.

She had inherited her mother's nature also: but mingled with that soft
and womanly disposition there was much of the father's determination,
much of the strong man's force of intellect and resolute will.

A beautiful woman--an amiable woman; but a woman whose resentment for a
great wrong could be deep and lasting.

"Madge," said James Wentworth, throwing his pipe aside, and looking full
at his daughter, "I sit and watch you sometimes till I begin to wonder
at you. You seem contented and most happy, though the monotonous life
you lead would drive some women mad. Have you no ambition, girl?"