Page:Ethel Churchill 3.pdf/176

174 were on either side of the serpent's head: and the brilliants, of which they were composed, caught every ray of passing light. At her side was a bouquet of red and white roses, they had been sent that evening, with one single line,—"I hope and I fear!" The poet who first likened his mistress' eyes to the midnight, must have crazed on such orbs as those of that young and lovely countess. There was the moonlight—clear, melancholy, and spiritual; but there was also the shadow of the coming storm—the radiance that is of the meteor, and the darkness that is of the cloud. There was a troubled and unquiet brightness in those dark black eyes, which revealed the passionate workings of the fevered spirit and the beating heart. The cheek was flushed to the richest crimson; and there was that quiver about the muscles of the mouth which betrays, more than any other external sign, the subdued emotion. Henrietta was under the influence of strong excitement; every nerve had been overstrained during the day, and they were now braced with