creature, with a cheek like a rose, a mouth radiant with smiles, and the golden curls dancing in sunny profusion over the blushes they shaded. Now her hair and eyes were much darker, her cheek was pale, and the general cast of her face melancholy and thoughtful; her step was still light, but slow—it was urged on no longer by inward buoyancy: and if a painter, three years before, would have chosen her as a model for the youngest of the Graces, he would now have selected her for the loveliest of the Muses—so ethereal, so intellectual was that sad and expressive countenance. Her father was charmed with the ease and self-possession of her manner—the perfection of beautiful repose: true, it was broken in upon by none of the flatterings of girlish vanity, none of the slight yet keen excitements of a season given to gaiety.
The Countess was wholly indifferent to the scene that surrounded her—to its pleasure and its triumph; she had a standard of her own by which she measured enjoyment, and found what was here deemed pleasure by others, to be vapid and worthless; and now, more than ever, the image of Adalbert rose present to her mind. She compared him with the many cavaliers about her; and the comparison was, as it ever is, in favour of the heart’s earliest idol. Even when unconsciously yielding to the influence exercised by light, music, and a glittering crowd, Theresa would start back, and muse on what might be the fate of Adalbert at that
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