Garda was of medium height, but her litheness made her seem tall. This litheness had in it none of the meagre outlines of the little mother, its curves were all moulded with that soft roundness which betrays a southern origin. But the observer was not left to this evidence alone, there was further and indisputable proof in her large, dark, beautiful, wholly Spanish eyes. She had, in truth, been well described by Mrs. Thorne's phrase--"the portrait of her Spanish grandmother, painted in English colors." The tints of her complexion were very different from the soft, unchanging, creamy line which had been one of the beauties of the beautiful Ines de Duero; Garda's complexion had the English lightness and brightness. But it was not merely pink and white; there were browns under its warm fairness--browns which gave the idea that it was acquainted with the open air, the sun, the sea, and enjoyed them all. It never had that blue look of cold which mars at times the beauty of all women who are delicately fair; it never had the fatal shade of yellow that menaces the brunette. It was a complexion made for all times and all lights; pure and clear, it had also a soft warmth of color which was indescribably rich. The lustrous black braids of Ines de Duero had been changed in her grand-daughter to braids equally thick, but in color a bright brown; not the brown that is but golden hair grown darker, nor that other well-known shade, neither light nor dark, which covers the heads of so many Americans that it might almost be called the national color; this brown had always been bright, had never changed; the head of the little Garda of two years old had showed a flossy mass of the same hue. This hair curled slightly through all its length, which gave the braids a rippled appearance. It had, besides, the beauty of growing low and thickly at the temples and over the forehead. The small head it covered was poised upon a throat which was not a mere point of union, an unimportant or lean angle to be covered by a necklace or collar; this throat was round, distinct in outline, its fairness beautiful not only in front, but also behind, under and at the edges of the hair where the comb had lifted the thick, soft mass and swept it up to take its place in the braids above. Garda's features were fine, but they were not of the Greek type, save that the beautiful forehead was low; the mouth was not small, the lips full, delicately curved. When she smiled, these lips had a marked sweetness of expression. They parted over brilliantly white teeth, which, with the colors in her hair and complexion, were the direct gifts of English ancestors, as her dark eyes with their long, curling, dark lashes, the thickness of her brown braids, her rounded figure with its graceful unhurrying gait and high-arched little feet, were inheritances from the Dueros.