Page 112 - The snake's pass

100 THE SNAKE'S PASS.
perfect beauty of the Spanish type—beauty perhaps
all the more perfect for being tempered with northern
calm. As I said, she was tall and beautifully propor-
tioned. Her neck was long and slender, gracefully set in
her rounded shoulders, and supporting a beautiful head
borne with the free grace of the lily on its stem. There is
nothing in woman more capable of complete beauty than
the head, and, crowned as this head was with a rich mass
of hair as black and as glossy as the raven's wing, it was
a thing to remember. She wore no bonnet, but a grey
homespun shawl was thrown loosely over her shoulders
;
her hair was coiled in one rich mass at the top and
back of her head, and fastened with an old-fashioned
tortoiseshell comb. Her face was a delicate oval, showing
what Kossetti calls " the pure wide curve from ear to
chin." Luxuriant black eyebrows were arched over large
black-blue eyes swept by curling lashes of extraordinary
length, and showed off the beauty of a rounded, ample
forehead—somewhat sunburnt, be it said. The nose was
straight and wide between the eyes, with delicate sensitive
nostrils ; the chin wide and firm, and the mouth full and
not small, with lips of scarlet, forming a perfect Cupid's
bow, and just sufficiently open to show two rows of small
teeth, regular and white as pearls. Her dress was that
of a well-to-do peasant—a sort of body or jacket of
printed chintz over a dress or petticoat of homespun of
the shade of crimson given by a madder dye. The
dress was short, and showed trim ankles in grey home-
spun with pretty feet in thick country-made wide-toed