She looked a calm, pleasant thirty; ready to go happily on, year by year, towards an equally agreeable and delightful forty; and not afraid of fifty, when that time should come.

Her clear eyes looked frankly out upon the world, and her sane mind formed sound opinions and pronounced fair judgments, tempered by the kindliness of an unusually large and generous heart.
Just now she was considering the view and finding it very good.

Its strong contrasts held her.
On one side lay the fertile Delta, with its groves of waving palm, orange, and olive trees, growing in rich profusion on the banks of the Nile, a broad band of gleaming silver.

On the other, the Desert, with its far-distant horizon, stretching away in undulations of golden sand; not a tree, not a leaf, not a blade of grass, but boundless liberty, an ocean of solid golden glory.

For the sun was setting, and the sky flamed into colour.
"A parting of the ways," said Jane; "a place of choice.