.

NORHALA OF THE LIGHTNINGS.
We looked upon a vision of loveliness such, I think, as none has beheld since Trojan Helen was a maid.

At first all I could note were the eyes, clear as rain-washed April skies, crystal clear as some secret spring sacred to crescented Diana.

Their wide gray irises were flecked with golden amber and sapphire--flecks that shone like clusters of little aureate and azure stars.
Then with a strange thrill of wonder I saw that these tiny constellations were not in the irises alone; that they clustered even within the pupils--deep within them, like far-flung stars in the depths of velvety, midnight heavens.
Whence had come those cold fires that had flared from them, I wondered--more menacing, far more menacing, in their cold tranquillity than the hot flames of wrath?
These eyes were not perilous--no.

Calm they were and still--yet in them a shadow of interest flickered; a ghost of friendliness smiled.
Above them were level, delicately penciled brows of bronze.