‘It is dreadful that Frank should have to go away,’ she says, and the tears well up in her large gray eyes; ‘that is the worst of the service. But I suppose no woman ought to interfere with her husband’s career. I am going to live here as quietly as possible until he returns. See; here is his photograph,’ she continues, lifting a case from the table and handing it to Mary Anne. ‘Is he not handsome?’
He is most undeniably so, if the likeness speaks truth, and we both say so; Mary Anne, with the privilege of her sex and age, adding a word as to the beauty of the pair.
‘O yes,’ replies Mrs Ogilvie without the smallest embarrassment: ‘we are always called the “handsome couple.”’
I suppose something of my astonishment expresses itself in my countenance, for she smiles, and says: ‘I am afraid you think me very vain; but I cannot help knowing that I am good-looking, any more than I can help being aware that my eyes are gray, not black, and that my hair is golden. It is a gift from God, like any talent; a valuable one too, I think it; and I own that I am proud of it, for my dear Frank’s sake, who admires it so much.’
Yes, this is Mrs Ogilvie’s peculiarity, as we afterwards discover—an intense and quite open admiration of her own beauty. And indeed there is something so simple and naïve about it, that we do not find it displeasing when we get accustomed to it. She always speaks of herself as if she were a third person, and honestly appreciates her lovely face, as if it were some rare picture, as indeed it is, of Dame Nature’s own painting. She is equally ready to admit the good looks of other women, and has not a trace of jealousy in her composition. But often you will hear her say, in describing some one else: ‘She has a lovely complexion—something in the style of mine, but not so clear.’ Or, ‘She has a beautiful head of hair, but not so sunny as mine;’ &c. &c. At first, every one is astonished at this idiosyncrasy of hers, but in a little while we all come to laugh at it; there is something original and amusing about it; and in all other ways she is _so_ charming.
My wife, with whom she speedily becomes intimate, tells me that she is sure she values her beauty more for her husband’s sake than her own. ‘She evidently adores him,’ says Mary Anne; ‘and he seems to think so much of her sweet looks. She says he fell in love with her at first sight, before he ever spoke to her.’