Page:Romance & Reality 2.pdf/276

274 black-satin slippers, sat Emily Arundel. On one side, a hand which looked modelled in ivory, with one tinge of the rose, was nearly hidden in the profusion of long auburn ringlets—that rich auburn brown—lighted with sunshine from the head it sustained. From the other side, the clustering hair had fallen back, and left distinctly to view the delicate outline of the face—the cheek, with that earliest pink of the almond-blossom, too fair to be so frail—and the long, dark lash, which, though it hid, yet gave eloquent sign of the eye beneath, for it wore the diamond glisten of tears;—and the studio of no artist, even in that city of painters, could have shewn a more graceful, yet more simple attitude than the one with which she now bent in absorbed attention over the book on her knee. She reached the last page, but still, quite lost in the interest of the story, she never moved, till the book falling to the ground, Cecil took the opportunity of picking it up; and, addressing her, remarked, "Your book has been very fortunate in rivetting your attention." "It is such a beautiful story." "Why, Emily," said Lord Mandeville, "you have been crying over it."