Brune

By-the-way, we haven’t yet described our favorite Nettie. We will leave details to the reader’s imagination, and only say that she was neither blonde or brune, but a dangerous mixture of both, and able to wear pink or blue with impunity, and look bewitching in either.

When I read of Helen and Cleopatra and Lucretia, and all the beauties of old times, it was always with the notion that each one, blonde or brune, must have looked like Katie Stuart.

“[…] Lord Quallinghame, how do you think I should look as Cleopatra? Only fancy what gorgeous colouring you could get out of such a costume! Was Cleopatra blonde or brune, by the way? Not that it matters”—[…]

The worker with “silken thread and needle fine,” the lover of deep rich colors, the one who adores the glowing tone of the scarlets and yellows, the golden browns and the emerald greens, the woman who can spend all the golden ducats she may wish and still have plenty left, as well as she who must think of how she can arrange so that all of last season’s stuffs can be utilized and everything look as it should, each woman, rich or poor, blonde or brune, old or young, ought surely be satisfied with the store of delights offered to her by la Mode this year. […] Seal and mode are seen well developed in a walking costume to be worn by a pretty woman, who is neither blonde or brune, but has dark brown hair, blue eyes and a clear complexion.

Not that Marie had ever starred in any such tragedy. She belonged to neither the one sort of Van Steynes nor the other. She was neither blonde nor brune. A dash of romance in her temperament was counterbalanced by a saving sense of the ridiculous, that kept her from ever quite making a fool of herself.

The pose is necessarily graceful; the costume may be, and often is, so devised as to heighten the effect. Miss Morgan and Miss Boxall are as famous for this as for their playing. Whether the player be blonde or brune, the golden framework of the instrument is sure to blend; while the flashing ivory of the harpist’s arms, sweeping back and forth against the glistening strings, keeps time to the delicate harmonies woven by her fingers.

“[…] It is from Lucille, a charming girl, with a most fascinating disregard for the first elements of orthography. We quarrelled, alas! six months ago.” / “Blonde or brune?” anxiously inquired the man of law. / “Blonde, of course,” I replied firmly—I am proud of my taste.

I had never seen you then, not even your picture. I didn’t know whether you were tall or short, blonde or brune.