THE PROUD " LADYE." 227 



dark blue eye, the haughty arch of her superb brow, the lofty 

 bend of her swan-like neck, nay her very attitude as she stands 

 with one small hand grasping the folds of the rich mantle, 

 which falls off from her ivory shoulder, are indicative of the 

 pride of an untamed and untameable heart. 



There are some pictures which awaken only a sense of the 

 beautiful; we admire the painter's skill and remember his work 

 only as something which charmed the outward eye. There 

 are other efforts of the graphic art, which fasten upon the 

 memory and the imagination, — which haunt us like half- 

 remembered dreams, and leave upon our minds a consciousness 

 that some unrecorded history is written in rainbow tints upon 

 the canvass. Such an one is the portrait in the old mansion 

 of the De Veres. There is a history in that face ; for the 

 predominant trait of character marked on its beautiful features, 

 decided the destiny of the lovely original. 



Never did a prouder or loftier nature inhabit mortal frame 

 than that which lent its dignified grace to the exceeding beauty 

 of Isabel De Vere. Her grandfather, the scion of a noble 

 house, who had received from royalty a grant of broader lands 

 in the new world than Albion's isle could afford, was still in 

 possession of the fine estate which their adherence to Tory 

 principles afterwards lost to his descendants. Isabel was proud 

 of the blood which coursed in her veins, because it had flowed 

 in an untainted current since the days of the Norman conquer- 

 ors ; — she was proud too of the wealth which secured to her 

 the aristocratic position she deemed necessary to her happi- 



