It is not to be described or analyzed; like the blue of heaven, it is the infinitely elusive property which is the very secret and necessity of its existence.
Cornelia looked searchingly at this face, and, though much of its subtlest charm must necessarily have been lost upon her, she saw a great deal that gave her pleasure.

She had never been subjected to that awakening but coarsening process which teaches a girl to call herself a beauty; but there is a certain amount of instinctive perception, in these matters, and she could not but know that what had virtue to gratify her would not lack in effect over others.

Nor was she in the habit of taking stock of herself in the looking-glass; only to-night she seemed to have an especial motive in making or renewing her own acquaintance.
At length she dropped her eyes, and, with nimble fingers and swiftly-applied hair-pins, wound up her hair into its nocturnal knot.
She removed her ear-rings and rings, and put them into the vase; but here reverie overtook her once more, and held her in a meditative half-smile, until consciousness revived, and startled the blood into her cheeks.

She walked over to her little sofa, with dispatch and business in her step, and sat down to unlace her boots.
There is something in these little ever-recurring actions, however--these things which we do so often as to do them unconsciously--which predisposes to thought and reflection.

Cornelia, having untied the knot, had not got farther than the fourth hole from the top, her eyes meanwhile wandering slowly around the picturesque but rather disorderly little room, before she became dreamily interested in watching the shadow of a neck-scarf she had hung upon the support of the looking-glass, projected upon the wall by the flickering light of the candle.