Desire Ledwith looked up, The intensity that was in her gray eyes turned full into Christopher Kirkbright’s own.  It was like the sudden shifting of a lens through which sun-rays were pouring.  She had been so absorbed with watching and thinking, that her face had grown keen and earnest without her knowing, as it had been always wont to do; only it was different from the old way in this,—­that while the other had been eager, asking, unsatisfied, this was simply deep, intent; a searching outward, that was answered and fed simultaneously from within and behind; it was the transmitted light by which the face of Moses shone, standing between the Lord and the people.

She was not beautiful now, any more than she had been as a very young girl, when we first knew her; in feature, that is, and with mere outward grace; but her earnestness had so shaped for itself, with its continual, unthwarted flow, a natural and harmonious outlet in brow and eyes; in every curve by which the face conforms itself to that which genuinely animates it, that hers was now a countenance truly radiant of life, hope, purpose.  The small, thin, clear cut nose,—­the lip corners dropped with untutored simplicity into a rest and decision that were better than sparkle and smile,—­the coolness, the strength, that lay in the very tint and tone of her complexion,—­these were all details of character that had asserted itself.  It had changed utterly one thing; the old knitting and narrowing of the forehead were gone; instead, the eyes had widened their spaces with a real calm that had grown in her, and their outer curves fell in lines of largeness and content toward the contour of the cheeks, making an artistic harmony with them.

It was not a face, so much as a living soul, that turned itself toward Miss Euphrasia’s brother, as Miss Kirkbright spoke his name and Desire’s.

For some reason, he found himself walking into the church beside them afterward, thinking oddly of the etymology of that word,—­“introduced.”

“Brought within; behind the barriers; made really known.  Effie gave me a glimpse of that girl,—­her self.  I don’t think I was ever so really introduced before.”

He did not know at all who Miss Ledwith was; she might have been one of the chapel protegees; from Hanover or Neighbor Street, or where not; they all looked nice, in their Sunday dress; those who were helped to dress were made to look as nice as anybody.

Desire Ledwith had on a dark maroon-colored serge, made very simply; bordered, I believe, with just a little roll binding of velvet around the upper skirt.  Any shop-girl might have worn that; any shop-girl would perhaps have been scarcely satisfied to wear the plain black hat, with just one curly tip of ostrich feather tucked in where the velvet band was folded together around it.

Desire sat with her class; it was her family, she said; her church-family, at any rate; she had chosen her scholars from those who had no parents to come with, and sit by; they were all glad of their home-place weekly, at her side.