The thought of Amelie's gloom cast a shadow over the project, and she could not yet quite face it.

She wandered back to the sitting-room, and, thinking of Amelie's last words, she stood for some time and looked at herself in the large mirror which rose from mantelpiece to cornice, enclosed in cascades of gilt.

One of the things that Althea, in her mild assurance, was really secure of--for, as we have intimated, her assurance often covered a certain insecurity--was her own appearance.

She didn't know about 'belle,' that seemed rather a trivial term, and the English equivalent better to express the distinctive characteristic of her face.

She had so often been told she was nobly beautiful that she did not see herself critically, and she now leaned her elbow on the mantelpiece and gazed at herself with sad approbation.