"Different smiles?" said Mrs. Evelyn in a constrained voice.
"If they were not all absolutely that, they had so much of freshness and variety that they all seemed new."
"Was the mouth so beautiful?" said Florence.
"Perhaps it would not have been remarked for beauty when it was perfectly at rest; but it could not move with the least play of feeling, grave or gay, that it did not become so in a very high degree. I think there was no touch or shade of sentiment in the mind that the lips did not give with singular nicety; and the mind was one of the most finely wrought I have ever known."
"And what other features went with this mouth?" said Florence.
"The usual complement, I suppose," said Thorn. "'Item, two lips indifferent red; item, two grey eyes with lids to them; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth.'"
"Mr. Carleton, sir," said Mrs. Evelyn blandly--"as Mr. Evelyn says women may be forgiven for wondering, won't you answer Florence's question?"
"Mr. Thorn has done it, Mrs. Evelyn, for me."
"But I have great doubts of the correctness of Mr. Thorn's description, sir--won't you indulge us with yours?"
"Word-painting is a difficult matter, Mrs. Evelyn, in some instances;--if I must do it I will borrow my colours. In general, 'that which made her fairness much the fairer was that it was but an ambassador of a most fair mind.'"