colored, swarthy red faces. But the beauty of the girls is
in almost every case something quite extraordinary; and the same may be
said of the children. The next thing which the closeness of observation
this unusual degree of beauty is calculated to attract will reveal to
the observer is that all these singularly lovely faces are remarkably
like each other, and at the same time remarkably unlike any of the faces
around them. There is often much beauty among the Roman women of the
lower classes, but it is of an essentially different type. The Roman
beauty is generally large in stature and ample in development, with
features whose tendency to heaviness needs the majestic and Juno-like
style of beauty which the Roman women so frequently have to redeem them.
But the countenances of the women of whom we have been speaking have
nothing at all of this. The features are small, delicately cut, the form
of face generally short, rather than tending to oval, being in this
respect also in marked contrast with the ordinary Roman type. There is a
type of face well known to most English eyes, though less so, I take it,
to those on the western side of the Atlantic, which is strangely
recalled to the memory by these model-girls; and that is the gypsy type.
There is the same Oriental look about them, the same brilliancy of dark
eyes under dark low brows, the same delicately-cut noses and full yet
finely-chiseled lips. They have also almost invariably the same wondrous
wealth of long raven black tresses, glossy but not fine. The complexions
are fresher, more delicate, and with more of bloom, than is often seen
among the gypsies; and this is the principal difference between the two
types. There is also another point of similarity, which, if the
accounts of Eastern travelers may be accepted, seems also to point to an
Oriental origin. I allude to the singular gracefulness of "pose" which
is observable in these people, among the men and women alike. There they
stand and lounge, or sit propped, half recumbent, against a balustrade
in the sun, in all sorts of attitudes, but in all they are graceful.
There is that indefinable simplicity and ease in the natural movement
and disposition of their limbs which tuition can never, and birth in the
purple can so rarely, enable a European to assume. It may perhaps be
supposed that the exigencies of their profession have not been without
influence in producing the effect I am speaking of. But I do not think