Though over thirty, she is generally considered very handsome, and is in the very prime of her beauty; for it is not of the fragile, delicate order.  She has jet-black, very abundant hair, hazel eyes, and a complexion that is very fair, without being blonde.  A bright, healthy color in cheek and lip makes her look as fresh as a rose.  Her nose is the doubtful feature.  It is—­hum!—­Roman, and some fastidious folks think a trifle too large.  But I think it suits well her keen eyes and slightly haughty mouth.  She has fine hands, a tall figure, and an independent “grand action,” that is not wanting in grace, but is more significant of prompt energy.

The study of woman is a new one to me.  I often see Kate’s friends and gossips,—­for I occupy the parlor as sick-room,—­and I lie philosophizing upon them by the hour, puzzling myself to solve the problem of their idiosyncrasies.  Lady Mary Wortley Montague said, that, in all her travels, she had met with but two kinds of people,—­men and women.  I begin to think that one sex will never be thoroughly comprehended by the other, notwithstanding the desperate efforts the novelists are making now-a-days.  They all go upon the same plan.  They take some favorite woman, watch her habits keenly, dissect her, analyze her very blood and marrow,—­then patch her up again, and set her in motion by galvanism.  She stalks through three volumes and—­drops dead.  I have seen Kate laugh herself almost into convulsions over the knowing remarks upon the sex in Thackeray, Reade, and others.  And I must confess that the women I know resemble those of no writer but Shakspeare.

We take our revenge for this irritating incapacity by saying that neither can women create ideal men at all resembling reality.  But halte la! Was it not said at first that Rochester must be a man’s man?  Is not the little Professor Paul Emanuel an actual masculine creature?  Heathcliff was a fiend,—­but a male fiend.

But where am I wandering?  To come back to my sister.  She is a fair specimen of the quick, impulsive, frank class of women.  She says she belongs to the genus irritabile.  She is easily excited to every good emotion, and also to the nobler failings of anger, indignation, and pride.  But she is so far above any meanness or littleness, that she don’t know them when she sees them.  They pass with her for what they are not, and she is spared the humiliation of knowing what her species is capable of.  Kate’s nature is very charming, but there is a gentler, calmer order of beings in the sex.  I once was greatly attracted by one of them; and you, I think, belong to that order.  However, I should not class you with her,—­for Kate says she was a “deceitful thing.”  She may have been so, for aught I know; but I hold it as my creed, that there are some women all softness, all gentleness, all purity, all loveableness, and yet all strength of principle.  Kate says, if there are men all courage, all chivalry, all ardor, and all virtue, I may be right.