Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v1.djvu/264

228 was extravagant in gold lace. Sometimes she wore an embroidered cloth jacket, like a bachelor. She rode on a man's saddle, notwithstanding the invention of side-saddles introduced into England in the fourteenth century by Anne, wife of Richard II. She washed her face, arms, shoulders, and neck in sugar dissolved in white of egg, after the Castilian fashion. There came over her face when any one talked cleverly in her presence an appreciative smile of singular grace. She was free from malice, and rather good-natured than otherwise.