ious pronounced her by no means good enough for a clergyman's helpmate, and the worldly declared her far too shining and attractive for the wife of a poor pastor.
No striking symmetrical regularity rendered Amy's face or figure remarkable. The latter may be described by the brief designation of "trim." The superlative charm of the former consisted in a pair of deep blue eyes, shaded by singularly black lashes. It was a countenance that involuntarily reminded you of Wordsworth's lines—
That for a face not beautiful did more
Than beauty for the fairest face could do."
But Amy's voice had a spell that far surpassed the power of exterior loveliness, for it gave an irresistible assurance of the most varying, most harmonious, most eloquent internal beauty. Those tones were literally spoken-music, and penetrated at once to the heart. When they were sorrowful, their pathos might have drawn tears from a listener who could not comprehend the words uttered, and when they were glad, the gushing, matinal song of the lark is not more purely joyous.
Yet Amy's vivacity was never boisterous. It was combined with a soft repose of manner, suggestive of reserved power that only waited development through life's coming demands for action.
Coleridge declares that "the perfection of a
