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Harte, Bret, 1836-1902

"The Story of a Mine"

She came out strong on the Catholic saints, and would toss
you up a cleanly-shaven Aloysius, sweetly destitute of expression, or
a dropsical, lethargic Madonna that you couldn't have told from an old
master, so bad it was. Her faculty of faithful reproduction even showed
itself in fanciful lettering,--and latterly in the imitation of fabrics
and signatures. Indeed, with her eye for beauty of form, she had always
excelled in penmanship at the Convent,--an accomplishment which the good
sisters held in great repute.
In person she was petite, with a still unformed girlish figure, perhaps
a little too flat across the back, and with possibly a too great
tendency to a boyish stride in walking. Her brow, covered by blue-black
hair, was low and frank and honest; her eyes, a very dark hazel, were
not particularly large, but rather heavily freighted in their melancholy
lids with sleeping passion; her nose was of that unimportant character
which no man remembers; her mouth was small and straight; her teeth,
white and regular.


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