The lady at the window looked at it for some time; for reasons of her own she thought it the ugliest thing she had ever seen.
She hated it, she despised it; it threw her into a state of irritation that was quite out of proportion to any sensible motive.

She had never known herself to care so much about church-spires.
She was not pretty; but even when it expressed perplexed irritation her face was most interesting and agreeable.

Neither was she in her first youth; yet, though slender, with a great deal of extremely well-fashioned roundness of contour--a suggestion both of maturity and flexibility--she carried her three and thirty years as a light-wristed Hebe might have carried a brimming wine-cup.

Her complexion was fatigued, as the French say; her mouth was large, her lips too full, her teeth uneven, her chin rather commonly modeled; she had a thick nose, and when she smiled--she was constantly smiling--the lines beside it rose too high, toward her eyes.

But these eyes were charming: gray in color, brilliant, quickly glancing, gently resting, full of intelligence.