Elva was fifteen, tall for her age, thin, fair, with soft, blue eyes, and light, flaxen hair.
Rosemary Hedge was also fifteen years old, but very tiny for her age, with slender limbs and little mites of hands and feet, a small head covered with fine, silky black hair, a fair, clear, bright complexion, and large, soft, tender blue eyes.
The four Grandiere girls—Sophy, Nanny, Polly and Peggy—whose ages ranged from fourteen to twenty, were all of the same type, with well-grown and well-rounded forms, fair complexions, red cheeks and lips, blue eyes, and brown hair; except for difference in age and size, never were four sisters more alike.
The two Grandiere boys, whose ages were nineteen and twenty-two, were like the girls, with the same well-knit forms, blooming complexions, blue eyes and brown hair—only their features were on a larger and coarser scale, and their faces were freckled and sunburned.
The two Elk girls, Melina and Erina, were respectively thirteen and sixteen years old, and both bore a certain family likeness to Rosemary Hedge, except that they were not so tiny in form or dainty and delicate in features and complexion. They had the large blue eyes and the fine black hair, but their faces were thin and their complexions sallow.
Perhaps the most improved of all these young people during the preceding three years were the two gallant young sailors, Leonidas Force and Roland Bayard, with their tall forms, broad shoulders, deep chests, fine heads, handsome faces and full beards—only with a difference; for Le’s hair and beard were of a rich, silky brown, while Roland’s, alas! were of a rough, fierce red.
Upon the whole, the group of young folk around the table was very fair.
CHAPTER XII
THE MARRIAGE MORN
Up, up, fair bride, and call
Thy stars from out their several spheres—take