"I am not beautiful enough for him!" Such was Eugenie's thought,--a
humble thought, fertile in suffering. The poor girl did not do herself
justice; but modesty, or rather fear, is among the first of love's
virtues. Eugenie belonged to the type of children with sturdy
constitutions, such as we see among the lesser bourgeoisie, whose
beauties always seem a little vulgar; and yet, though she resembled
the Venus of Milo, the lines of her figure were ennobled by the softer
Christian sentiment which purifies womanhood and gives it a
distinction unknown to the sculptors of antiquity. She had an enormous
head, with the masculine yet delicate forehead of the Jupiter of
Phidias, and gray eyes, to which her chaste life, penetrating fully
into them, carried a flood of light. The features of her round face,
formerly fresh and rosy, were at one time swollen by the small-pox,
which destroyed the velvet texture of the skin, though it kindly left
no other traces, and her cheek was still so soft and delicate that her
mother's kiss made a momentary red mark upon it. Her nose was somewhat
too thick, but it harmonized well with the vermilion mouth, whose
lips, creased in many lines, were full of love and kindness. The
throat was exquisitely round. The bust, well curved and carefully
covered, attracted the eye and inspired reverie. It lacked, no doubt,
the grace which a fitting dress can bestow; but to a connoisseur the
non-flexibility of her figure had its own charm.
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