Thus saying, he rose from the table, and, without more ceremonious adieu, left the room.
[CHAPTER VI.]
"How sweet she looks!" exclaimed a man of nearly my own age--a man most distinguished in his own land--as we gazed on a young and lovely girl, near and dear to us both as our own child--soon to become my child-in-law as she already is in affection. "How sweet she looks!"
The words set me thinking. What was it in which that sweetness consisted? Sweetness as of the song of a bird, or the ambrosial breathing of a flower--sweetness as of an entrancing melody, which had its solemn sadness as well as its delight--sweetness which carried the soul on its wings of perfume into the far future, to gather in the land of dreams, with the trembling awe of fear-touched hope, the mystic signs of her future destiny. It consisted not in the lovely lines of the features, in the exquisite hues of the complexion, in the beautiful symmetry of the form. But it consisted in that nameless, unphonetic, but ever lucid, hieroglyph of the heart--expression--expression in form as well as in face--in tranquillity as well as in movement--in the undefined and undefinable beauty of beauties--grace.
"La grace encore plus belle que la beauté."
Grace which no art can ever attain, though it may imitate. Grace which is the gift of God to the body, to the mind, to the spirit. Grace which, in our pristine state, was, doubtless, common to all the three, blending taste, and reason, and religion in one harmony almost divine--breathing forth from the earthly form in the image of its Maker, and which lingers yet, and breathes forth still, in the pure and the innocent and the bright.
Such grace was in Edith Prevost; and hard or preoccupied must have been the heart that could resist it. She was certainly very beautiful, too, and of that beauty the most attractive. Though so young, her fully-developed form left maturity but little to add; and every swelling line flowed into the other with symmetry the most perfect. The rich, warm, glossy curls of her nut-brown hair, unstained and unrestrained by any of the frightful conceits of the day, wantoned round her ivory forehead in lines all in harmony with her figure and her features, and in hue contrasting, yet harmonizing, with her complexion, in its soft, rich warmth; fair, yet glowing with a hardly perceptible shade of brown, such as that which distinguishes the Parian marble from the stone of Carrara. Then her liquid, hazel eyes, full of ever-varied expression--now sparkling with gay, free joy, now full of tender light (especially when they turned upon her father), and now shaded with a sleepy sort of thoughtfulness, when one of her day-dreams fell upon her. There was something, moreover, in her manner--in her whole demeanour--which lent another charm to beauty, and added grace to grace. Yet it was of a kind difficult to define. I cannot describe it; I can only tell how she came by it.
I have shown that, in early years, she had been educated in a land where civilization and refinement were carried to their highest point; but it is necessary to add, that her education there had been conducted in the midst of the most refined society of that land, and by those in whom refinement had been a quality rather than an acquisition. She had it, too, as an hereditary right: it was in her blood and in her nature; and, until she was nearly fourteen years of age, everything that father or mother could do was done to cultivate the rich soil of her mind and her heart--remember, to cultivate, not to alter: it needed no change. Every natural grace remained entire, and many a bright gift was added.
Then suddenly she was transplanted to a scene where all was wild--where there were no conventionalities--where Nature ruled, and was the rule. She came there exactly at the age when, without losing one particle of that which society could confer that was worth retaining, the mind--the fresh, young mind--was ready to receive a peculiar tone from the wild things around her, a freedom, an innocent carelessness of the trifles magnified into false importance in a more artificial state. Feeling, knowing, that she was a lady, that every thought was pure and bright, that every purpose was noble and true, she had no fear of infringing small proprieties; she had no thought of that dread bugbear of the multitude, "what the world would say." Thus, while habit rendered all refined, and while heart and innocence gave dignity and calmness, she had all the free, frank, heartful confidence of untutored nature.
Such was Edith Prevost, and such she appeared to the stranger who had visited her father's house. At first, perhaps, he did not comprehend her fully; but he was a man of keen perceptions and a great and noble heart. Within his breast and hers were those sympathies which are keys to open the doors of character; and he had not been four-and-twenty hours under the same roof before he knew her, and appreciated her entirely. He had seen much of the world, much of society; and perhaps that which is false and wrong therein had been over-estimated by a mind somewhat too clear-sighted for much happiness. At all events, he had passed through life hitherto heart-whole and untouched with love; and he felt fearless and confident from the experience of security. Thus he boldly made the character of Edith a study; scanned it accurately, watched every little trait, dwelt upon her beauty and her grace, and took pleasure in eliciting all that was bright and lovely. Imprudent man! He had never met any one like her before.