her niece to favour him and become his wife.

Barbara Lanison could not be unconscious of the sensation she caused--a
woman never is--but she sometimes studied the reflection in her mirror,
and tried to discover the reason. Quite honestly she failed. She was not
dissatisfied with the reflection, in its way it was pleasing, she
admitted, but she had not supposed that it was of the kind that would
appeal to men, and to such a variety of men. The women who usually
pleased them were so different. It even occurred to her that there might
be something in herself, in her behaviour, which was not quite nice, and
that her real attraction lay in this, an idea which proved that her
estimate of the men who came to her aunt's house was not a very high
one.

Born and bred in the country, and with an amount of learning which her
uncle considered unnecessary, she had prejudices, no doubt, and possibly
had a standard of female beauty in her mind which her own reflection did
not satisfy. That she was mistaken in her own estimate of herself was
certain, or the men would not have been so assiduous in their
attentions. Perhaps she admired dark women, and the reflection which
smiled at her out of the depths of the mirror was fair. The eyes were
blue--that blue which the sky shows in the early morning of a cloudless
day, and there was a suggestion of tears in them--the tears which may
come from much laughter rather than those which speak of sorrow. There
was a touch of gold in the fair hair, which was inclined to be
rebellious and curl into little lovelocks about her neck and forehead.
The skin was fair, with the bloom of perfect health upon it, and the
little mouth was firm, the lips fresh as from the kiss of a rose. There
was grace in all her movements, that unstudied grace which tells of life
in the open air and freedom from restraint; and in thought and word and