Page:Paul Clifford Vol 2.djvu/191

Rh which she herself had secretly made of her lover, and which, though inartificially and even rudely done, yet had caught the inspiration of memory and breathed the very features and air that were stamped already ineffaceably upon a heart unworthy of so sullied an idol. She gazed upon the portrait as if it could answer her question of the original, and as she looked, and looked, her tears slowly ceased, and her innocent countenance relapsed gradually into its usual and eloquent serenity. Never, perhaps, could Lucy's own portrait have been taken at a more favourable moment! The unconscious grace of her attitude, her dress loosened, the modest and youthful voluptuousness of her beauty, the tender cheek to which the virgin bloom, banished for awhile, was now all glowingly returning; the little white soft hand on which that cheek leaned, while the other contained the picture upon which her eyes fed; the half smile just conjured to her full, red, dewy lips, and gone the moment after, yet again restored; all made a picture of such enchanting