o marvel that
it habitually bowed under the heavy glittering mass of silver hair,
which wound in coil after coil and was secured at the back by a comb
of carved jet, thickly studded with small silver stars. The
extraordinary lustrousness of these waves of gray hair that rippled on
her forehead and temples like molten metal, lent a weird and wondrous
effect to the straight, regular, rigid features,--daintily cut as
those of Pallas, and quite as pallid. The delicate and high arch of
the eyebrows was black as ebony, and in conjunction with the long
jetty lashes formed a very singular contrast to the shining white
tresses, which lay piled like freshly fallen snow-drift above them.
The brow was full, round, smooth, and fair as a child's; and more than
one azure thread showed the subtle tracery of veins, whose crimson
currents left no rosy reflex on the firm, gleaming white flesh,
through which they branched.

Beneath that faultless forehead burned unusually large eyes, deep as
mountain tarns, and of that pure bluish gray that tolerates no hint of
green or yellow rays. The dilated pupils intensified the steel color,
and faint violet lines ran out from the iris to meet the central
shadows, while above and below the heavy black fringes enhanced their
sombre depths, where mournful mysteries seemed to float like corpses
just beneath the crystal shroud of ocean waves. The pale, passionless
lips,--perfect in their pure curves, but defrauded of the blood which
resolutely refused to come to the surface and tint the fine satin
skin,--were lined in ciphers that the curious questioned and wondered
over, but which few could read and none fully comprehend. The
beautiful, frigid mouth, where all sweetness was frozen out to make
room for hopelessness and defiance, would have admirably suited some
statue of discrowned and smitten Hecuba; and no amount of sighs and
sobs, no stormy bursts of grief or fierce invective, could rival the
melancholy eloquence of its mute, calm pallor.

The wan face, with its gray globe-like eyes, and the metallic glitter
of the prematurely silvered hair, matched in hue the pearl-colored
muslin dress which fluttered in the wind; and, standing there, this
gray woman of twenty-three looked indeed like Pygmalion's stone
darling,--

"Fair-statured, noble, like an awful thing
Frozen upon the very verge of life,
And looking back along eternity
With rayless eyes that keep the shadow Time."

Her frail, white