She was full of beautiful ideas and poetical fancies, and so thoroughly untouched by the world and its aims, that she seemed to me just to poise on the earth like a delicate butterfly on a flower; and I should have been scarcely surprised had I seen her unfold a pair of shining wings and fly away to some other region.

Yet in spite of this spirituelle nature, she was physically stronger and more robust than any other woman I ever saw.

She was gay and active; she was never tired, never ailing, and she enjoyed life with a keen zest such as is unknown to the tired multitudes who toil on hopelessly and wearily, wondering, as they work, why they were born.

Zara evidently had no doubts or speculations of this kind; she drank in every minute of her existence as if it were a drop of honey-dew prepared specially for her palate.

I never could believe that her age was what she had declared it to be.