The mouth, almost always the
tell-tale feature of the face, seemed in his case rather calculated
to puzzle any one who would have speculated on the meanings shadowed
forth by the lines of it. It was certainly, with its large rows of
unexceptionably brilliant teeth, a very handsome mouth. And it was
often not devoid of much sweetness. Nobody had ever imagined that
they detected any evil expression among its meanings. But whereas a
physiognomist looking at that generally faithful expositor of the
moral man, when it was at rest, would have been inclined to say,
that it was a mouth indicative of much capacity for deep and strong
passion, a further study of it in its varied movements would have
led him to the conclusion that no strong or violent passions had
ever been there to leave their traces among its lines. The whole
face was so essentially calm, unruffled, and placidly dignified.
The loftly noble forehead, the strongly marked brow, the well-opened
calm grey eye, all told the same tale of a mind within well-
balanced, thoroughly at peace with itself, and thoroughly contented
with its outward manifestations, and with every particular of its
position.
Clearly the Marchese di Castelmare was a remarkably handsome man.
And yet there was something about him,--and always had been even as
a young man, which seemed to be in natural accordance with the fact
that he had never seemed to seek female society, save as an
amphytrion receiving all Ravenna within his hospitable doors.
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