Her hair was of that gorgeous auburn color, her eyes
of that deep violet-blue, which the portraits of Giorgione and
Titian have made famous as the type of Venetian beauty. Her
features possessed the definiteness and regularity, the "good
modeling" (to use an artist's term), which is the rarest of all
womanly charms, in Italy as elsewhere. The one serious defect of
her face was its paleness. Her cheeks, wanting nothing in form,
wanted everything in color. That look of health, which is the
essential crowning-point of beauty, was the one attraction which
her face did not possess.
She came into the room with a sad and weary expression in her
eyes, which changed, however, the moment she observed the
magnificently-dressed French forewoman, into a look of
astonishment, and almost of awe. Her manner became shy and
embarrassed; and after an instant of hesitation, she turned back
silently to the door.
"Stop, stop, Nanina," said Brigida, in Italian. "Don't be afraid
of that lady. She is our new forewoman; and she has it in her
power to do all sorts of kind things for you. Look up, and tell
us what you want You were sixteen last birthday, Nanina, and you
behave like a baby of two years old!"
"I only came to know if there was any work for me to-day," said
the girl, in a very sweet voice, that trembled a little as she
tried to face the fashionable French forewoman again.
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