Page:Lady Anne Granard, or Keeping up Appearances Volume 2.pdf/39

Rh will come soon enough to save you from being taller than my mother, who is a very fine woman of a commanding not masculine height." Foolish as his annoyance had been, these words were a positive relief to Glentworth, but, unhappily, they brought before his eyes a form which had perhaps never entirely left them, since he too frequently studied to find her lineaments in the face of Isabella, who had a much greater resemblance to her than English women in general exhibit, and was at least the only one in her family whom, as a matter of taste, he would have preferred. "The eyes blue languish and the golden hair" had with him no comparative charm with the smooth, fine-grained skin of the olive beauty, united with dark, hazel eyes, arched brows, an out line of classic chiselling, teeth of pearly whiteness, and lips of vermilion redness; the round, soft throat, becoming whiter as it recedes from the eye, and leaves to imagination the perfection of the half-defined and delicately-proportioned bust. Such were the lineaments on which he had gazed in passionate admiration, dwelt on with tender devotion, and lamented with sorrow, the more deep and abiding in that it was silent and unsuspected, nourished and fed, despite of the wealth which offered every other treasure, and even of the young, innocent, and ardent love of Isabella's virgin heart.

The long companionship of years, the interchange of thought, the gradual unfolding of affection,