Mr. Tressalia, on his part, was evidently powerfully attracted by those same large and expressive eyes, which were reading his face with such a comprehensive glance.
His gaze rested admiringly on the slender figure, with its mien of blended grace, reserve, and dignity, attired, so simply yet artistically, in its force of spotless embroidered muslin; on the small head, with its silken aureate crown; on the sweet face, so full of expression and the impress of latent character.
Her small hands seemed to him like “symmetrical snowflakes,” her feet like little mice peeping from beneath the flowing robe, and all her movements full of “sweet, attractive grace.”
Mr. Tressalia noted all this during the ceremony of introduction, and realized at once that he had “met his fate” in this being “fair as Venus,” whose
“Face and figure wove a spell
While her bright eyes were beaming.”
Editha had not mingled very much in the gayeties of Newport as yet—she could not enjoy them; her heart was sore and sad; she could not forget the two dear ones so recently gone, nor the young promising life confined by prison walls.
Not a day passed that Earle Wayne’s noble face did not rise up before her, and she seemed to hear his rich, clear voice asserting constantly, “Their saying that I am guilty does not make me so. I have the consciousness within me that I am innocent of a crime, and I will live to prove it yet to you and the world,” and the knowledge of his cruel fate was a constant pain. But now she was almost insensibly drawn out of herself and her sad musings.
Mr. Tressalia possessed a peculiar charm in his gentle manner, and in his brilliant and intelligent conversation; and, almost before she was aware of it, Editha found herself joining and enjoying the party of choice spirits who seemed to own him as their center.
The ice once broken, who shall tell of the bright, delightful days that followed?