It is necessary to know the inimitable taste with which the Creoles twist around their heads their kerchiefs of bright hues, to have an idea of the graceful head-dress of Cecily, and the piquant contrast of this variegated covering of purple, blue, and orange, with the black silky tresses, which, escaping from beneath the tight fold of the nightkerchief, surrounded her pale but round and firm cheeks. With her two arms raised above her head, she proceeded with the ends of her fingers, as slender as spindles of ivory, to arrange a large rosette, placed very low on the left side, almost over the ear. Cecily's features were such as once seen it is impossible ever to forget. A bold forehead, somewhat projecting, surmounts her face, which was a perfect oval; her pearly white complexion, the satiny freshness of the camelia leaf slightly touched by a sun-ray; her eyes, of almost disproportionate size, have a singular expression, for their irises, extremely large, black, and brilliant, hardly allow the blue transparency of the orbits, at the two extremities of the lids, fringed with long lashes, to be visible; her chin is very distinctly prominent; her nose, straight and thin, ends in two delicate nostrils, which dilate on the least emotion; her mouth, insolent and amorous, is of bright purple. We must imagine this colourless countenance, with its bright black glance, its two red, pulpy, and humid lips, which glisten like wet coral. Such was Cecily. Her infamous instincts, at first repressed by her real attachment for David, not being developed till she reached Europe, civilisation and the influence of northern climates had tempered their violence. We have already said that Cecily had scarcely reached Germany, when, first seduced by a man of desperately depraved habits, she, unknown to David, who loved her with equal idolatry and blindness, exercised and turned to account, for a considerable time, all her seductive powers; but soon the scandal of her adventures was raised abroad, and such exposures ensued that she was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. To all this let there be joined a plastic, adroit, insinuating mind, an intelligence so wonderful that in a year she spoke French and German with perfect ease, sometimes even with natural eloquence; then add a corrupted heart worthy of the courtesan queen of ancient Rome, an audacity and courage proof against everything, instincts of diabolical wickedness, and then we may understand the new servant of Jacques Ferrand, the resolute being who had dared to venture into the wolf's den.