t at the bottom
of the hill again when another year called her to its renewed duties,
schooling her temper in unending inward and outward conflicts, until
neither dulness nor obstinacy nor ingratitude nor insolence could
reach her serene self-possession. Not for herself alone. Poorly as her
prodigal labors were repaid in proportion to the waste of life they
cost, her value was too well established to leave her without what,
under other circumstances, would have been a more than sufficient
compensation. But there were others who looked to her in their need,
and so the modest fountain which might have been filled to its brim was
continually drained through silent-flowing, hidden sluices.

Out of such a life, inherited from a race which had lived in conditions
not unlike her own, beauty, in the common sense of the term, could
hardly find leisure to develop and shape itself. For it must be
remembered, that symmetry and elegance of features and figure, like
perfectly formed crystals in the mineral world, are reached only by
insuring a certain necessary repose to individuals and to generations.
Human beauty is an agricultural product in the country, growing up in
men and women as in corn and cattle, where the soil is good. It is a
luxury almost monopolized by the rich in cities, bred under glass like
their forced pine-apples and peaches. Both in city and country, the
evolution of the physical harmonies which make music to our eyes
requires a combination of favorable circumstances, of which alternations
of unburdened tranquillity with intervals of varied excitement of mind
and body are among the most important. Where sufficient excitement is
wanting, as often happens in the country, the features, however rich in
red and white, get heavy, and the movements sluggish; where excitement
is furnished in excess, as is frequently the case in cities, the
contours and colors are impoverished, and the nerves begin to make their
existence known to the consciousness, as the face very soon informs us.

Helen Darley could not, in the nature of things, have possessed the kind
of beauty which pleases the common taste. Her eye was calm, sad-looking,
her features very still, except when her pleasant smile changed them for
a moment, all her outlines were delicate, her voice was very gentle,
but somewhat subdued by years of thoughtful labor, and on her smooth
forehead one little hinted line whispered already that Care was
beginning to mark the tr