She was once spoken of in my presence as "a sore-eyed old maid" --
I have forgotten who said it. Yet I can now recall occasions when her eyes,
being "better", appeared unusually soft, and, had she not been an old maid,
would sometimes have been beautiful -- as, for instance, occasionally,
when she was playing at the piano in the evenings before the candles
were lighted. I recollect particularly once when she was singing
an old French love-song. Another time was when on a certain occasion
some one was talking about marriages and the reasons which led to
or prevented them. She sat quite still and silent, looking out of the window,
with her thin hands resting in her lap. Her head was turned away
from most of the people, but I was sitting where I could see her,
and the light of the evening sky was on her face. It made her look very soft.
She lifted up her eyes, and looked far off toward the horizon.
I remember it recalled to me, young as I was, the speech I had heard some one
once make when I was a little boy, and which I had thought so ridiculous,
that "when she was young, before she caught that cold, she was
almost beautiful." There was an expression on her face that made me think
she ought always to sit looking out of the window at the evening sky.
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