The instant my eyes rested on her, I was
struck by the rare beauty of her form, and by the unaffected grace
of her attitude. Her figure was tall, yet not too tall; comely
and well-developed, yet not fat; her head set on her shoulders
with an easy, pliant firmness; her waist, perfection in the eyes
of a man, for it occupied its natural place, it filled out its
natural circle, it was visibly and delightfully undeformed by
stays. She had not heard my entrance into the room; and I allowed
myself the luxury of admiring her for a few moments, before I
moved one of the chairs near me, as the least embarrassing means
of attracting her attention. She turned towards me immediately.
The easy elegance of every movement of her limbs and body as soon
as she began to advance from the far end of the room, set me in a
flutter of expectation to see her face clearly. She left the
window--and I said to myself, The lady is dark. She moved forward
a few steps--and I said to myself, The lady is young. She
approached nearer--and I said to myself (with a sense of surprise
which words fail me to express), The lady is ugly!
Never was the old conventional maxim, that Nature cannot err, more
flatly contradicted--never was the fair promise of a lovely figure
more strangely and startlingly belied by the face and head that
crowned it.
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