CHAPTER XV
THE LOOK
And Donelle began to know what love was. Know it as passionate, daring natures know it. She thought of her father, of Mamsey, in a new light. She grew to understand her supposed mother with a tragic realization and she shuddered when she reflected upon her father.
"To go and leave love!" she thought. "Oh! how could he?"
Then Donelle took to gazing upon Jo with the critical eyes of youth, and yet with pity.
What manner of girl had Jo been? Had she always been plain?
The word caused Donelle pain. It sounded disloyal to Jo; but it sent her to her mirror in the little north chamber beside Mam'selle's.
The face that looked back at Donelle puzzled her. Was it pretty? What was the matter with it?
The eyes were too large, they looked hungry. The mouth, too, was queer; it did things too easily. It smiled and quivered; it turned up at the corners, it drooped down, all too easily. The nose was rather nice as noses go, but it had tiny freckles on it that you could see if you looked close. Those freckles were, in colour, something like the eyes.
"I like my hair!" confessed Donelle, and she smoothed the soft, pale braids wound about her delicately poised head. "My throat is too long, but it's white!"