Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/37

Rh, and such a look of youthfulness that I had some difficulty in persuading a friend that the translatress of Æschylus, the author of the Essay on Mind, was, in technical language, 'out.'"

To another friend, Miss Mitford described Miss Barrett as "a slight, girlish figure, very delicate, with exquisite hands and feet, a round face with a most noble forehead, a large mouth, beautifully formed and full of expression, lips like parted coral, teeth large, regular, and glittering with healthy whiteness, large dark eyes, with such eye-lashes, resting on the cheek when cast down, when turned upwards touching the flexible and expressive eyebrow, a dark complexion, literally as bright as the dark china rose, a profusion of silky, dark curls, and a look of youth and of modesty hardly to be expressed. This, added to the very simple but graceful and costly dress by which all the family are distinguished, is an exact portrait of her."

Once introduced to each other, the acquaintanceship between the two authoresses grew rapidly. "I saw much of her during my stay in town," writes Miss Mitford. "We met so constantly and so familiarly that, in spite of the difference of age, intimacy ripened into friendship, and after my return into the country, we corresponded freely and frequently, her letters being just what letters ought to be—her own talk put upon paper."

No sooner had Miss Mitford returned home to the companionship of her idolized but extremely undeserving father, than she commenced a constant and voluminous correspondence with her new friend Elizabeth Barrett, confiding all her troubles to her, in return being made acquainted with the young poetess's