Her head was bare; for she often gave her headpiece to
her page to carry for her, and in the evenings did not always
replace it by any other covering. Her hair had grown a little
longer during these months, and curled round her face in a loose
halo, which in the strong and ruddy light of the setting sun, shone
a glorious golden colour, as though a ray of heavenly light were
enmeshed within it.
But it was the extraordinary brightness of those great luminous
eyes, the rapt and intense expression of her face which arrested my
attention, and seemed for a moment to stop the triumphant beating
of my heart. It was not triumph which I read there, though there
was joy and rapture and peace, beyond all power of understanding.
It was the face of one who sees heaven open, and in the wonder and
awe of the beatific vision forgets all else, and feels not the
fetters of the flesh, heeds not those things which must needs
intervene ere the spirit can finally be loosed to enter upon
blessedness and rest, but soars upwards at once into heavenly
regions.
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