The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 218: what you’re looking at

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

THE EASTERN LADY 191 to such advantage. She was not above the middle height of woman, and yet she appeared taller on account of her re- markably well-modelled figure and her apparel, as well as from the statuesque elegance and graceful majesty of her gait and carriage. Thus far have we described the occupant of that room of Oriental luxury. But we must endeavour to render equal justice, by means of minutest detail, to the gorgeous splendour of her personal charms. We have already said that her complexion was of Eastern duskiness, but yet it had nought of gipsy swarthiness; it might be better likened to that of the Spaniard or Italian when in its darkest shade of bistre, yet with a skin perfectly transparent, and the warm blood showing through as it mantled with richest carnation tint upon the cheeks. Perhaps the hue of her complexion would be even still better understood if we describe it as a clear pale brown, for it had in it none of the sallowness which blends with the olive skin, and the skin itself had all the fineness and polish of a youthful freshness still adhering to a mature and voluptuous womanhood. The reader may have expected to learn that she wore an Oriental turban upon her head, but it was not so. A golden network, curi- ously interwoven with diamonds and pearls, — the entire ornament itself constituting a fortune, — rested lightly upon that head, but the hair was not gathered up beneath the net- work; it was parted in the middle with a careful exactitude, and flowed down in long, heavy tresses upon her shoulders and her back. Dark as night was that hair, black as jet, too, with no gloss upon it; yet was it neither harsh nor coarse, but as soft as silk, without wave or curl, save and except toward the extremity of the luxuriant tresses, and there the curl was rich and natural. Her forehead was not high, but yet expansive enough to give dignity to the countenance; the nose was perfectly straight, the nostrils of the tint of the rose- leaf. The upper lip was short, and both lips appeared to have been cut by the sculptor’s chisel into their classical perfection; the shape of the mouth, when the whole face was in a State of repose or of seriousness, was that of Cupid’s bow. The chin was delicately rounded and the countenance formed a complete oval. The eyes were large and dark, full of a languishing lustre, the orbs set in whites of that bluish tint which seems like mother-of-pearl. The eyebrows were (COUN a LOOKS (C(O)