The
nose in the rector's description was aquiline. The line of this
woman's nose bent neither outward nor inward: it was the
straight, delicately molded nose (with the short upper lip
beneath) of the ancient statues and busts. The lips in the
rector's description were thin and the upper lip long; the
complexion was of a dull, sickly paleness; the chin retreating
and the mark of a mole or a scar on the left side of it. This
woman's lips were full, rich, and sensual. Her complexion was
the lovely complexion which accompanies such hair as hers--so
delicately bright in its rosier tints, so warmly and softly white
in its gentler gradations of color on the forehead and the neck.
Her chin, round and dimpled, was pure of the slightest blemish
in every part of it, and perfectly in line with her forehead
to the end. Nearer and nearer, and fairer and fairer she came,
in the glow of the morning light--the most startling, the most
unanswerable contradiction that eye could see or mind conceive
to the description in the rector's letter.
Both governess and pupil were close to the summer-house before
they looked that way, and noticed Midwinter standing inside.
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