Her brown hair
fell down from beneath a hood, not in curls but with only a slight
wave; her face was of a wan, almost sickly hue, betokening habitual
seclusion from the sun and free atmosphere, like a flower-shrub that
had done its best to blossom in too scanty light. To complete the
pitiableness of her aspect, she shivered either with cold, or fear,
or nervous excitement, so that you might have beheld her shadow
vibrating on the fire-lighted wall. In short, there has seldom been
seen so depressed and sad a figure as this young girl's; and it was
hardly possible to help being angry with her, from mere despair of
doing anything for her comfort. The fantasy occurred to me that she
was some desolate kind of a creature, doomed to wander about in
snowstorms; and that, though the ruddiness of our window panes had
tempted her into a human dwelling, she would not remain long enough
to melt the icicles out of her hair. Another conjecture likewise
came into my mind. Recollecting Hollingsworth's sphere of
philanthropic action, I deemed it possible that he might have brought
one of his guilty patients, to be wrought upon and restored to
spiritual health by the pure influences which our mode of life would
create.
As yet the girl had not stirred. She stood near the door, fixing a
pair of large, brown, melancholy eyes upon Zenobia--only upon Zenobia!--
she evidently saw nothing else in the room save that bright, fair,
rosy, beautiful woman. It was the strangest look I ever witnessed;
long a mystery to me, and forever a memory.
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