Whats Mines Mine | Page 3

with neither attack nor defence in
them. If she was not so graceful as her sister, she was hardly more than
a girl, and had a remnant of that curiously lovely mingling of grace and
clumsiness which we see in long-legged growing girls. I will give her
the advantage of not being further described, except so far as this--that
her hair was long and black, that her complexion was dark, with
something of a freckly unevenness, and that her hands were larger and
yet better than her sister's.
There is one truth about a plain face, that may not have occurred to
many: its ugliness accompanies a condition of larger undevelopment,
for all ugliness that is not evil, is undevelopment; and so implies the
larger material and possibility of development. The idea of no
countenance is yet carried out, and this kind will take more developing
for the completion of its idea, and may result in a greater beauty. I
would therefore advise any young man of aspiration in the matter of
beauty, to choose a plain woman for wife--IF THROUGH HER
PLAINNESS SHE IS YET LOVELY IN HIS EYES; for the loveliness
is herself, victorious over the plainness, and her face, so far from
complete and yet serving her loveliness, has in it room for completion
on a grander scale than possibly most handsome faces. In a handsome
face one sees the lines of its coming perfection, and has a glimpse of
what it must be when finished: few are prophets enough for a plain face.
A keen surprise of beauty waits many a man, if he be pure enough to
come near the transfiguration of the homely face he loved.
This plain face was a solemn one, and the solemnity suited the
plainness. It was not specially expressive--did not look specially
intelligent; there was more of latent than operative power in it--while
her sister's had more expression than power. Both were lady-like;
whether they were ladies, my reader may determine. There are common

ladies and there are rare ladies; the former MAY be countesses; the
latter MAY be peasants.
There were two younger girls at the table, of whom I will say nothing
more than that one of them looked awkward, promised to be handsome,
and was apparently a good soul; the other was pretty, and looked pert.
The family possessed two young men, but they were not here; one was
a partner in the business from which his father had practically retired;
the other was that day expected from Oxford.
The mother, a woman with many autumnal reminders of spring about
her, sat at the head of the table, and regarded her queendom with a
smile a little set, perhaps, but bright. She had the look of a woman on
good terms with her motherhood, with society, with the universe--yet
had scarce a shadow of assumption on her countenance. For if she felt
as one who had a claim upon things to go pleasantly with her, had she
not put in her claim, and had it acknowledged? Her smile was a sweet
white-toothed smile, true if shallow, and a more than tolerably happy
one--often irradiating THE GOVERNOR opposite--for so was the head
styled by the whole family from mother to chit.
He was the only one at the table on whose countenance a shadow--as of
some end unattained--was visible. He had tried to get into parliament,
and had not succeeded; but I will not presume to say that was the
source of the shadow. He did not look discontented, or even peevish;
there was indeed a certain radiance of success about him-only above
the cloudy horizon of his thick, dark eyebrows, seemed to hang a
thundery atmosphere. His forehead was large, but his features rather
small; he had, however, grown a trifle fat, which tended to make up. In
his youth he must have been very nice-looking, probably too pretty to
be handsome. In good health and when things went well, as they had
mostly done with him, he was sweet-tempered; what he might be in
other conditions was seldom conjectured. But was that a sleeping
thunder-cloud, or only the shadow of his eyebrows?
He had a good opinion of himself-on what grounds I do not know; but
he was rich, and I know no better ground; I doubt if there is any more

certain soil for growing a good opinion of oneself. Certainly, the more
you try to raise one by doing what is right and worth doing, the less you
succeed.
Mr. Peregrine Palmer had finished his breakfast, and sat for a while
looking at nothing in particular, plunged in deep thought about nothing
at all, while the girls went on with theirs. He was a little above the
middle height, and looked not much older than