It lingered longest in the hand of Anthony
Hurdlestone. The lines possessed no particular merit. They were tender
and affectionate, true to nature and nature's simplicity, and as he read
and re-read them, it seemed as if the spirit of the author was in unison
with his own. "Happy girl!" he thought, "who can thus feel towards and
write of a father. How I envy you this blessed, holy affection!" He
raised his eyes, and rose up in confusion, to be presented to Miss
Whitmore.
Juliet could scarcely be termed beautiful; but her person was very
attractive. Her features were small, but belonged to none of the favored
orders of female beauty; and her complexion was pallid, rendered more
conspicuously so by the raven hair, that fell in long silken ringlets
down her slender white throat, and spread like a dark veil round her
elegant bust and shoulders. Her lofty brow was pure as marble, and
marked by that high look of moral and intellectual power, before which
mere physical beauty shrinks into insignificance. Soft pencilled
eyebrows gave additional depth and lustre to a pair of the most lovely
deep blue eyes that ever flashed from beneath a fringe of jet. There was
an expression of tenderness almost amounting to sadness, in those sweet
eyes; and when they were timidly raised to meet those of the young
Anthony, a light broke upon his heart, which the storms and clouds of
after-life could never again extinguish.
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