Page:The Partisan (revised).djvu/143

 "Indeed! attractions quite enough, it would seem, to persuade any young lady into civility. And yet, you say&mdash;"

"Hist, major! 'Talk of the &mdash;&mdash;' Ask pardon, sir; but drop behind this bush. Here comes the lady herself with your sister, I believe, though I can't say at this distance. They've been walking through the oaks, and, as you see, Proctor keeps the house."

The two sank into cover as the young ladies came through the grove, bending their way towards the very spot where Singleton had been reclining. The place was a favourite with all, and the ramble in this quarter was quite a regular custom of the afternoon with the fair heiress of Colonel Walton in particular. As she approached they saw the lofty carriage, the graceful height, and the symmetrical person of our heroine&mdash;her movement bespeaking for her that degree of consideration which few ever looked upon her and withheld. Her dress was white and simple, rather more in the fashion of the present than of that time, when a lady's body was hooped in like a ship's, by successive layers of cordage and timber; and when her headgear rose into a pyramid, tower upon tower, a massy and Babel-like structure, well stuccoed, to keep its place, by the pastes and pomatums of the day. With her dress, the nicest stickler for the proper simplicities of good taste would have found no cause of complaint. Setting off her figure to advantage, it did not unpleasantly confine it; and, as for her soft brown hair, it was free to wanton in the winds, save where a strip of velvet restrained it around her brows. Yet this simplicity indicated no improper indifference on the part of the lady to her personal appearance. On the contrary, it was the art which concealed itself&mdash;the felicitous taste, and the just estimate of a mind capable of conceiving proper standards of fitness&mdash;that achieved so much in the inexpressive yet attractive simplicity of her costume. She knew that the elevated and intellectual forehead needed no mountainous height of hair for its proper effect. She compelled hers, accordingly&mdash;simply parting it in front&mdash;to play capriciously behind; and, "heedful of beauty, the same woman still," the tresses that streamed so luxuriantly about her neck, terminated in a hundred sylph-like locks, exceedingly natural to behold, but which may have cost her some half-hour's industrious application daily at the toilet. Her eye was dark and richly