"I'll tell you, Marian," said the sympathising Gerald, "if I had ten beauties for my wife—"
"Ten beauties! O, Gerald!"
"Well, one ten times as beautiful as Selina, I mean; I would cure her of vanity well; for I would tell her that, if she chose to have her picture drawn in this Book of Beauty, it should only be with a ring through her nose, and two stars tattooed on her cheeks."
"And a very good plan too," said Marian, laughing; "but I am afraid poor Selina cannot be in such good hands. See, here are the impertinent people writing verses about her, as if they had any business to ask her what she is thinking about. Listen, Gerald; did you ever hear such stuff?"
"Lady, why that radiant smile,
Matching with that pensive brow,
Like sunbeams on some mountain pile
Glowing on solemn heights of snow?
"Lady, why that glance of thought,
Joined to that arch lip of mirth,
Like shade by fleecy cloudlet brought
Over some paradise of earth?
"Yea, thou may'st smile, the world for thee
Is opening all its fairest bowers;
Yet in that earnest face I see
These may not claim thy dearest hours.
"But for thy brow, thy smile we deem
The gladsome mirth of fairy sprite;
But for thy smile, thy mien would seem
Some angel's from the world of light.
"Yet laughing lip and thoughtful brow
Are depths and gleams of mortal life;
Angel and fay, of us art thou,
Then art a woman and a wife!"
"What would they have her to be? a husband?" said Gerald.