"That is a new appearance."
"Who can she be?"
"Unique--is she not?" were queries bandied from one to another of
the various parties of guests scattered through the extensive
parlors of the most fashionable of Washington hotels, at the
entrance of a company of five or six late arrivals. All the persons
composing it were well dressed, and had the carriage of people of
means and breeding. Beyond this there was nothing noteworthy about
any of them, excepting the youngest of the three ladies of what
seemed to be a family group. When they stopped for consultation upon
their plans for this, their first evening in the capital, directly
beneath the central chandelier of the largest drawing-room, she
stood, unintentionally, perhaps, upon the outside of the little
circle, and not exerting herself to feign interest in the parley,
sought amusement in a keen, but polite survey of the assembly,
apparently in no wise disconcerted at the volley of glances she
encountered in return.
If she were always in the same looks she wore just now, she must
have been pretty well inured to batteries of admiration by this date
in her sunny life. She was below the medium of woman's stature,
round and pliant in form and limbs; in complexion dark as a gypsy
but with a clear skin that let the rise and fall of the blood
beneath be marked as distinctly as in that of the fairest blonde.
Her eyes were brown or black, it was hard to say which, so changeful
were their lights and shades; and her other features, however
unclassic in mould, if criticised separately, taken as a whole,
formed a picture of surpassing fascination. If her eyes and cleft
chin meant mischief, her mouth engaged to make amends by smiles and
seductive words, more sweet than honey, because their flavor would
never clog upon him who tasted thereof. Her attire was striking--it
would have been bizarre upon any other lady in the room, but it
enhanced the small stranger's beauty. A black robe--India silk or
silk grenadine, or some other light and lustrous material--was
bespangled with butterflies, gilded, green, and crimson, the many
folds of the skirt flowing to the carpet in a train designed to add
to apparent height, and, in front, allowing an enchanting glimpse of
a tiny slipper, high in the instep, and tapering prettily toward the
toe. In her hair were glints of a curiously-wrought chain, wound
under and among the bandeaux; on her wrists, plump and dimpled as a
baby's, more chain-work of the like precious metal, ending in
tinkling fringe that swung, glittering, to and fro, with the
restless motion of the elfin hands, she never ceased to clasp and
chafe and fret one with the other, while she thus stood and awaited
the decision of her companions. But instead of detracting from the
charm of her appearance, the seemingly unconscious gesture only
heightened it. It was the overflow of the exuberant vitality that
throbbed redly in her cheeks, flashed in her eye, and made buoyant
her step.