England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
“He found her at the old concièrge’s dwelling. Madame Babette was the
name of this woman, who must have been a less faithful--or rather,
perhaps I should say, a more interested--friend to her guest than the
old gardener Jacques was to Clément.
“I have seen a miniature of Virginie, which a French lady of quality
happened to have in her possession at the time of her flight from Paris,
and which she brought with her to England unwittingly; for it belonged
to the Count de Créquy, with whom she was slightly acquainted. I should
fancy from it, that Virginie was taller and of a more powerful figure
for a woman than her cousin Clément was for a man. Her dark-brown hair
was arranged in short curls--the way of dressing the hair announced the
politics of the individual, in those days, just as patches did in my
grandmother’s time; and Virginie’s hair was not to my taste, or
according to my principles; it was too classical. Her large, black eyes
looked out at you steadily. One cannot judge of the shape of a nose from
a full-face miniature, but the nostrils were clearly cut and largely
opened. I do not fancy her nose could have been pretty; but her mouth
had a character all its own, and which would, I think, have redeemed a
plainer face. It was wide and deep set into the cheeks at the corners;
the upper lip was very much arched, and hardly closed over the teeth; so
that the whole face looked (from the serious, intent look in the eyes,
and the sweet intelligence of the month) as if she were listening
eagerly to something to which her answer was quite ready, and would come
out of those red, opening lips as soon as ever you had done speaking,
and you longed to know what she would say.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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