Page:Romance & Reality 1.pdf/120

114. A veiled lady either is, or ought to be, enough to turn the head of any cavalier under five-and-twenty.

It was, however, admiration, not curiosity, the kneeling female excited; for her veil had fallen back, and her face only shadowed by a profusion of loose black ringlets, was fully seen. It was perfect: the high noble forehead—the large melancholy eyes—the delicately chiselled oval of the cheek—the small red mouth, belonged to the highest and most superb order of beauty; a sadness stole over its expression of devotional fervour—she suddenly buried her face in her hands: when she raised her head again, the long dark eye lashes were glittering with tears. She rose, and Algernon followed her, more from an impulse than an intention; she stopped and unlocked a small door—it belonged to the convent garden adjoining—and there entering, disappeared. But Algernon had had ample time to fall desperately in love. He was now at an age when the heart asks for some more real object than the fairy phantoms of its dreams: passions chase fancies; and the time was now come when the imagination would exert its faculty rather to exaggerate than to create. He thought over