“Yes, madam, it is lying on the seat in front of him and he is studying a photograph.”
“That is all, guard, thank you,” returned the lady in a fainter tone, as she leaned her head back on the cushioned partition.
“You look faint, mademoiselle,” said her companion, hastening to her side with an anxious look in her eyes—“will mademoiselle try a little sal-volatile?”
“Thank you, no,” replied her mistress; “I think it is only that I am a little faint after my long night’s travel.”
She sat in silence for a few minutes while the companion watched the pallid face, and the white lids and long dark lashes which hid the beautiful eyes.
There was a saddened droop in the beautiful mouth with its gracefully curved lips, as if Cupid’s bow had been bent just a little awry. And where, oh where, was that imperious look which was wont to be enthroned on that boldly rounded chin? The change was Love the humiliator’s work.
The silken scarf thrown over the shapely head had fallen aside and now showed the beautiful hair in all the graceful abandon consequent upon a night’s comfortless travel.
The dusky tresses with the wave of a wind-swept banderol in them grew low and luxurious over the broad white forehead, and curled upwards in wealthy profusion over the graceful head.
The beautiful and strongly marked eyebrows, the densely fringed lids and all the component parts of superlative beauty were there.
Men talk of alabaster loveliness, of faces pale and perfect as flawless marble, but these similes fell far short of Miss Beattison’s complexion, which was the despair of the rest of the sex. In her case these would have been dead illustrations of a living glorious beauty to which neither nature nor art could furnish an analogy or an expression.