Laudersdale before."
Her haughtiness would have frozen any one else. She bent with the least
possible inclination, and sat down upon a stump that immediately became
a throne. He resumed his former position, and drummed lightly on the
table, while waiting to be served. In less complete repose than she had
previously seen him, Mrs. Laudersdale now examined anew the individual
before her.
Not by any means tall she found him, but having the square shoulders and
broad chest which give, in so much greater a degree than mere height,
an impression of strength,--a frame agile and compact, with that easy
carriage of the head and that rapid movement so deceptively increasing
the stature. The face, too, was probably what, if not informed by a
singularly clean and fine soul, would, in the lapse of years, become
gross,--the skin of a clear olive, which had slightly flushed as he
addressed herself, but not when speaking to other strangers,--kept
beardless, and rather square in contour; the mouth not small, but keenly
cut, like marble, and always quivering before he spoke, as if the
lightning of his thought ran thither naturally to seek spontaneous
expression; teeth white; chin cleft; nose of the unclassified order,
rather long, the curve opposite to aquiline, and saved from sharpness by
nostrils that dilated with a pulse of their own, as those of very proud
and sensitive people are apt to do; a wide, low forehead crowned with
dark hair, long and fine; heavy brows that overhung deep-set eyes of
lightest hazel, but endowed by shadow with a power that no eye of
gypsy-black ever swayed for an instant.
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