John's. The whole
scene, under the glow of a rich May afternoon, seemed to me a fragment
out of the "Arabian Nights" or Spencer's "Fairy Queen." I leaned upon the
parapet, and gazed, and gazed, so absorbed in wonder and enjoyment, that I
was quite unconscious, for some time, that Lord Lynedale was standing by my
side, engaged in the same employment. He was not alone. Hanging on his arm
was a lady, whose face, it seemed to me, I ought to know. It certainly was
one not to be easily forgotten. She was beautiful, but with the face and
figure rather of a Juno than a Venus--dark, imperious, restless--the lips
almost too firmly set, the brow almost too massive and projecting--a queen,
rather to be feared than loved--but a queen still, as truly royal as the
man into whose face she was looking up with eager admiration and delight,
as he pointed out to her eloquently the several beauties of the landscape.
Her dress was as plain as that of any Quaker; but the grace of its
arrangement, of every line and fold, was enough, without the help of the
heavy gold bracelet on her wrist, to proclaim her a fine lady; by which
term, I wish to express the result of that perfect education in taste and
manner, down to every gesture, which Heaven forbid that I, professing to be
a poet, should undervalue.
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