If the
light had not thrown into relief her face, which she seemed to show in
preference to the rest of her person, it would still have been
impossible to escape riveting the attention exclusively upon it. Its
expression of stupefaction, which was cold and rigid despite hot tears
that were rolling from her eyes, would have struck the most
thoughtless mind. Nothing is more terrible to behold than excessive
grief that is rarely allowed to break forth, of which traces were left
on this woman's face like lava congealed about a crater. She might
have been a dying mother compelled to leave her children in abysmal
depths of wretchedness, unable to bequeath them to any human
protector.
The countenance of this lady, then about forty years of age and not
nearly so far from handsome as she had been in her youth, bore none of
the characteristics of a Flemish woman. Her thick black hair fell in
heavy curls upon her shoulders and about her cheeks. The forehead,
very prominent, and narrow at the temples, was yellow in tint, but
beneath it sparkled two black eyes that were capable of emitting
flames. Her face, altogether Spanish, dark skinned, with little color
and pitted by the small-pox, attracted the eye by the beauty of its
oval, whose outline, though slightly impaired by time, preserved a
finished elegance and dignity, and regained at times its full
perfection when some effort of the soul restored its pristine purity.
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