ed. Without having a beautiful face, measured by the rules
of high art, she was endowed with a countenance which might escape
notice, but which, having once attracted observation, was never to be
forgotten. Hers was a face that the least imaginative could readily
recall in a dark room, and by an operation of the mind which produces
images subjectively, summon up a hallucination of the girl, as
distinct in lineament as though she were present in the flesh. An
artist had proven this by sitting in his studio, lighted only by a
candle, that he might see his drawing-board, and he had succeeded in
producing a portrait of Agnes, as true to life as was possible. He
claimed afterward that, without difficulty, he had projected his
mental image of her against the dark background of his room, and that
he had seen her as clearly as though she had sat for him.

From one point of view, then, it might be said that she had a strong
face, by which I would mean that it would make an indelible impression
upon the mind that observed her closely. There is a psychological
reason for this, which I must ask you to look at with me if you wish
to know Agnes. One dead face differs from another merely in the
outlines of form. A living face differs from all others, and is
different itself in varying moods, because there is something within
the form which animates it. This is intellect. Some are poor in this,
while others are richly endowed. The greater the intellect, the more
distinctively individual will be the face, and it is this
individuality which marks the features, differentiating the
countenance from all others about it, so that it leaves a deeper
impression upon the brain, just as a loud noise is heard, or a bright
flash seen, the more intensely.

Agnes's pre-eminent characteristic was her intellectuality. She
absorbed books, as a sponge does water, without apparent effort, and
as a sponge may be squeezed and made to yield up nearly as much as it
had drawn in, so Agnes, if catechised, would show that she had a
permanent grasp on what she had studied. She developed a fondness for
the classics, and for law, which delighted her father, and as her
mother died when she was nearing her fifteenth year, they grew to be
very close companions. The father, deprived of the support and
encouragement always afforded by a true and well-beloved wife,
gradually leaned more and more upon his daughter, who showed herself
so worthy of affiliating with him me