The thick and waving brown hair grew almost too low on the white forehead, and, whether by art or nature, the eyebrows were too broad and too dark for the face, though they were so well placed as to greatly improve the defect of the close-set eyes.
There was a marvellous genuine freshness of colour in the clear complexion, and the woman carried her head well upon a really magnificent neck.

She was strong and vital and healthy, and her personality was as distinctly dominating as her physical self.

Yet she was generally very careful not to displease her husband, even when he was capricious, and Veronica was sometimes surprised by the apparent weakness with which she yielded to him in matters about which she had as good a right as he to an opinion and a decision.

The girl supposed that her aunt was not so strong as she seemed to be, when actually brought face to face with the rough ice of Gregorio Macomer's character.
Veronica made her observations discreetly and kept them to herself, as was not only becoming but wise.

At first the change from the semi-cloistered existence of the convent in Rome to the life at the Palazzo Macomer had dazzled the girl and had confused her ideas.