But it was her face at which he gazed.

At first he thought she could hardly be the same woman, she was to his eyes so much older than she had been! And yet as he looked at her, he found that she was as handsome as ever--more handsome than she had ever been before.

There was a dignity about her face and figure which became her well, and which she carried as though she knew herself to be in very truth a countess.

It was a face which bore well such signs of age as those which had come upon it.

She seemed to be a woman fitter for womanhood than for girlhood.