Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The windows at unequal distances each side the chimney were inexpensively curtained, and the shades drawn down so darkened the room, that the principal light in it seemed to come from a cheerful coal fire glowing in the grate. On the whole there was an air of comfort about the apartment, but this was owing less to the elegance of its contents than to their judicious and tasteful arrangement. As the hands of a large old-fashioned watch, which, supported in a handsome stand on the mantel, supplied the place of a clock, pointed to a quarter past four, the door of an adjoining bedroom opened, and a young girl entered the parlor. Medora Fielding was just nineteen,.in all the power and glory of perfect health and magnificent beauty. She was slightly above the medium height; of a figure, which, though lithe and slender, was faultlessly round in the graceful curves of its outlines. Her face was perfect in its oval, with a straight, delicately-formed nose, whose exquisitely chiselled nostril indicated at once high spirit and pure blood. Her mouth, although beautifully formed, was a trifle too voluptuous in its full ripeness of lip, yet you might watch it for hours, ever entranced by its wonderful power of varying expression. Her eyes were large, and so heavily veiled by their long dark lashes, that it was-only when they were fixed upon you with earnest steadiness of look that you realized they were not black, but clear lustrous blue. Her complexion was dazzlingly fair and pure, and ever fleeting in jits color. Habitually the smooth cheek was tinged only with a faint blush, but this, changing in accordance with the emotions of the moment, would deepen into a chapter{Section 4rich crimson, or fade into snowy whiteness. This almost faultless face was encircled by a wealth of sunny ri... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.