DrFrancashstein🔢Earn money by referring friends - V4.3.9

Billy's eyes brightened as they swept the big sugar-bush. Many a spicy spring night had he enjoyed here, "sugarin' off"—he and Teacher Stanhope. The brightness faded from his eyes and his lip quivered. Never again would the man who was boy-friend to him point out the frost-cleared stars that swam low down above the maples and describe to him their wonders. Those stars were shut out from him forever, as were the tints of skies and flowers and all glad lights of the world., "You, Anse!" came Mrs. Wilson's voice. "Have I gotta limber you up with the strap, after all?", This young lady was Lucy, the only child of Captain Acton, one of the most charming, indeed one of the most beautiful girls of her time. The scene of garden and flower-beds quaintly shaped, and the backing of the noble, mellow, gleaming building with its pediment and symbolic carvings, was enchantingly in keeping with the figure and appearance of the girl, who by the magic of her looks and attire instantly transformed it into a picture charged with the colours of youth and health and a sweet and delicate spirit of life. Her apparel was prettily of the time: a straw hat, the brim projecting a little over the forehead and seated somewhat on one side, a plain light blue gown and long yellow silk gloves. The gown was without waist and bound under the bosom by a girdle. Her hair this day was dressed in tresses which hung around the face—not curls, but tender shadings of hair, as though the effect had been contrived by the fingers of the wind; but some curls reposed on her neck. Her eyes were unusually large, of a dark brown and full of liquid light. The eyelids were somewhat heavy, and looked the heavier because of their rich furniture of eyelash. The eyelashes indeed suggested at first sight that she doctored her eyes, as do actresses[Pg 20] and others; but a brief inspection satisfied the beholder that all was Nature transparent, artless, and lovely. A conspicuous charm in Lucy Acton was her colour: her cheeks always wore a natural bloom or glow; this, as in the case of her eyes, might have been suspected as the effect of art, but she blushed so readily, even sometimes on any effort of speech, the damask of her blood so wrought in her cheek on any impulse of mood or humour, that it was quickly seen the mantling glow was a charm of Nature's own gift. No girl could have been more natural, and few more beautiful than Lucy Acton. Had she lived half a century earlier she would have been one of the toasts of the nation..