Blondes
are beautiful--both the rosy ones with pinkish eyelids and warm golden
locks, and the pale ones with ash-colored hair, gray eyes and dark
brows and lashes--but a florid brunette excels them all.
In seeing Lydia you would make the mistake that you usually make in
judging girls: entering among them, you think their attitudes proclaim
their traits. For instance, you take the most giggling one for a
simpleton, but afterward learn that she is a good scholar and has
accepted the Greek chair in a Western college, and looking again you
see she has a strong frame, a capable head and large bright eyes. Lydia
dressed in the mode, wore the high-heeled shoes that give such a dainty
look to the foot and gait, and came into a room with a great effusion
of fashionableness; yet she was not in the least what she seemed. She
had a great deal of what is more pleasing than mere appearance, and
that is character. She was ambitious and energetic. She did tatting
when she did nothing else--said it concealed her lack of repose and
liability to fidget. She was able to draw _la quintessence de tout_:
she could make a mountain-spring of a mole-hill. She also had a touch
of temper: those who are perfectly amiable are nothing else.
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