Rachael Breckenridge call her "Belle," and Rachael Breckenridge
knew it.

The lights, duly poured in a soft flood from all sides of the
room, revealed in Mrs. Breckenridge one of those beauties that an
older generation of diarists and letter writers frankly spelled
with a capital letter as distinguishing her charms from those of a
thousand of lesser degree. When such beauty is unaccompanied by
intellect it is a royal dower, and its possessor may serenely
command half a century of unquestioning adoration from the sons of
men, and all the good things of life as well.

But when there is a soul behind the matchless eyes, and a keen wit
animates the lovely mouth, and when the indication of the white
forehead is not belied, it is a nice question whether great beauty
be a gift of benign or malicious fairies. Not a woman in this room
or in any room she entered could look at Rachael Breckenridge
without a pang; her supremacy was beyond all argument or dispute.
And yet there was neither complacency nor content in the lovely
face; it wore its usual expression of arrogant amusement at a
somewhat tiresome world.

Both in the instant impression it made, and under closest
analysis, Rachael Breckenridge's beauty stood all tests. Her
colorless skin was as pure as ivory, her dark-blue eyes,
surrounded by that faint sooty color that only Irish eyes know,
were set far apart and evenly arched by perfect brows. Her white
forehead was low and broad, the lustreless black hair was swept
back from it with almost startling simplicity, the line of her
mouth was long, her lips a living red. Her figure, as she sat