We have said nothing
of his straight massive nose, his tawny curling beard, which shaded up
to yellow around a broad and laughing mouth, where were perpetually
flashing teeth of an even ivory whiteness a woman might have coveted.
No, not handsome, but better than handsome, was Donald Mackintosh; he
was superb. Everybody said so: nobody could have been found to dispute
it,--nobody but Donald himself; he thought, honestly thought, he was
hideous. All that he could see on the rare occasions when he looked in a
glass was an expanse of fiery red freckles, topped off with what he
would have called a shock of red hair. Uglier than anything he had ever
seen in his life, he said to himself many a time, and grew shyer and
shyer and more afraid of women each time he said it; and all this while
there was not a girl in Charlottetown that did not know him in her
thoughts, if indeed she did not openly speak of him, as that "splendid
Donald Mackintosh," or "the handsome 'Heather Bell' captain."
But nothing could have made Donald believe this, which was in one way a
pity, though in another way not.
Pages:
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203