Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 392: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

EARL AND COUNTESS OF DESBOROUGH 375 Her bust was of the most exquisite proportions, neither too much elevated, nor too much depressed, and with the bosoms rising gently into moderate contours, firm and distinctly separated. She was tall in stature; her figure was slender and with softly flowing outlines unequalled for eraceful symmetry, and there was about her an air of elegance, entirely her own, and totally apart from the splendour by which she was surrounded. She was dressed in charming déshabillé. A tasteful cap set off with its snowy whiteness the raven blackness of her hair; a pale silk wrapper, open at the breast and trimmed with the finest lace, was gathered negligently around her form, the shape of which it rather developed than concealed; and the small, shapely feet, thrust into satin slippers, peeped forth from beneath the flowing drapery. This lady was Eleanor, Countess of Desborough; and her husband, the earl, was a fine, handsome man, in his fortieth year. Nevertheless, she had not married him from love. She had been sacrificed to him on account of his enormous wealth; for he was one of the largest. of those few favoured thousands who, by an atrocious system, retained in their possession the entire soil of England. Possessed of vast estates in Hertfordshire and Derbyshire, and a princely mansion in each of those counties, having likewise a perfect palatial residence in Berkeley Square, and owning entire streets in the metropolis, in addition to being an extensive fundholder, the Earl of Desborough might have been well deemed an excellent match by avaricious, selfish, and interested parents. But he had long remained unmarried, to the wonder otf all his friends and the annoyance of mammas who had grown-up daughters and who marvelled when he would make his selection. At length, after having passed the best years of his life in “ single bléssedness,’”’ he was smitten with the charms of Lady Eleanor Sefton. This was about six years previously to the date at which our tale opened; and her ladyship was at that time attached to the person of the Princess Sophia, then a young girl of | only twelve. The earl proposed to Lady Eleanor, whose affections were certainly disengaged, but who felt that she could not love him. Her parents, however, — being more proud than wealthy, — compelled her to accompany him EOMMNIE|OOC) <5) (S©)