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Oh! what ill-natured things were said about those eyebrows and eyelashes! How the sandy freckled Misses Macdonald, husband-hunting at Altes, whispered, about, “What a pity, is it not? Still quite a young person, and really not bad-looking, if she would only leave herself alone.” Each sister, all the same, secretly experimenting in the privacy of her own chamber, with “bâton” and “bandoline;” nay, for aught I know, with camel’s hair-brushes and “lamp-black,” alias “noir velouté;” in the vain hope of rivalling the beautiful Florence. Vain hope truly, for as to eyebrows and eyelashes, the girl was indebted to nature only; and, indeed, had she been less gifted than she was in these respects, I question much if such expedients would have occurred to her, so perfectly satisfied was she with her outward appearance. Naturally so, it must be allowed. The youngest and fairest of the three daughters of a widowed and struggling mother, her surpassing beauty had, from earliest childhood, been impressed upon her as the great fact of her existence. A fact utterly impossible to question or dispute.