An immense change had taken place in Cousin Betty; and Valerie, who
wanted to smarten her, had turned it to the best account. The strange
woman had submitted to stays, and laced tightly, she used bandoline to
keep her hair smooth, wore her gowns as the dressmaker sent them home,
neat little boots, and gray silk stockings, all of which were included
in Valerie's bills, and paid for by the gentleman in possession. Thus
furbished up, and wearing the yellow cashmere shawl, Lisbeth would
have been unrecognizable by any one who had not seen her for three
years.
This other diamond--a black diamond, the rarest of all--cut by a
skilled hand, and set as best became her, was appreciated at her full
value by certain ambitious clerks. Any one seeing her for the first
time might have shuddered involuntarily at the look of poetic wildness
which the clever Valerie had succeeded in bringing out by the arts of
dress in this Bleeding Nun, framing the ascetic olive face in thick
bands of hair as black as the fiery eyes, and making the most of the
rigid, slim figure. Lisbeth, like a Virgin by Cranach or Van Eyck, or
a Byzantine Madonna stepped out of its frame, had all the stiffness,
the precision of those mysterious figures, the more modern cousins of
Isis and her sister goddesses sheathed in marble folds by Egyptian
sculptors. It was granite, basalt, porphyry, with life and movement.
Saved from want for the rest of her life, Lisbeth was most amiable;
wherever she dined she brought merriment.
Pages:
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225