Project Gutenberg's The Beauty Of The Village, by Mary Russell Mitford

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Title: The Beauty Of The Village

Author: Mary Russell Mitford

Release Date: October 2, 2007 [EBook #22845]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by David Widger

THE BEAUTY OF THE VILLAGE

By Mary Russell Mitford

Three years ago, Hannah Colson was, beyond all manner of dispute,
the prettiest girl in Aberleigh. It was a rare union of face, form,
complexion, and expression. Of that just height, which, although
certainly tall, would yet hardly be called so, her figure united to
its youthful roundness, and still more youthful lightness, an airy
flexibility, a bounding grace, and when in repose, a gentle dignity,
which alternately reminded one of a fawn bounding through the forest, or
a swan at rest upon the lake. A sculptor would have modelled her for the
youngest of the Graces; whilst a painter, caught by the bright colouring
of that fair blooming face, the white forehead so vividly contrasted
by the masses of dark curls, the jet-black eyebrows, and long rich
eyelashes, which shaded her finely-cut grey eye, and the pearly teeth
disclosed by the scarlet lips, whose every movement was an unconscious
smile, would doubtless have selected her for the very goddess of youth.
Beyond all question, Hannah Colson, at eighteen, was the beauty of
Aberleigh, and, unfortunately, no inhabitant of that populous village
was more thoroughly aware that she was so than the fair damsel herself.

Her late father, good Master Colson, had been all his life a respectable
and flourishing master bricklayer in the place. Many a man with less
pretensions to the title would call himself a builder now-a-days, or
"by'r lady," an architect, and put forth a flaming card, vaunting his
accomplishments in the mason's craft, his skill in plans and elevations,
and his unparalleled dispatch and cheapness in carrying his designs into
execution. But John Colson was no new-fangled personage. A plain honest
tradesman was our bricklayer, and thoroughly of the old school; one
who did his duty to his employers with punctual in