R. Henry Bartlett was one of three gentlemen who rode from the railroad
station to Moore's Hotel, at Trenton Falls, on the top of an omnibus;
and who, having clambered down from that lofty perch, under the
inspection of forty pairs of eyes leveled at them from the balcony,
hastened to inscribe their names in the book, and secure the keys of
their several chambers. To no one of the three, however, was this
privacy so welcome as to Mr. Bartlett, who, entering his room with
flushed face, nervously dismissed the servant, locked the door, and
dropped into a chair with a pant of relief. Our business being
entirely with him, we shall at once dismiss his two companions--whom,
indeed, we have only introduced as accessories to the principal
figure--and, taking our invisible seats in the opposite chair, proceed
to a contemplation of his person.
Age--four, perhaps five, and twenty--certainly not more; height, five
feet nine inches, with well-developed breast and shoulders; limbs,
whose firm, ample muscle betrays itself through the straight lines of
his light summer costume, and hands and feet of agreeable shape;
complexion fair, with a skin of feminine fineness and transparency,
whereon the uncontrollable blood writes his emotions so palpably that
he who runs may read; eyes of a clear, honest blue, but so shy of
meeting a steady gaze that few know how beautiful they really are;
mouth full and sensitive, and of so rich and dewy a red that we can not
help wishing he were a woman that we might be pardoned for kissing it;
forehead broad, and rather low; hair--but here we hesitate, for his
enemies would certainly call it red. Indeed, in some lights it is red,
but its prevailing tint is brown, with a bronze lustre on the curls.
As he sits thus, unconscious of our observation, he is certainly
handsome, in spite of a haunting air of timidity which weakens the
expression of features not weak in themselves. On further observation,
we are inclined to believe that he has not achieved that easy poise of
self-possession which, in men of becoming modesty, is the result of
more or less social experience. He belongs, evidently, to that class
of awkward, honest, warm-hearted, and sensitive natures whom all men
like, and some women.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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