In turning to do so he saw her pale face, wan with suffering, but which now glowed with a happy light that lent it a strange beauty.
How large her blue eyes were! When he had picked her up in Spain she was already a cripple and in sore distress.

But Groland probably knew what he was about when he released her.

She must have been a pretty creature enough at that time, and he knew that before her fall she was considered one of the most skilful rope-dancers.
An elderly woman with a boy, whose blindness helped her to arouse compassion, was crouching by Raban's side, and had just been greeted by Kuni as an old acquaintance.

They had journeyed from land to land in Loni's famous troupe, and as Raban handed Cyriax his own bottle, he turned from the dreaming girl, whose services he no longer needed, and whispered to the blind boy's mother--who among the people of her own calling still went by the name of Dancing Gundel--the question whether yonder ailing cripple had once had any good looks, and what position she had held among rope-dancers.
The little gray-haired woman looked up with sparkling eyes.

Under the name of "Phyllis" she had earned, ere her limbs were stiffened by age, great applause by her dainty egg-dance and all sorts of feats with the balancing pole.