Her mind and heart , utterly unspoiled of the world , were as beautiful as her face . All the ugliness of existence had passed her by , shrined in her double solitude of upbringing and muteness . She was naturally quick and clever . Delightful little flashes of wit and humour sparkled out occasionally . She could be whimsical -- even charmingly capricious . Sometimes innocent mischief glimmered out in the unfathomable deeps of her blue eyes . Sarcasm , even , was not unknown to her . Now and then she punctured some harmless bubble of a young man 's conceit or masculine superiority with a biting little line of daintily written script . She assimilated the ideas in the books they read , speedily , eagerly , and thoroughly , always seizing on the best and truest , and rejecting the false and spurious and weak with an unfailing intuition at which Eric marvelled . Hers was the spear of Ithuriel , trying out the dross of everything and leaving only the pure gold . In manner and outlook she was still a child . Yet now and again she was as old as Eve . An expression would leap into her laughing face , a subtle meaning reveal itself in her smile , that held all the lore of womanhood and all the wisdom of the ages . Her way of smiling enchanted him . The smile always began far down in her eyes and flowed outward to her face like a sparkling brook stealing out of shadow into sunshine . He knew everything about her life . She told him her simple history freely . She often mentioned her uncle and aunt and seemed to regard them with deep affection . She rarely spoke of her mother . Eric came somehow to understand , less from what she said than from what she did not say , that Kilmeny , though she had loved her mother , had always been rather afraid of her .
There had not been between them the natural beautiful confidence XXXXX mother and child .
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