beautiful serpent, a serpent which the true eyes plainly said would do
you no harm.

Presently, however, Mrs. Moggridge had to admit that she was very
attractive. She knew she meant fascinating, but she wouldn't admit that
to Mr. Moggridge, who had dropped the subject; though a mind which again
had asserted its dim preference for new fashions was perhaps groping
after expression of some such perplexity as this: why, if a face has
the same effect upon you as beauty, may it not be described as
beautiful? If Mr. Moggridge really got so far even as cloudily to ponder
that, it is evident that he was not far from the kingdom of beauty.

It is, of course, true enough that some faces are spoilt by flaws such
as every Mrs. Moggridge can point out,--faces that begin in one style
and end in another, half Greek perhaps and half Gothic; yet even such
faces, if their individuality is strong enough, have their own rococo
charm. For all but supremely great faces, of which perhaps the world has
not seen half-a-dozen, absolute regularity, so-called correctness, of
features is a calamity, and regular beauty on the ordinary human levels
is only another form of mediocrity.

Wonderful English girls! face after face indistinguishable from each
other as rose after rose. How sweet you are! how fragrant! what a bloom!
It is a wonderful rose-girl-farm from which you come. How pretty you
look laced up one after another on your standards, and how skilfully
you are guarded against any form of variation! Perhaps no women
potteries in the world produce so exquisite a surface, delicate as a
lily and strong as marble. Indeed you are wonderful porcelain, you fair
English girls, wonderful porcelain; but where are the stars?