Page:Francesca Carrara 3.pdf/113

110 becoming; for her exquisite shape required no aid beyond the relief of the flowing drapery. Lucy, who had only seen her in either the large loose wrapping dress of serge, or in the quaint simplicity of the Puritanic garb, then so general in England, could not restrain an exclamation of admiration as she returned to their chamber.

Where there is no envy in the case—and envy rarely exists where there is no rivalry—I believe there is nothing more genuine or delightful than one woman's admiration of another's beauty. There is a pure and delicate taste about their nature which gives a keen sense of enjoyment to such appreciation: and loveliness is to them a religion of the heart, associated with a thousand fine and tender emotions. It would have been difficult to find two more perfect, yet more opposed specimens of beauty, than the two now before us. Lucy's was the result of the sweetest colouring. The golden hair, the violet-blue of the eyes, the pearly white skin, tinted by the softest rose that ever opened on an April morning, were blending together both the lights and shadows of a spring atmosphere—soft and timid—a creature made for gentle words and watchful looks.

But Francesca's beauty belonged to features and to expression—features perfect in the Greek