Her hands were brown, and knotty at the joints; her eyes looked unnaturally bright for her age; innumerable wrinkles crossed and re-crossed her skinny face; and her aquiline nose (as one of the ladies present took occasion to remark) was so disastrously like the nose of the great Duke of Wellington as to be an offensive feature in the face of a woman.
The lady's companion, being a man, took a more merciful view.

"She can't help being ugly," he whispered.

"But see how she looks at the girl with her.

A good old creature, I say, if ever there was one yet." The lady eyed him, as only a jealous woman can eye her husband, and whispered back, "Of course you're in love with that slip of a girl!" She _was_ a slip of a girl--and not even a tall slip.

At seventeen years of age, it was doubtful whether she would ever grow to a better height.
But a girl who is too thin, and not even so tall as the Venus de' Medici, may still be possessed of personal attractions.