But, thank heaven, there are many bright days in young lives, and of some of these we must tell.
[CHAPTER] VI.
FLORENCE
“With every pleasing, every prudent part,
Say what can Chloe want?—she wants a heart.”
POPE.
FIVE minutes after Marion had left Lady Severn’s drawing-room that rainy morning, another young lady entered it. A tall, handsome girl. Beautiful almost; at least, to those who define beauty as material perfection of form and colour, not troubling themselves too much about the nature of the soul within. That in appearance she was what is called “striking” no one could have denied. Well-made, in a certain sense graceful, and thoroughly well-dressed, her figure would have stood the test of pretty sharp, even feminine criticism.
As to complexion, exquisitely fair; of which, however, she paid the penalty, if such it be, in the colour of her hair, which though fine, soft, and abundant, was undoubtedly red. A deep, warm red, however—in itself, a lovely shade, though, probably, few would admire it as that of hair. But now comes a surprise. The eyes were good, hazel, I think; but whatever their precise tint they always looked deep and lustrous, for they possessed the inestimable advantage—little to be looked for in conjunction with such hair—of dark, almost black, lashes, and clearly-defined, slightly arched, eyebrows to match.
Oh! what ill-natured things were said about those eyebrows and eyelashes! How the sandy freckled Misses Macdonald, husband-hunting at Altes, whispered, about, “What a pity, is it not? Still quite a young person, and really not bad-looking, if she would only leave herself alone.” Each sister, all the same, secretly experimenting in the privacy of her own chamber, with “bâton” and “bandoline;” nay, for aught I know, with camel’s hair-brushes and “lamp-black,” alias “noir velouté;” in the vain hope of rivalling the beautiful Florence. Vain hope truly, for as to eyebrows and eyelashes, the girl was indebted to nature only; and, indeed, had she been less gifted than she was in these respects, I question much if such expedients would have occurred to her, so perfectly satisfied was she with her outward appearance. Naturally so, it must be allowed. The youngest and fairest of the three daughters of a widowed and struggling mother, her surpassing beauty had, from earliest childhood, been impressed upon her as the great fact of her existence. A fact utterly impossible to question or dispute.
That this same beauty was to be turned to the best account in the matrimonial market, followed naturally enough, as the second article of belief in the poor girl’s creed.
Of the two plainer sisters, one, the elder, was married respectably, though by no means brilliantly, to a young curate, over-worked and under-paid; in these particulars, I fear, no exception to his class. The other was hopelessly engaged to a lieutenant in the navy, dependent on his pay, which had hitherto barely sufficed to keep his own head above water, and whose only prospects consisted in a vague talk of far distant “promotion.”