On the back of the miniature was gilded "Lucia." "That is a real head," was my conclusion.
Hunsden smiled.
"I think so," he replied.

"All was real in Lucia." "And she was somebody you would have liked to marry--but could not ?" "I should certainly have liked to marry her, and that I HAVE not done so is a proof that I COULD not." He repossessed himself of the miniature, now again in Frances' hand, and put it away.
"What do YOU think of it ?" he asked of my wife, as he buttoned his coat over it.
"I am sure Lucia once wore chains and broke them," was the strange answer.

"I do not mean matrimonial chains," she added, correcting herself, as if she feared mis-interpretation, "but social chains of some sort.

The face is that of one who has made an effort, and a successful and triumphant effort, to wrest some vigorous and valued faculty from insupportable constraint; and when Lucia's faculty got free, I am certain it spread wide pinions and carried her higher than--" she hesitated.
"Than what ?" demanded Hunsden.
"Than 'les convenances' permitted you to follow." "I think you grow spiteful--impertinent." "Lucia has trodden the stage," continued Frances.

"You never seriously thought of marrying her; you admired her originality, her fearlessness, her energy of body and mind; you delighted in her talent, whatever that was, whether song, dance, or dramatic representation; you worshipped her beauty, which was of the sort after your own heart: but I am sure she filled a sphere from whence you would never have thought of taking a wife." "Ingenious," remarked Hunsden; "whether true or not is another question.
Meantime, don't you feel your little lamp of a spirit wax very pale, beside such a girandole as Lucia's ?" "Yes." "Candid, at least; and the Professor will soon be dissatisfied with the dim light you give ?" "Will you, monsieur ?" "My sight was always too weak to endure a blaze, Frances," and we had now reached the wicket.
I said, a few pages back, that this is a sweet summer evening; it is--there has been a series of lovely days, and this is the loveliest; the hay is just carried from my fields, its perfume still lingers in the air.