She waited the table with a heavy placable nonchalance,
like a performing cow; her great grey eyes were steeped in amorous
languor; her features, although fleshy, were of an original and accurate
design; her mouth had a curl; her nostril spoke of dainty pride; her
cheek fell into strange and interesting lines. It was a face capable of
strong emotion, and, with training, it offered the promise of delicate
sentiment. It seemed pitiful to see so good a model left to country
admirers and a country way of thought. Beauty should at least have
touched society; then, in a moment, it throws off a weight that lay upon
it, it becomes conscious of itself, it puts on an elegance, learns a gait
and a carriage of the head, and, in a moment, patet dea. Before I left I
assured Clarisse of my hearty admiration. She took it like milk, without
embarrassment or wonder, merely looking at me steadily with her great
eyes; and I own the result upon myself was some confusion. If Clarisse
could read English, I should not dare to add that her figure was unworthy
of her face. Hers was a case for stays; but that may perhaps grow better
as she gets up in years.
Pont de Montvert, or Greenhill Bridge, as we might say at home, is a
place memorable in the story of the Camisards. It was here that the war
broke out; here that those southern Covenanters slew their Archbishop
Sharp.
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