“He said, ‘Oh, a girl with a pale face and a lot of light thatch on it, with fine ways that she picked up in Carlisle.’ But when I came to see you, I thought that if I had had to describe you, those were just the things I should not have mentioned.”
“Come, then, describe me, Flora,” said I, laughing. “What do you see?”
“I see two large, earnest-looking blue eyes,” she said, “under a broad white forehead; eyes that look right at you; clear, honest eyes,—not—at least, the sort of eyes I like to look at me. Then I see a small nose—”
“Let my nose alone, please,” said I: “I know it turns up, and I don’t want to hear you say so.”
Flora laughed. “Very well; I will leave your nose alone. Underneath it, I see two small red lips, and a little forward chin; a rather self-willed little chin, if you please, Cary—and a good figure, which has learned to hold itself up and to walk gracefully. Will that do for a description?”
“Yes,” I said, looking in the glass; “I suppose that is me.”
“Is it, Cary? That may be all I see; but is it you? Why, it is only the morocco case that holds you. You are the jewel inside, and what that is, really and fully, I cannot see. God can see it; and you can see some of it. But I can see only what you choose to show me, or, now and then, what you cannot help showing me.”
“Do you know that you are a very queer girl, Flora? Girls don’t talk in that way. Cecilia Osborne told me yesterday she thought you a very curious girl indeed.”
“I think my match might be found,” said Flora, rather drily. “For one thing, Cary, you must remember I have had nothing to do with other girls except Annas Keith. Father and Angus have been my only companions; and a girl who has neither mother nor sisters perhaps gets out of girls’ ways in some respects.”
“But you are not the only ‘womankind,’ as Father calls it, in the house?” said I.