They were broad browed, blue eyed, fair haired, born with dimples in their chins, and that pleasant, aristocratic dangerous curl of the upper lip which can equally express good humour or scorn.
Young Frank was every inch a Gresham, and was the darling of his father's heart.
The de Courcys had never been plain.

There was too much hauteur, too much pride, we may perhaps even fairly say, too much nobility in their gait and manners, and even in their faces, to allow of their being considered plain; but they were not a race nurtured by Venus or Apollo.

They were tall and thin, with high cheek-bones, high foreheads, and large, dignified, cold eyes.

The de Courcy girls had all good hair; and, as they also possessed easy manners and powers of talking, they managed to pass in the world for beauties till they were absorbed in the matrimonial market, and the world at large cared no longer whether they were beauties or not.

The Misses Gresham were made in the de Courcy mould, and were not on this account the less dear to their mother.
The two eldest, Augusta and Beatrice, lived, and were apparently likely to live.