thought. The eyes were a little wistful, with something which was almost
anxiety which at least was not content--in them; a faint, almost
imperceptible, curve in the lids. The complexion was of a dazzling
fairness, the hair light, but the eyes dark, which gave individuality to
the face. It would have been as lovely had the eyes been blue,--probably
more so,--but their darkness gave a touch of character, a slight discord,
which made the harmony finer. It was not, perhaps, beautiful in the
highest sense of the word. The girl must have been too young, too slight,
too little developed for actual beauty; but a face which so invited love
and confidence I never saw. One smiled at it with instinctive affection.
"What a sweet face!" I said. "What a lovely girl! Who is she? Is this one
of the relations you were speaking of on the other side?"

My father made me no reply. He stood aside, looking at it as if he knew
it too well to require to look,--as if the picture was already in his
eyes. "Yes," he said, after an interval, with a long-drawn breath, "she
was a lovely girl, as you say."

"Was?--then she is dead. What a pity!" I said; "what a pity! so young and
so sweet!"

We stood gazing at her thus, in her beautiful stillness and calm,--two
men, the younger of us full-grown and conscious of many experiences, the
other an old man,--before this impersonation of tender youth. At length
he said, with a slight tremulousness in his voice, "Does nothing suggest
to you who she is, Phil?"

I turned round to look at him with profound astonishment, but he turned
away from my look. A sort of quiver passed over his face. "That is your
mother," he said, and walked suddenly away, leaving me there.