I do not say enough, I suppose?" I continued. "My praises are too
cool?"

She made no answer, and, I thought, looked a little sad. I divined her
thoughts, and should much have liked to have responded to them, had
it been expedient so to do. She was not now very ambitious of
my admiration--not eagerly desirous of dazzling me; a little
affection--ever so little--pleased her better than all the panegyrics in
the world. Feeling this, I stood a good while behind her, writing on
the margin of her book. I could hardly quit my station or relinquish my
occupation; something retained me bending there, my head very near
hers, and my hand near hers too; but the margin of a copy-book is not an
illimitable space--so, doubtless, the directress thought; and she took
occasion to walk past in order to ascertain by what art I prolonged so
disproportionately the period necessary for filling it. I was obliged to
go. Distasteful effort--to leave what we most prefer!

Frances did not become pale or feeble in consequence of her sedentary
employment; perhaps the stimulus it communicated to her mind
counterbalanced the inaction it imposed on her body. She changed,
indeed, changed obviously and rapidly; but it was for the better. When
I first saw her, her countenance was sunless, her complexion colourless;
she looked like one who had no source of enjoyment, no store of bliss
anywhere in the world; now the cloud had passed from her mien, leaving
space for the dawn of hope and interest, and those feelings rose like a
clear morning, animating what had been depressed, tinting what had been
pale. Her eyes, whose colour I had not at first known, so dim were they
with repressed tears, so shadowed with ceaseless dejection, now, lit by
a ray of the sunshine that cheered her heart, revealed irids of bright
hazel--irids large and full, screened with long lashes; and pupils
instinct with fire. That look of wan emaciation which anxiety or low
spirits often communicates to a thoughtful, thin face, rather long than
round, having vanished from hers; a clearness of skin almost bloom,
and a plumpness almost embonpoint, softened the decided lines of
her features. Her figure shared in this beneficial change; it became
rounder, and as the harmony of her form was complete and her stature of
the graceful middle height, one did not regret (or at least I did not
regret) the absence of confirmed fulness, in contours, still slight,
though compact, elegant, flexible--the e