Her black and brilliant eyes, expressive, languishing, and inquiring, arch and smiling by turns, were now bent on me, timidly and imploringly, under their long lashes and dark eyebrows, which were well arched, defined, and full of character—a charming thing in every girl. Through the thin yashmack, or veil of fine muslin, which concealed the lower part of her face, after that abominable fashion which the restless jealousy of their male tyrants imposes on the women of the East, I could discern that her features were beautiful. Her turban was of muslin, sprigged with gold; she had an ivory pomander ball of attar-gul in one hand; a finely-embroidered handkerchief and a sandal-wood rosary from Mecca in the other.
The respect with which she was treated was puzzling and confusing to her, as a Turkish woman; for in her country the fair sex are kept in a state of subjugation so strict, that a sister dare not sit in her younger brother's presence without first obtaining permission.
I attempted to take her hands, but she withdrew them, and crossed them on her bosom.
'Iola,' said I, tenderly; 'have you ceased to love me?'
'I know not,' she replied, sadly; 'for, as the Koran says, it belongeth to Allah alone to fathom the human heart—and I cannot fathom mine.'
'You are doubtful of your own emotions.'
'I am sad—very sad—having much reason to be so.'
'Allow me to remove this veil, for Heaven's sake, dear Iola!' I continued, trembling with the earnestness of my own sentiments; 'do not repel me.'
She was passive, and I hastened to remove both the feradjee and the horrid yashmack; and then her fine figure appeared in a close velvet jacket, sleeved only to the elbow, cut low at the neck and open at the bosom; and her hair was gathered about her beautiful head in massive braids, like perfumed and sable silk. She trembled and blushed excessively, for, by the Mohammedan law, aged women who are past the time of marriage alone may lay this veil aside.
Her white neck and arms were encircled by strings of Turkish rose pearls, made from the leaves of freshly-culled roses, bruised to a paste, and dried and rolled in oil of roses and musk, and which, being thus beautifully polished and pleasantly perfumed, are favourite ornaments in the East.