Page:Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal, t. I.djvu/143

 another means of getting rid of this horrible infatuation.

"Our chamber-maid having lately got married, my mother had taken into her service—for reasons best known to herself—a country wench of sixteen or thereabout, but who, strange to say, looked far younger than she really was, for as a rule those village girls look far older than their years. Although I did not find her good looking, still everybody seemed smitten by her charms. I cannot say she had anything rustic or countrified about her, for that would awake at once in your mind a vague idea of something awkward or ungainly, whilst she was as pert as a sparrow, and as graceful as a kitten; still she had a strong country freshness,—nay, I might almost say, tartness,—about her like that of a strawberry or a raspberry that grows in mossy thickets.

"Seeing her in her town-dress you always fancied you had once met her in picturesque rags, with a bit of red kerchief on her shoulders, and with the savage grace of a young roe standing under leafy boughs, surrounded by eglantine and briers, ready to dart off at the slightest sound.