When she blushed it
gradually became more indistinct, and finally vanished amid the
triumphant rush of blood that bathed the whole cheek with its
brilliant glow. But if any shifting emotion caused her to turn pale,
there was the mark again, a crimson stain upon the snow, in what
Aylmer sometimes deemed an almost fearful distinctness. Its shape bore
not a little similarity to the human hand, though of the smallest
pygmy size. Georgiana's lovers were wont to say that some fairy at her
birth-hour had laid her tiny hand upon the infant's cheek, and left
this impress there in token of the magic endowments that were to give
her such sway over all hearts. Many a desperate swain would have
risked life for the privilege of pressing his lips to the mysterious
hand. It must not be concealed, however, that the impression wrought
by this fairy sign-manual varied exceedingly according to the
difference of temperament in the beholders. Some fastidious
persons--but they were exclusively of her own sex--affirmed that the
bloody hand, as they chose to call it, quite destroyed the effect of
Georgiana's beauty and rendered her countenance even hideous. But it
would be as reasonable to say that one of those small blue stains
which sometimes occur in the purest statuary marble would convert the
Eve of Powers[2] to a monster. Masculine observers, if the birthmark
did not heighten their admiration, contented themselves with wishing
it away, that the world might possess one living specimen of ideal
loveliness without the semblance of a flaw.
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