Time had been when a slight colour mantled in her face, but now there was not even a tinge of pink on her cheek, and yet she was perfectly healthy. Her paleness was not the result of sickness, but of long heart-struggles, of much confinement, of want of the strength-giving breezes that blew over the hills and dales of her country home. Her hands, as they fell into her lap with the piece of needlework she held, looked as white as camellia leaves, and she had no rings save a gold one on the third finger of the left hand, and a keeper set round with small diamonds that sparkled in the lamplight. She was delicately-shaped, grace fully formed, and of that just size Queen Elizabeth extolled 3 which is, after all, perhaps the only perfection of height for a woman.