The young girl in question was seventeen, tall, slender, extremely delicate in appearance, and endowed or rather afflicted with an extremely nervous and impressionable temperament. This extreme sensibility or susceptibility was at least partially due to, or perhaps we should say, had been greatly aggravated by a terrible event which occurred many years before, and which had had the effect of rendering her excessively timid. It would be difficult to find a more pleasing and attractive face than hers, however, and when, yielding to the uncontrollable fear which the most trivial incident sometimes excited, she arched her slender neck, and listened pantingly, breathlessly, with her graceful attitude and large wondering, frightened eyes, she reminded one of a startled gazelle. By reason of this nervous and extremely sensitive temperament, probably, the young girl had not the brilliant colouring of sturdy health, but was usually very pale, though every passing emotion brought a delicate rose tint to her cheek, and then her charming face, framed in a wealth of bright chestnut hair, seemed radiant with the glowing beauty of youth. True, with a more vivid colouring and fuller contour, she might have been much more attractive to many persons, but much of the charm of her expressive features and delicate loveliness would have been lost. The last of the three persons assembled in the cosy parlour was the phoenix to whom allusion has been made, that is to say, a handsome young man who had not been summoned to the defence of the flag. This phoenix was twenty-five years old, of medium height, slender, but admirably formed, with a frank expression and regular features, though a tinge of slightly deprecating embarrassment was apparent both in his face and manner, the result of the infirmity which had exempted him from military service. In short, the young man's sight was very poor, so poor, indeed, that he could scarcely see to move about; besides, by reason of some organic peculiarity, he could derive no assistance from glasses, and though his large brown eyes were clear and well-shaped, there was something vague and uncertain in their gaze, and sometimes when the poor myope, after having turned quickly, as if to look at you, remembered, alas! with bitter sadness, that three yards from him every person and object became unrecognisable, the expression of his face was almost heartrending. Still, it must be admitted that the consequences of the young man's infirmity were sometimes so amusing as to excite mirth rather than compassion; and it is needless to say that the middle-aged lady was keenly alive to all that was ludicrous in her youthful relative's blunders--for the relationship existing between them was that of nephew and aunt,--while the young girl, on the contrary, seemed to sympathise deeply with the oftentimes painful position of the half-blind man.