For the clear blue of
her eye and the lofty purity of her brow seemed to tell of a spirit
whose beauty far exceeded that of its temple, and the brightness of
the glance and the sweetness of the smile warmed the heart in her
behalf as regular outline and perfect contour are seldom known to do.
Happiness, too, is a crowning charm to any woman, and Lilian was
deeply and contentedly happy: a smile perpetually played in the
little, half-guessed dimples at the corners of her mouth, and her wide
clear eyes were full of peace. No; though years should rob Lilian of
bloom, it was plain that they could but add fresh charms to her soul;
and Lilian's lover must needs love her soul.
She was to be married in a couple of years--her mother would not hear
of it at present--to one who had been her lover from her cradle, and
who loved her with a tender and devoted passion, who thought her
embodied loveliness, and who would have made any sacrifice, even to
death, for her welfare. She had seemed to him from the hour when he
first saw her--a blue-eyed, rosy child with an aureole of palest
yellow hair--a being not made of clay--something remote and different
as the angels are; and when he first discovered that he loved her he
had felt momentarily as if he committed a sacrilege, and though he
lost that sensation soon enough, she always, seemed to him a holy and
perfect thing.
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