The Opposite House: A Novel — page 40: what you’re looking at

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

The Opposite Flouse. 35 and concealed it like a beloved and precious treas- ure behind her flowers. Marie was still scarcely more than a child, though she had seen sixteen springs. But, secluded from the outside world, untouched by its poisonous breath, she had bloomed like a lily of the field, un- conscious of her own beauty. Tall and slender, with bewitching grace in every movement, she resembled the poetic ideal of the German maiden. Thick waves of golden hair were gathered into a knot, and light curls framed a white brow, beneath which laughed eyes as blue and radiant as a bit of the spring sky reflected in a still forest lake. Marie was again standing with clasped hands and lowered lashes before the portrait of her pale an- cestress ; some incomprehensible attraction seemed to draw her as if by magic to the face which gazed down at her so tenderly and sadly. eed really look like her?%, she, asked. herseli, thoughtfully. “ Aunt Verja says so. I am younger, far younger; but she, too, was once sixteen, and be- fore she had wept and suffered so much, her cheeks were perhaps more rosy. You were right, Ances- tress Barbara, and I—I would do the same! What do I care for all the coronets and coats of arms, all the proud names which sound so cold, so repellent ? What do I care for a mother who loves nothing but CoMmicloeo® S C@ S|