Like the lilies of the field,
these products of nature are bad to beat, as we say on Yorkshire turf.
Indeed that frontlet was so beautiful and well placed, it drew forth
glances of marked disdain from every lady within sight of it, Zoe
excepted. She was placable. This was a lesson in color; and she managed
to forgive the teacher, in consideration of the lesson.
Amid the gaudier birds, there was a dove--a young lady, well dressed,
with Quaker-like simplicity, in gray silk dress with no trimmings, a
white silk bonnet and veil. Her face was full of virtues. Meeting her
elsewhere, you would say "That is a good wife, a good daughter, and the
making of a good mother." Her expression at the table was thoughtful and
a little anxious; but every now and then she turned her head to look for
her husband, and gave him so sweet a smile of conjugal sympathy and
affection as made Zoe almost pray they might win. The husband was an
officer, a veteran, with grizzled hair and mustache, a colonel who had
commanded a brigade in action, but could only love and spoil his wife. He
ought to have been her father, her friend, her commander, and marched her
out of that "curse-all" to the top of Cader Idris, if need was.
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