Her finery was very simple. A short russet-coloured jacket and a
petticoat of scanty longitude was her whole dress; but these were clean,
and neatly arranged. A piece of scarlet embroidered cloth, called the
snood, confined her hair, which fell over it in a profusion of rich dark
curls. The scarlet plaid, which formed part of her dress, was laid aside,
that it might not impede her activity in attending the stranger. I should
forget Alice's proudest ornament were I to omit mentioning a pair of gold
ear-rings and a golden rosary, which her father (for she was the
daughter of Donald Bean Lean) had brought from France, the plunder,
probably, of some battle or storm.
Her form, though rather large for her years, was very well proportioned,
and her demeanour had a natural and rustic grace, with nothing of the
sheepishness of an ordinary peasant. The smiles, displaying a row of
teeth of exquisite whiteness, and the laughing eyes, with which, in dumb
show, she gave Waverley that morning greeting which she wanted English
words to express, might have been interpreted by a coxcomb, or perhaps by
a young soldier who, without being such, was conscious of a handsome
person, as meant to convey more than the courtesy of an hostess.
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