Nor was Constance that evening disposed to be indifferent to the effect she should produce.

She looked on the reflection of herself with a feeling of triumph, not arising from vanity alone.
And when did mirror ever give back a form more worthy of a Pericles to worship, or an Apelles to paint?
Though but little removed from the common height, the impression Constance always gave was that of a person much taller than she really was.

A certain majesty in the turn of the head, the fall of the shoulders, the breadth of the brow, and the exceeding calmness of the features, invested her with an air which I have never seen equalled by any one, but which, had Pasta been a beauty, she might have possessed.

But there was nothing hard or harsh in this majesty.

Whatsoever of a masculine nature Constance might have inherited, nothing masculine, nothing not exquisitely feminine, was visible in her person.