ABSTRACT
Annie Leslie was neither a belle nor a beauty – a gentlewoman, nor yet an absolute peasant – "a fortune," nor entirely devoid of dower: – although born upon a farm that adjoined my native village of Bannow, she might almost have been called a flower of many lands; for her mother was a Scot, her father an Englishman; one set of grand-parents Welsh – and it was said that the others were (although I never believed it, and always considered it a gossiping story) Italians, or foreigners, "from beyant the salt sea." It was a very charming pastime to trace the different countries in Annie's sweet, expressive countenance. Ill-natured people said she had a red, Scottish head, which I declare to be an absolute story. The maiden's hair was not red; it was a bright chestnut, and glowing as a sunbeam – perhaps, in particular lights, it might have had a tinge – but, nonsense! it was anything but red: the cheek-bone was, certainly, elevated; yet who ever thought of that, when gazing on the soft cheek, now delicate as the bloom on the early peach – now purely carnationed, as if the eloquent colour longed to eclipse the beauty of the black, lustrous eyes, that were shaded by long, long, eyelashes, delicately turned up at the points, as if anxious to act as conductors to my young friend's merry glances, of which, however, I must confess, she was usually chary enough? Her figure was, unfortunately, "of the Principality," 433 being somewhat of the shortest; but her fair skin, and small, delicate mouth, told of English descent. Her father was a respectable farmer, who had been induced, by some circumstance or other, to setde in Ireland; and her mother – but what have I to do with either her father or her mother, just now?
