Doctor Fuller amongst the dwellers in Grilling Abbots, it may be mentioned that Miss Violet was always distinguished as the "pretty Miss Fuller," a distinction creditable to the perceptions of the Grilling Abbots people, although a decided slight appeared to be conveyed by it to the not trifling attractions of Miss Madge, the younger sister.
It is true that Miss Madge was only just emerging from that rather trying period of life, so far as beauty is concerned, when there is a decided inclination about the arms, and legs, and the extremities, to develop themselves greatly and independently, regardless of symmetry, or the general proportions of the body. I have heard rude young men define this state by the term "leggy," and the appellation is apposite, perhaps, though certainly unrefined. Miss Madge had been suffering from the economy of growth, and was only just recovering from this transitional stage of life. A certain angularity still clung to her form; her feet—but the appearance of feet, after all, is a matter that rests very much with the bootmaker—were not small, while her hands were decidedly large and not white. She was little more than fifteen, and perhaps it would be premature to say that she had already attained her full height. Yet it must be admitted that Madge had a very fair share of personal charms, and these quite apart from the witchery of her perpetual merriment; and her laugh, if a little loud, was yet most perfectly musical; it was a laugh with the loud pedal down, but it was as irresistible as it was harmonious. Her features were irregular; so much could be seen at a glance. But after all, beauty is not a mere matter of lines and angles, to be demonstrated like a mathematical proposition; it is the expression of a face that charms, not the accuracy of its drawing. Surely then the best beauty is expression, and here Madge had a triumph: for it was not possible to withstand the allurements of that good, glad, frank expression, brilliant in its health and heart. After this there can be no harm in conceding that her nose was distinctly of a turn-up pattern; not that such a form of nose is in any way unprepossessing, or has by any means had justice done to it; but it is a nose under a kind of ban of generally recognised disapproval; it is a nose with a bad name, in fact. I am afraid that much the same sort of view must be taken in regard to Madge's hair, which was of that glorious red hue—decidedly red, mind; no evasion under the name of yellow, or tawny, or auburn; but of that uncompromising red the world has been somehow coerced to agree that it does not like. But then those large wide-open eyes, so superbly blue, quite like the finest jewels in hue and brightness, though they could melt, and glow, and vary as no jewel can; those grand arching eyebrows, those ripe-red lips, that pearly set of teeth, and that transparent complexion; how white her neck, what a mottled rosiness upon her cheeks! She might not be the pretty Miss Fuller, but I should like to see the creature equal to the criminal audacity of describing her as the ugly one. Let us be content with saying that, conventionally considered, she was less beautiful than Violet—that's all: we will make no further concessions to the disadvantage of our Madge.
Is it to be marvelled at that Mr. Fuller was very proud and very fond of the two charming daughters his dead wife had bequeathed to his love and care? We may go, indeed, further. Was it strange that the whole of Grilling Abbots was proud and fond of the Miss Fullers—of Violet and Madge!
Madge is busy drawing from a lithographed landscape—shall we say by dexterous Mr. Harding? Madge has not great art-talent, though she fancies she has, and her good father—who, honestly, knows no more about drawing and painting than about whale-fishing—heartily backs the opinion of his younger child. Violet has considerable taste and skill. Those framed chalk heads (after Julien) on the wall of the drawing-room are from her hand; so also is that portrait of Madge, taken five years ago—you may note that her eyes were not much smaller then; and a tolerable likeness of the doctor—his cravat and collars limned, perhaps, with superfluous accuracy—sketched about the same time; he was not quite so bald then, and his face perhaps a little fuller. But these works are highly creditable specimens of amateur talent, especially when it is borne in mind that the opportunities of obtaining art instruction in the heart of Uplandshire are not too numerous. And what does Grilling Abbots know concerning the Fine Arts? Why, bless the place! it has hardly ever even set eyes on a painting (except the sign-board of the George) or a painter either. It is true a travelling photographer, in a cheap-jack sort of van, once stopped a whole week in the place—in the paddock at the back of the blacksmith's, and left behind him reminiscences of his sojourn in the shape of scientific caricatures of the inhabitants (collodion on glass) of the most fearful character that ever were seen. But he, like some brothers of his craft whom I and some others have met, was not an artist—emphatically not.
Madge was a very expeditious draughtswoman; she did not pause to put too much thought into her work; she plied her pencil at a furious pace; she used her india-rubber every now and then determinedly, with a strong wrist, as though she would quite as soon as not work her way through the shiny cardboard and come out on the other side; she was prone to strong effects produced by the free use of a BB pencil; perhaps much of her "handling," as the painters call it, was as remarkable for its abandon as for any artistic quality; certainly her vigour and dash almost supplied the place of knowledge and genuine worth. Fairly speaking, however, the works of Miss Madge Fuller, with all their defects of scribble and smudge, had merits which would have received unequivocating homage in numerous family circles. I have known many worse productions pronounced to be "wonderfully clever" by most reputable people, particularly when the works in question happened to be achieved by any of the offspring of those reputable people.
The younger Miss Fuller talked when she worked—in fact, she talked when she played, too,—she was always talking.
