He spoke of her as an angel of
goodness, spending all the means allowed her by her husband among her
poor exiled countrymen and women. And as she used no concealment,
and only took what was supplied to her for her own 'menus plaisirs,'
her husband might grumble, but did not forbid. I knew now that my
brother had loved in her something more than the lovely face.
And oh for that beauty! I felt as though I were trying to guard a
treasure for him as I used every means I had heard of to save it from
disfigurement, not permitting one ray of daylight to penetrate into
the room, and attempting whatever could prevent the marks from
remaining. And here Millicent's habits of patience and self-command
came to her aid, and Dr. Dirkius said he had never had a better or a
gentler sick person to deal with.
Alas! it was all in vain. Millicent's beauty had been of that
delicate fragile description to which smallpox is the most fatal
enemy, with its tendency not only to thicken the complexion, but to
destroy the refined form of the features. We were prepared for the
dreadful redness at first, and when Millicent first beheld herself in
the glass she contrived to laugh, while she wondered what her little
Emilia would say to her changed appearance, and also adding that she
wondered how it fared with her step-mother, a more important
question, she tried to say, than for herself, for the young lady was
betrothed to a rich merchant's son, and would be married as soon as
the days of mourning were over.
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