Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/243

Rh by the combination of these with beauty which more than fulfilled the promise of her childhood? There were the same soft yet brilliant brown eyes, the same exquisite complexion, the same golden-yellow curls. The curls were no longer falling on her neck, but no looping could wholly confine them. I could have sworn that one which drooped and fluttered on her right shoulder was the very one I had so often threatened to cut off. The expression of her face was singularly like that of Jim's. I had sometimes noticed this at the parsonage, but now the resemblance had deepened. There was the same simplicity, spirituality, enthusiasm. There was, however, in spite of the enthusiasm, an expression of placid repose, which Jim's face had not. In this her face was like Mrs. Allen's, and no one seeing them sitting there side by side could have failed to suppose them mother and daughter. Mrs. Allen's face had grown wrinkled and thinner, and yet so tender and holy was its beauty that it did not suffer by contrast with the fresh young bloom at its side.

Ally's dress was black, of a fine transparent material. A wide, floating scarf of the same, quaintly embroided in tiny poppies of scarlet and gold, was thrown over her shoulders. Her bonnet was of the finest black lace, its only ornament two scarlet poppies and one golden bud. It was a toilette an Indian princess might have worn if she had also been a poet.