The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 351: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XXIX THE LADY’S-MAID—THE STOLEN INTERVIEW Mary ANNE was one of the handsomest as well as the astutest and discreetest of lady’s-maids. She was a fine, tall, well-grown young woman, of about three and twenty, with a figure that had something brillant and splendid in its Diana- like proportions. Many a lady of rank who shone in the gor- geous saloons of fashion might have envied Mary Anne that superb shape, for nothing could be more graceful than the slope of the shoulders, the bend in the back, the symmetry of the waist, and the sweeping length of limb whose fine proportions were displayed in one sense though concealed in another by the long skirt of the dress. Mary Anne’s countenance was not merely pretty, it was handsome. Her brown hair was of remarkable luxuriance, and whether arranged in plain bands in the morning part of the day, or in long, shining ringlets in the evening, it set off to equal advantage the fine face that beamed with mingled archness and good-humour. There was something shehtly coquettish in Mary Anne’s air and appearance. She wore an elegant little French cap, as if she knew that it became her admirably, and every detail of her toilet denoted not merely a scrupulous neatness, but hkewise a tastefulness which nearly bordered upon elegance, — that is to say, as much elegance as a lady’s-maid could possibly throw into her apparel. Her clothes were evidently made by no cheap milliner or clumsy seamstress, but fitted her as pertectly as if she were a lady of rank and fortune. As a matter of course, she had handsome perquisites in the discarded dresses of her young mistresses, but these were never cobbled up anew for Miss Mary Anne. She accepted cast-off clothes, but would not wear them, not she 334 CONNIE NCO KS (E(0)