aze of Maltravers--a charm that might not have existed for
others, but was inexpressibly attractive to him, and was so much apart
from the vulgar fascination of mere beauty, that it would have equally
touched a chord at his heart, if coupled with homely features or a
bloomless cheek. This charm was in a wonderful innocent and dove-like
softness of expression. We all form to ourselves some _beau-ideal_ of
the "fair spirit" we desire as our earthly "minister," and somewhat
capriciously gauge and proportion our admiration of living shapes
according as the _beau-ideal_ is more or less embodied or approached.
Beauty, of a stamp that is not familiar to the dreams of our fancy,
may win the cold homage of our judgment, while a look, a feature, a
something that realises and calls up a boyish vision, and assimilates
even distantly to the picture we wear within us, has a loveliness
peculiar to our eyes, and kindles an emotion that almost seems to
belong to memory. It is this which the Platonists felt when they wildly
supposed that souls attracted to each other on earth had been united in
an earlier being and a diviner sphere; and there was in the young
face on which Ernest gazed precisely this ineffable harmony with his
preconceived notions of the beautiful. Many a nightly and noonday
reverie was realised in those mild yet smiling eyes of the darkest blue;
in that ingenuous breadth of brow, with its slightly-pencilled arches,
and the nose, not cut in that sharp and clear symmetry which looks so
lovely in marble, but usually gives to flesh and blood a decided
and hard character, that better becomes the sterner than the gentler
sex--no; not moulded in the pure Grecian, nor in the pure Roman, cast;
but small, delicate, with the least possible inclination to turn upward,
that was only to be detected in one position of the head, and served
to give a prettier archness to the sweet flexile lips, which, from the
gentleness of their repose, seemed to smile unconsciously, but rather
from a happy constitutional serenity than from the giddiness of mirth.
Such was the character of this fair child's countenance, on which
Maltravers turned and gazed involuntarily and reverently, with something
of the admiring delight with which we look upon the Virgin of a Rafaele,
or the sunset landscape of a Claude. The girl did not appear to feel
any premature coquetry at the evident, though respectful admiration she
excited. She met the eyes bent upon her, bri