If Leoline had gone to bed directly, like a good,
dutiful little girl, as Sir Norman ordered her, she would have
saved herself a good deal of trouble and tears; but Leoline and
sleep were destined to shake hands and turn their backs on each
other that night. It was time for all honest folks to be in bed,
and the dark-eyed beauty knew it too, but she had no notion of
going, nevertheless. She stood in the centre of the room, where
he had left her, with a spot like a scarlet roseberry on either
cheek; a soft half-smile on the perfect mouth, and a light
unexpressibly tender and dreamy, in those artesian wells of
beauty - her eyes. Most young girls of green and tender years,
suffering from "Love's young dream," and that sort of thing, have
just that soft, shy, brooding look, whenever their thoughts
happen to turn to their particular beloved; and there are few
eyes so ugly that it does not beautify, even should they be as
cross as two sticks. You should have seen Leoline standing in
the centre of her pretty room, with her bright rose-satin
glancing and glittering, and flowing over rug and mat; with her
black waving hair clustering and curling like shining floss silk;
with a rich white shimmer of pearls on the pale smooth forehead
and large beautiful arms.
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