Page:Des Grieux, The Prelude to Teleny.djvu/28

 lustreless hazel grey. Her dress of a shadowy silvery stuff, called, I think, Barège—looked like the lining of a fleecy cloud.

She was generally very much admired; nay, at the time of her marriage, not only the men but the women themselves, raved about her Madonna-like beauty; and yet few were the people gifted with an artistic sense of colour keen enough to appreciate her.

What then was the secret of this universal admiration? you ask.

That of being unlike everybody else. She had the loveliness of a fair young girl in a plain white muslin dress, amidst a crowd of bejewelled ladies in garish silks and gorgeous satins.

Still her beauty was so ethereal, that it shed a dampness on some men, it even made them shiver and feel cold; loving such a woman was almost a sacrilege, it was like lusting after an image of some virgin. On that sultry midsummer she looked more bloodless, more transparent, more lily-like than usual; and yet—saintly as she looked—all her nerves were tingling with