Eighteen years had passed over her head and respected it. At forty she
might have been thought no more than twenty-five.

Therefore to describe her in 1836 is to picture her as she was in
1817. Women who know the conditions of temperament and happiness in
which a woman should live to resist the ravages of time will
understand how and why Felicite des Touches enjoyed this great
privilege as they study a portrait for which were reserved the
brightest tints of Nature's palette, and the richest setting.

Brittany presents a curious problem to be solved in the predominance
of dark hair, brown eyes, and swarthy complexions in a region so near
England that the atmospheric effects are almost identical. Does this
problem belong to the great question of races? to hitherto unobserved
physical influences? Science may some day find the reason of this
peculiarity, which ceases in the adjoining province of Normandy.
Waiting its solution, this odd fact is there before our eyes; fair
complexions are rare in Brittany, where the women's eyes are as black
and lively as those of Southern women; but instead of possessing the
tall figures and swaying lines of Italy and Spain, they are usually
short, close-knit, well set-up and firm, except in the higher classes
which are crossed by their alliances.

Mademoiselle des Touches, a true Breton, is of medium height, though
she looks taller than she really is. This effect is produced by the
character of her face, which gives height to her form. She has that
skin, olive by day and dazzling by candlelight, which distinguishes a
beautiful Italian; you might, if you pleased, call it animated ivory.
The light glides along a skin of that texture as on a polished
surface; it shines; a violent emotion is necessary to bring the