s were disposed to
dance round her. She was ordinarily pale, with a faint rose tinge in
her cheeks; but they flushed up in a minute when occasion called,
and continued so blushing ever so long, the roses remaining after the
emotion had passed away which had summoned those pretty flowers into
existence. Her eyes have been described as very large from her earliest
childhood, and retained that characteristic in later life. Good-natured
critics (always females) said that she was in the habit of making play
with those eyes, and ogling the gentlemen and ladies in her company; but
the fact is, that Nature had made them so to shine and to look, and they
could no more help so looking and shining than one star can help being
brighter than another. It was doubtless to mitigate their brightness
that Miss Laura's eyes were provided with two pairs of veils in the
shape of the longest and finest black eyelashes, so that, when she
closed her eyes, the same people who found fault with those orbs, said
that she wanted to show her eyelashes off; and, indeed, I daresay that
to see her asleep would have been a pretty sight.

As for her complexion, that was nearly as brilliant as Lady Mantrap's,
and without the powder which her ladyship uses. Her nose must be left to
the reader's imaginaton: if her mouth was rather large (as Miss Piminy
avers, who, but for her known appetite, one would think could not
swallow anything larger than a button) everybody allowed that her smile
was charming, and showed off a set of pearly teeth, whilst her voice
was so low and sweet, that to hear it was like listening to sweet music.
Because she is in the habit of wearing very long dresses, people of
course say that her feet are not small: but it may be that they are
of the size becoming her figure, and it does not follow, because Mrs.
Pincher is always putting her foot out, that all other ladies should be
perpetually bringing theirs on the tapis. In fine, Miss Laura Bell at
the age of sixteen, was a sweet young lady. Many thousands of such are
to be found, let us hope, in this country where there is no lack of
goodness, and modesty, and purity, and beauty.

Now Miss Laura, since she had learned to think for herself (and in the
past two years her mind and her person had both developed themselves
considerably) had only been half pleased with Pen's general conduct and
bearing. His letters to his mother at home had become of late very
rare and short. It was in vain