who graced the village of the Catalans. Many years had flown since then
and many sorrows passed over her. Each of these years and each of these
sorrows, like retiring waves of the sea, upon the smooth and sandy
beach, had left behind its trace. No, Mercedes was not now the young,
light-hearted and thoughtless girl she once was; but she was a being far
more perfect, far more winning, far more to be loved--she was a matured,
impassioned, accomplished, and still, despite the flight of years, most
lovely woman. She was one who could feel passion as well as inspire it,
and having once felt or inspired it, that passion, it was plain, could
never pass lightly away. Her face could not now boast, perhaps, that
full and perfect oval which it formerly had, but the lines of care and
of reflection, which here and there almost imperceptibly appeared,
rendered it all the more charming. In the bold yet beautiful contour of
those features, in the full red lips, in the high pale forehead and,
above all, in those dark and haunting eyes lay a depth of feeling and
profundity and nobleness of thought, which to a reflective mind have a
charm infinitely more irresistible than that which belongs to mere
youthful perfection. There was a bland beauty in the smile which slept
upon her lips, a delicacy of sentiment in the faint flush that tinged
her soft cheek, and a deep meaning in her dark and eloquent eye which
told a whole history of experience even to a stranger; while the full
and rounded outline of the figure, garbed in a loose robe of crimson,
which contrasted beautifully with her luxuriant dark tresses, had that
voluptuous development and grace which only maturity and maternity can
impart to the female form. In short, never had Mercedes, in the days of
her primal bloom, presented a person so fascinating as now. She was a
woman to sigh for, perchance to die for, and one whom a man would
willingly wish to live for, if he might but hope she would live for him,
or, peradventure, he might even be willing not only to risk, but
ultimately to resign his life, would that fair being not only live for
him, but love him with that entire and passionate devotedness which
beamed from her dark eyes up into his who now gazed upon her as she sat
at his feet. As for him, as for Edmond Dantes, his figure had now the
same elegance, his hand the same delicate whiteness, his features the
same spiritual beauty, his brow the same marble pallor, and his eye
which bea