The Freemason's Daughter: A Novel — page 31: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

223 THE FREEMASONS DAUGHTER. had been summer !” she mentally added; “ would it had been summer!” Amy was seated at her work-table, plying her fingers with unwearied industry. Unknown to her brother, for months past she had added to their scanty means by taking in needlework: it enabled her to supply the poor invalid with many comforts and delicacies which he must otherwise have dispensed with ; and the affec- tionate girl blessed the means which enabled her to administer to his wants, who had so long contributed to hers. Amy Lawrence was just at that interesting period of life when, like spring and summer, girl and womanhood are blending. ‘The graceful, sylph-like outline began to fill, the form became more round, and the step, without losing its elasticity, firmer. She was not, per- haps, what the world would term regularly beautiful ; her features were neither Grecian nor Italian ; but par- took something of the character of both. Her eyes were of that quiet, deep blue which poets love, and which, in purity and depth of expression, answer for the soul which beams through them; her brow was lofty, and shaded by clustering curls of soft black hair, which clung around her polished temples, or fell upon her finely rounded shoulders, as the clematis or the purple vine clings round some graceful column, waving, playful and’ beautiful—adorning and adorned. The mouth was finely formed, except, perhaps, in the centre of the lips, which pouted like a cherry, or as if some (SO COniiclooecl SS