In the first place, she was not beautiful at all in repose.

There can be no physical beauty without physical health.
And Salome Levison partook of the delicate organization of her mother, who had passed away in early womanhood, and of her brothers and sisters, who had gone in infancy or childhood.
Salome, when still and silent, was, at first sight plain.

She was rather below the medium height, slight and thin in form, pale and dark in complexion, with irregular features, and quiet, downcast, dark-gray eyes, whose long lashes cast shadows upon pallid cheeks, and which were arched with dark eyebrows on a massive forehead, shaded with an abundance of dark brown hair, simply parted in the middle, drawn back and wound into a rich roll.

Her dress was as simple as her station permitted it to be.
Altogether she seemed a girl unattractive in person and reserved in speech.
The very opposite of the handsome shepherdess of Ben Lone.
And yet when she looked up or smiled, her face was transfigured into a wondrous beauty; such intellectual and spiritual beauty as that perfect piece of flesh and blood never could have expressed.

And she was a "sealed book." Yet the hour was at hand when the "sealed book" was to be opened--when her dreaming soul, like the sleeping princess in the wood, was to be awakened by the touch of holy love to make the beauty of her person and the glory of her life..