Habitual discontent was stamped on
his countenance, but ever and anon a glance of fierceness shot from
his full dark eyes, as the thought of the position to which his
talents ought to have raised him would flit across his brain. A
greater contrast could scarcely be conceived than existed between the
father and child: the latter added to the charms of that early period
of life a face and form of exquisite beauty. Her dazzling complexion,
rich auburn hair, and graceful attitudes, accorded ill with the rusty
black frock which was the mourning habiliment for her maternal
parent, and the expression of her features was that of natural
joyousness, tempered, but not wholly suppressed, by thoughtfulness
beyond her years.
Leonard Beaufort had once been, as was implied by his daughter, in a
different station to that he how occupied. He was by birth and
education a gentleman; but partly owing to his own mismanagement and
extravagance, and partly from misfortunes altogether unavoidable
(though he chose to attribute his reverses wholly to the latter
cause), he found himself suddenly plunged from competence into utter
destitution.
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