tones; these,
too, restrained the hair which fell, in rich braids, on each side of her
face.

That face presented the perfection of oriental beauty; such as it
existed in Eden, such as it may yet occasionally be found among the
favoured races in the favoured climes, and such as it might have been
found abundantly and for ever, had not the folly and malignity of man
been equal to the wisdom and beneficence of Jehovah. The countenance was
oval, yet the head was small. The complexion was neither fair nor dark,
yet it possessed the brilliancy of the north without its dryness, and
the softness peculiar to the children of the sun without its moisture.
A rich, subdued and equable tint overspread this visage, though the skin
was so transparent that you occasionally caught the streaky splendour of
some vein like the dappled shades in the fine peel of beautiful fruit.

But it was in the eye and its overspreading arch that all the Orient
spake, and you read at once of the starry vaults of Araby and the
splendour of Chaldean skies. Dark, brilliant, with pupil of great
size and prominent from its socket, its expression and effect,
notwithstanding the long eyelash of the desert, would have been those
of a terrible fascination had not the depth of the curve in which it
reposed softened the spell and modified irresistible power by ineffable
tenderness. This supreme organisation is always accompanied, as in the
present instance, by a noble forehead, and by an eyebrow of perfect
form, spanning its space with undeviating beauty; very narrow, though
its roots are invisible.

The nose was small, slightly elevated, with long oval nostrils fully
developed. The small mouth, the short upper lip, the teeth like the
neighbouring pearls of Ormuz, the round chin, polished as a statue,
were in perfect harmony with the delicate ears, and the hands with nails
shaped like almonds.

Such was the form that caught the eye of Tan-cred. She was on the
opposite side of the fountain, and stood gazing on him with calmness,
and with a kind of benignant curiosity: The garden, the kiosk, the
falling waters, recalled the past, which flashed over his mind almost at
the moment when he beheld the beautiful apparition. Half risen, yet
not willing to remain until he was on his legs to apologise for his
presence, Tancred, still leaning on his arm and looking up at his
unknown companion, said, 'Lady, I am an intruder.'

The lady, seating herself on the brink of the