Читать книгу No. XIII; or, The Story of the Lost Vestal онлайн

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Hyacintha’s eyes were of that dusky hue which, taking a new colour with every varying light, defies description. Her hair was of a deep golden brown; and though she had every distinctive feature of her race in the well-cut features, and curved, short upper lip, with rather a massive chin, her complexion was fair.

Hyacintha had been born in the north during her father’s first year of office about the person of the Governor; thus the Italian sunshine had not given her complexion the rich dark hue which characterised her mother.

No one could look at Hyacintha, even at that early age, without seeing that there was in her something beyond the ordinary type of girlhood. Her mother might dream away life, and know no higher pleasures than the acquisition of beautiful dresses and ornaments, and in the entertainment of guests, and driving along the level Watling Street in her well-appointed chariot, but Hyacintha had already other aims and views. The child had heard from her father that maidens of their house had been chosen to keep the sacred fire burning in the temple of Vesta—that fire which was never to be quenched—that light which, coming from heaven, was to keep the sacred flame alive in every Roman’s hearth and heart!