Of what avail was this outward and goodly show
against the cruel and wayward temper of his daughter?
Kate--by this name we would distinguish her, as veritable historians are
silent on her sponsorial appellation--Kate was unhappily fair and
well-favoured. Her hair was dark as the raven-plume; but her skin, white
as the purest statuary marble, grew fairer beneath the black and glossy
wreaths twining gracefully about her neck. Her cheek was bright as the
first blush of the morning, and ever and anon, as a deeper hue was
thrown upon its rich but softened radiance, she looked like a vision
from Mahomet's paradise--a being nurtured by a warmer sky and fiercer
suns than our cold climate can sustain. She had lovers, but all approach
was denied, and, one by one, they stood afar off and gazed. Her pretty
mouth, lovely even in the proudest glance of petulance and scorn, was so
oftentimes moulded into the same aspect that it grew puckered and
contemptuous, rendering her disposition but too manifest; and
yet--wouldest thou believe it, gentle reader?--she was in love!
Now it so fell out that on the very morning from which we date this
first passage of our history, Cornelius awoke earlier than he was wont.
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