The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 219: what you’re looking at

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

192 REYNOLDS’ WORKS magnificently arched, — the lashes of exceeding length, and forming the richest fringes that ever shaded those orbs which are at once the mirror and the artillery of woman’s soul. When the mouth, which was so exquisitely formed, parted its rich red lips, teeth were disclosed which were whiter than ivory and faultlessly even. If the hand of this superb crea- ture disturbed the luxuriant masses of hair on either side of her head, a small well-folded ear would be revealed, and thus in every respect was she a perfect model of Oriental splendour and loveliness, combined in that one female form. It was between nine and ten o’clock in the evening — as we have already stated — that we introduce our readers to the occupant of that elegantly furnished apartment within the walls of Shrubbery Villa. The lady herself seemed to be profoundly pensive at one interval, then somewhat excited and anxious at another. Several times in the space of a quar- ter of an hour did she consult an elegant watch, set around with diamonds, and which being retained by a massive sold chain, she took from within the bosom of her caftan. Every now and then, too, her eyes — usually of so melting and languid a lustre — would flash with sudden fires, as if reflecting an inward impatience of the soul; and once when she had consulted her watch, she murmured, in some Oriental tongue, ‘‘ Time passes, and he comes not.” But the voice in which she spoke these few words, and so lowly to herself, was of a rich flutelike harmony that would have given a charm to any language, even the harshest and the most discordant. It was a voice which, once heard, never could be forgotten, — one of those feminine voices which sink down into the very soul like the last notes of a strain of music, leaving rapture and ecstasy behind, yet half- subdued and kept under by the hope of catching the delicious sound again. Presently this lady agitated a silver bell which lay near her, and a Hindu ayah, or female dependent, entered the room. This woman was about five and twenty, tall, slender, and beautifully formed, with the well-knit symmetry and the lithe elasticity of a bayadere. Her countenance, too, — though many, many shades darker than the complexion of her mistress, — was exceedingly handsome. Her eyes were so full of fire that they literally appeared to burn, so that it was pain as well as pleasure to gaze upon those magnificent CORNICLIOOKS (E(0)