A Daughter of Heth by William Black

COQUETTE'S RELIGION.

The Whaup was convinced that he had never seen upon earth, nor yet in his Sunday-morning dreams of what heaven might be like, any creature half so beautiful, and bewitching, and graceful, as the young girl who now walked beside him. Yet he could not tell in what lay her especial charm; for, regarding her with the eye of a critic, the Whaup observed that she was full of defects. Her face was pale and French-looking; and, instead of the rosy bloom of a pretty country lass, there was a tinge of southern sun over her complexion. Then her hair was in obvious disorder -- some ragged ends of silky brown, scattered over her forehead in Sir Peter Lely fashion, being surmounted by a piece of yellow silk ribbon; while there were big masses behind that only partially revealed a shapely neck. Then her eyes, though they were dark and expressive, had nothing of the keen and merry look of your bouncing country belle. Nor was there anything majestic in her appearance; although, to be sure, she walked with an ease and grace which gave even to an observer a sense of suppleness and pleasure. Certainly, it was not her voice which had captivated him; for when he at first heard her absurd accent, he had nearly burst out laughing. Notwithstanding all which, when she turned the pale, pretty, foreign face to him, and when she said, with a smile that lit up the dark eyes and showed a glimpse of pearly teeth -- "It rains not always in your country, then? " -- he remarked no stiffness in her speech, but thought she spoke in music. He could scarcely answer her. He had already succumbed to the spell of the soft eyes and the winning voice that had earned for this young lady, when she was but four years of age, the unfair name of Coquette.