“Right beauteous shone those eyes of blue,” says the chronicler of the ancient MS., “glancing pure thoughts and light-hearted fancies; and right lovely were those glowing cheeks, in which the snow-white of the fair countenance bloomed into a roseate hue; and lovely was the small mouth of parting lips, delicious in their maiden ripeness; and sweet, surpassing sweet, was the expression of that face, where love and innocence beaming from every feature, seemed like the golden fruit of fairy land, only waiting to be gathered.”
Her face was a poem, written by the finger of God, in characters of youth and bloom.
A poem whose theme was ever beauty and love, speaking its meaning through the deep glance of a shadowy eye, sending forth its messages of sweetness from the smile of the wreathing lip, or preaching its lessons of thought and purity by the calm glory of the unclouded brow.
A face lovely as a dream, when dreams are loveliest, with an outline of youth and bloom, a brow clear, calm, and cloudless, over-arching the eyes of azure, whose brightness seemed unfathomable; with full and swelling cheeks, varying the snow-white of the maiden’s countenance by the damask of the budding rose; a small mouth, with curving lips; a chin all roundness and dimple, receding with a waving outline into the neck, all lightness and grace; while all around, the luxuriance of her golden hair, unbound and uncinctured, fell sweeping and waving, with a soft, airy motion, through the sunbeams shimmered round the fairy countenance of the maiden.
Alone in her bower sate the Ladye Annabel, her lip curving with scorn while she glanced at the letter of his grace of Florence, as it was flung along the floor, unopened and unheeded.
Her soul was agitated by the fearful memory of the last three days of mystery and blood, and then came confused and wandering thoughts of the scenes she had witnessed but an hour since, in the cavern of the dead.
Her mind was lost in a maze of never-ending doubts, when she contemplated the fearful death of the late Count.
She had never for an instant believed that Adrian could be guilty of the accursed act, neither had she dreamed that it was her father’s hand that dealt the blow.
The thought would have driven her mad.
Suddenly her thoughts were agitated by a fearful picture.