Her favourite sister, Molly, seated beside her, and glancing now and again at her face, believed that the whole world contained nothing so beautiful.

But this was a fixed belief of Molly's.

She was a cripple, and in spite of features made almost angelic by the ineffable touch of goodness, the family as a rule despised her, teased her, sometimes went near to torment her; for the Wesleys, like many other people of iron constitution, had a healthy impatience of deformity and weakness.

Hetty alone treated her always gently and made much of her, not as one who would soften a defect, but as seeing none; Hetty of the high spirits, the clear eye, the springing gait; Hetty, the wittiest, cleverest, mirthfullest of them all; Hetty, glorious to look upon.
All the six were handsome.

Here they are in their order: Emilia, aged thirty-three (it was she who held the book); Molly, twenty-eight; Hetty, twenty-seven; Nancy, twenty-two, lusty, fresh-complexioned, and the least bit stupid; Patty, nearing eighteen, dark-skinned and serious, the one of the Wesleys who could never be persuaded to see a joke; and Kezzy, a lean child of fifteen, who had outgrown her strength.