All at once it struck her how well the unusual, fantastic
name her mother had given her suited her; and, as she gazed, the
feeling grew.
Large, and grandly made, Hesper stood "straight, and steady, and
tall," dusky-fair, and colorless, with the carriage of a young
matron. Her brown hair seemed ever scathed and crinkled afresh by
the ethereal flame that here and there peeped from amid the
unwilling volute rolled back from her creamy forehead in a
rebellious coronet. Her eyes were large and hazel; her nose cast
gently upward, answering the carriage of her head; her mouth
decidedly large, but so exquisite in drawing and finish that the
loss of a centimetre of its length would to a lover have been as
the loss of a kingdom; her chin a trifle large, and grandly
lined; for a woman's, her throat was massive, and her arms and
hands were powerful. Her expression was frank, almost brave, her
eyes looking full at the person she addressed. As she gazed, a
kind of love she had never felt before kept swelling in Mary's
heart.
Her companion impressed her very differently.
Some men, and most women, counted Miss Yolland _strangely_
ugly. But there were men who exceedingly admired her. Not very
slight for her stature, and above the middle height, she looked
small beside Hesper. Her skin was very dark, with a considerable
touch of sallowness; her eyes, which were large and beautifully
shaped, were as black as eyes could be, with light in the midst
of their blackness, and more than a touch of hardness in the
midst of their liquidity; her eyelashes were singularly long and
black, and she seemed conscious of them every time they rose.
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