They were magnificent, and with her perfect face dividing their rippling flow she looked like some immaculate saint of legend being led to martyrdom. Rowland’s eyes presumably betrayed his admiration, but her own manifested no consciousness of it. If Christina was a coquette, as the remarkable timeliness of this incident might have suggested, she was not a superficial one. “Hudson ‘s a sculptor,” said Rowland, with warmth. “But if I were only a painter!” “Thank Heaven you are not!” said Christina. “I am having quite enough of this minute inspection of my charms.” “My dear young man, hands off!” cried Mrs. Light, coming forward and seizing her daughter’s hair. “Christina, love, I am surprised.” “Is it indelicate?” Christina asked. “I beg Mr. Mallet’s pardon.” Mrs. Light gathered up the dusky locks and let them fall through her fingers, glancing at her visitor with a significant smile. Rowland had never been in the East, but if he had attempted to make a sketch of an old slave-merchant, calling attention to the “points” of a Circassian beauty, he would have depicted such a smile as Mrs. Light’s. “Mamma ‘s not really shocked,” added Christina in a moment, as if she had guessed her mother’s by-play. “She is only afraid that Mr. Hudson might have injured my hair, and that, per consequenza, I should sell for less.” “You unnatural child!” cried mamma. “You deserve that I should make a fright of you!” And with half a dozen skillful passes she twisted the tresses into a single picturesque braid, placed high on the head, as a kind of coronal. “What does your mother do when she wants to do you justice?” Rowland asked, observing the admirable line of the young girl’s neck. “I do her justice when I say she says very improper things. What is one to do with such a thorn in the flesh?” Mrs. Light demanded. “Think of it at your leisure, Mr. Mallet,” said Christina, “and when you ‘ve discovered something, let us hear. But I must tell you that I shall not willingly believe in any remedy of yours, for you have something in your physiognomy that particularly provokes me to make the remarks that my mother so sincerely deplores. I noticed it the first time I saw you. I think it ‘s because your face is so broad. For some reason or other, broad faces exasperate me; they fill me with a kind of rabbia. Last summer, at Carlsbad, there was an Austrian count, with enormous estates and some great office at court. He was very attentive--seriously so; he was really very far gone. Cela ne tenait qu’ a moi! But I could n’t; he was impossible! He must have measured, from ear to ear, at least a yard and a half. And he was blond, too, which made it worse--as blond as Stenterello; pure fleece! So I said to him frankly, ‘Many thanks, Herr Graf; your uniform is magnificent, but your face is too fat.’” “I am afraid that mine also,” said Rowland, with a smile, “seems just now to have assumed an unpardonable latitude.”