Page:Catherine of Bragança, infanta of Portugal, & queen-consort of England.djvu/36

12 petite; some of her enemies spoke of her as a dwarf — a ridiculous slander. Evelyn says of her that " though low of stature, she was prettily shaped/' and " lovely enough " when he saw her in England. Her earliest portraits show an open, pleasant girl-face, with a thoughtful expression, even in smiling, and a faint pout to the lips ; but of that there will be more to say presently. She was quiet in manner, digni- fied and self-possessed, and had plenty of wit and spirit in her talk. She was the pet and darling of her family, and of the nation. It is small wonder if she inherited some of her mothers strong will, and added to it some wilfulness of her own. She was naturally serious in mind, and her convent training probably put the capstone to her passionate devotion. She was religious in heart and mind — a religion that permeated every hour of her day, every thought of her mind. The convent should have been her vocation, and there are hints that in very early youth she would have desired it. But her ambitious mother had far other schemes for her only girl.

Catherine's baby days had been spent in Villa Vi^osa, and her baby feet may have taken their first steps in the great saloon :here, where the five-and- twenty portraits of the House of Bragan9a frown or simper from the walls. Now she was in Lisbon, city of delight. It was ranked third of all European cities in beauty, especially on the sea approach. It stood on seven hills, like Rome, and its palaces and churches were beautiful and stately, and its fortresses were strong. When spring set in, the country round about was white with the foam of orange and lemon and citron trees, and pink with the bloom of the peach. There the fig and the almond and the mulberry ripened, and the pomegranate and the myrtle and the rosemary and the lavender grew into mighty shrubs. The licorice flourished, and camellia trees grew five- and-twenty feet high. The vines festooned the tall