`` Yes , it 's red , '' she said resignedly . `` Now you see why I ca n't be perfectly happy . Nobody could who has red hair . I do n't mind the other things so much -- the freckles and the green eyes and my skinniness . I can imagine them away . I can imagine that I have a beautiful rose-leaf complexion and lovely starry violet eyes . But I CAN NOT imagine that red hair away . I do my best . I think to myself , ` Now my hair is a glorious black , black as the raven 's wing . ' But all the time I KNOW it is just plain red and it breaks my heart . It will be my lifelong sorrow . I read of a girl once in a novel who had a lifelong sorrow but it was n't red hair . Her hair was pure gold rippling back from her alabaster brow . What is an alabaster brow ? I never could find out . Can you tell me ? '' `` Well now , I 'm afraid I ca n't , '' said Matthew , who was getting a little dizzy . He felt as he had once felt in his rash youth when another boy had enticed him on the merry-go-round at a picnic . `` Well , whatever it was it must have been something nice because she was divinely beautiful . Have you ever imagined what it must feel like to be divinely beautiful ? ''
`` Well now , no , I have n't , '' confessed XXXXX ingenuously .
Matthew complexion eyes hair novel raven rose-leaf skinniness sorrow things