She was a woman with as little vanity in her composition as it is possible for a woman to have, and till now she had not given her personal looks much consideration.

They had not been of great importance to her in the Wakkerstroom district of the Transvaal.

But to-night all of a sudden they became very important; and so she stood and looked at her own wonderful eyes, at the masses of curling brown hair still damp and shining from the rain, at the curious pallid face and clear-cut determined mouth.
"If it were not for my eyes and hair, I should be very ugly," she said to herself aloud.

"If only I were beautiful like Bessie, now." The thought of her sister gave her another idea.

What if John were to prefer Bessie?
Now she remembered that he had been very attentive to Bessie.
A feeling of dreadful doubt and jealousy passed through her, for women like Jess know what jealousy is in its bitterness.