This peculiarity
she adopted in compliance with the Highland prejudices, which could not
endure that a woman's head should be covered before wedlock.
Flora Mac-Ivor bore a most striking resemblance to her brother Fergus; so
much so that they might have played Viola and Sebastian with the same
exquisite effect produced by the appearance of Mrs. Henry Siddons and her
brother, Mr. William Murray, in these characters. They had the same
antique and regular correctness of profile; the same dark eyes,
eye-lashes, and eye-brows; the same clearness of complexion, excepting
that Fergus's was embrowned by exercise and Flora's possessed the utmost
feminine delicacy. But the haughty and somewhat stern regularity of
Fergus's features was beautifully softened in those of Flora. Their
voices were also similar in tone, though differing in the key. That of
Fergus, especially while issuing orders to his followers during their
military exercise, reminded Edward of a favourite passage in the
description of Emetrius:
--whose voice was heard around,
Loud as a trumpet with a silver sound.
That of Flora, on the contrary, was soft and sweet--'an excellent thing
in woman'; yet, in urging any favourite topic, which she often pursued
with natural eloquence, it possessed as well the tones which impress awe
and conviction as those of persuasive insinuation.
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