Rosamund Gray was the most beautiful young creature that eyes ever beheld.

Her face had the sweetest expression in it--a gentleness--a modesty--a timidity--a certain charm--a grace without a name.
There was a sort of melancholy mingled in her smile.

It was not the thoughtless levity of a girl--it was not the restrained simper of premature womanhood--it was something which the poet Young might have remembered, when he composed that perfect line, "Soft, modest, melancholy, female, fair." She was a mild-eyed maid, and everybody loved her.

Young Allan Clare, when but a boy, sighed for her.
Her yellow hair fell in bright and curling clusters, like "Those hanging locks Of young Apollo." Her voice was trembling and musical.

A graceful diffidence pleaded for her whenever she spake--and, if she said but little, that little found its way to the heart.
Young, and artless, and innocent, meaning no harm, and thinking none; affectionate as a smiling infant--playful, yet inobtrusive, as a weaned lamb--everybody loved her.