On plainer persons, this
display might have seemed, in Maltboy's eyes, a glaring instance of bad
taste. But, looking at that small, oval face, those large, flashing
black eyes, complexion of red and white, so beautifully blended that it
hardly seemed a work of nature, pouting lips, even, white teeth, and
heavily braided hair, Maltboy thought that no decorations could be-too
gaudy for a creature of such radiant loveliness.
At the same instant (as their feet passed the parlor threshold) that
Maltboy made these comprehensive observations, the quick eyes of Fayette
Overtop were scanning the lady that basked in the subdued light of the
other window. She rose from a smaller fountain of silk to a less height
than her companion. She was fat to such a degree, that the bodice of her
dress seemed ready to burst with the excessive pressure beneath,
immediately suggesting to every beholder the obvious humanity of
enlarging it, by taking only a small portion from the superfluous silk
below. She was quite pretty, and very healthy, and had a smile lurking
on her lips, and in the corners of her small blue eyes, and in the
dimples of her round, red cheeks, and in the curved crease which was
beginning to show under her apple of a chin.
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