"But did you come alone?"
"Oh, no! She came with me."
"Who—your mamma?" questioned Julia, so deeply interested in the child, that for the moment, her own grief was forgotten.
"No, not her. They call her my mamma, but she isn't. Come here, softly, and I will let you see."
He drew Julia to the entrance, and pointed with his finger toward a female, who sat cowering by a stove a little distance up the passage. There was something so picturesque in the bold, Roman outlines of this woman's face, that it riveted Julia's attention. The large head was covered with masses of dull, black hair, gathered up in a loose coil behind, and falling down the cheeks in dishevelled waves. The nose, rising in a haughty and not ungraceful curve; the massive forehead and heavy chin, with a large mouth coral red and full of sensual expression, gave to that head, bending downward with its side-face toward the light, the interest and effect of some old picture, which, without real beauty, haunts the memory like an unforgotten sin.
This woman had evidently received some injury on the forehead, for a scarlet silk handkerchief was knotted across it, the ends mingling behind with the neglected braids of her hair, which, but for it, must have fallen in coils over her neck and shoulders.
Her dress, of blue barége, had once been elegant, if not rich; but in that place, faded and soiled, with the flounces half torn away, and the rents gathered rudely up with pins that she had found upon the stone-floor of her prison, it had a look of peculiar desolation. Every fold bespoke that flash poverty which profligacy makes hideous.
A book with yellow covers, soiled and torn, lay open upon this woman's lap; and with her large, full arms loosely folded on her bosom, she bent over it with a look of gloating interest, that betrayed all the intensity of her evil nature. You could see her black eyes kindle beneath their inky lashes, as she impatiently dashed over a leaf, or was molested in any way by the noise around.
You could not look upon this woman for an instant without feeling the influence which a strong character, even in repose, fixes upon the mind. Powerful intellect and strong passions—the one utterly untrained, the other curbless and fierce—broke through every curve of her sensual person and every line of her face.