She also wondered just where he belonged
on the family tree. He was not one of the uncles, yet he could
not be much younger than George.
"Forty, if he is a day," was Mrs. George's mental dictum,
"but a very handsome and fascinating man. I never saw such
a splendid chin and dimple."
Lucinda, with bronze-colored hair and the whitest of skins,
defiant of merciless sunlight and revelling in the crisp air,
sat on the sill of the open window behind the crimson vine leaves,
looking out into the garden, where dahlias flamed and asters broke
into waves of purple and snow. The ruddy light of the autumn
afternoon gave a sheen to the waves of her hair and brought out
the exceeding purity of her Greek outlines.
Mrs. George knew who Lucinda was--a cousin of the second generation,
and, in spite of her thirty-five years, the acknowledged beauty
of the whole Penhallow connection.
She was one of those rare women who keep their loveliness unmarred
by the passage of years. She had ripened and matured, but she
had not grown old. The older Penhallows were still inclined,
from sheer force of habit, to look upon her as a girl,
and the younger Penhallows hailed her as one of themselves.
Yet Lucinda never aped girlishness; good taste and a strong
sense of humour preserved her amid many temptations thereto.
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