Her appearance had undergone a great alteration during the last few months. The outlines of her exquisite person, as she sat erect in her chair, looked more matured, and revealed the most bewitching traces of female loveliness. Viewed separately, the mould of each limb, in its turn round, presented some unexpected attraction, and, while it lay perfectly still and motionless, was yet more charming from its look of life and elasticity, than from its numberless graces. Not the least of these lay in the uninterrupted accuracy which was followed by the outline of her whole figure. In pursuing this, the eye expected, as an ascertained consequence, each successive and varied turn, and followed the _contour_ spontaneously through every line. But no eye could glance at her fair shoulders and neck, falling imperceptibly into the upper region of her bosom, which was just visible above the frilled edging of her bodice, without making an admiring pause. Here the very _beau ideal_ of proportion, marked with a hundred beautiful shades, was displayed in full, and, withal, was so bright and lively, that one could almost see the animation that it protected and veiled over. The delicate rounding of her chin wooed the gaze on further; and in her fresh and dazzling complexion, yet only relieved, not overcast, by various touches of thought, and teeming with health and buoyancy, opened to view a still more captivating object. Her large, deep eyes, beaming with tenderness, yet pregnant with reflection, seemed to shed over it actual and distinct rays, and to crown its bloom with an atmosphere of light. The soft, mellow tint, that, like “the red morning,” surmounted her cheeks, looked deeper than the skin, and, in its fulness of thought and feeling, led one to dive to the heart, to which, in pure truth, it was a mere tributary. Nor did the arch of her brows, or the long, glossy fringe of her eyelids, though of the deepest black, impair this effect; but rather served, by their varied colouring, to heighten and confirm it. Her luxuriant black hair was yet hardly dressed, and was pushed behind her small ears, on to her neck and shoulders, in numberless light curls, that one could not regard without the liveliest admiration. Though she sat silent, her face, as has been remarked, was full of thought, and intimated that the mind was busy within. Yet there was nothing of melancholy in her aspect, or of gloom in her reflections. The theme of her meditation, indeed, to a girl of her age and temper, was rather enlivening:--it was love!