Unlike others of her years, her cheeks did not display the
bloom of maidenhood, and her countenance lacked the vivacity natural to
her age. Her features wore an expression of melancholy, which was
perfectly in keeping with the pallor of her cheeks, the pearly whiteness
of which vied in brilliancy with the hue of a lily.
Nanna was the child of poverty, and belonged to that class of beings,
who, situated between riches and nobility on the one hand, and poverty
on the other, are considered as upstarts by the wealthy as well as the
poor.
Nanna's father, when young, was placed in an entirely different position
of life than that in which we now find him. An illegitimate son, he
entered the world with a borrowed title, but with fair prospects for the
future; for his father, a man of consequence and wealth, intended to
marry his mother, and thus the son would bear no longer the stigma of
his father's crime. But death, who in this case had been forgotten,
suddenly cut the thread of his father's life, and the mother and son
were driven forth from the house of their protector, deprived of honor,
wealth, and station.
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