mply qualified him to appreciate such charms as she
possessed.

She was not what the world calls a _young_ woman; yet thirty
years--thirty summers--had not dim'd the lustre of her beauty. Truly,
she was the VENUS OF BOSTON! A brow, expansive and intellectual--hair of
silken texture, that fell in massive luxuriance from beneath a jewelled
head-dress which resembled the coronet of a duchess--cheeks that glowed
with the rosy hue of health and a thousand fiery passions--eyes that
sparkled with that peculiar expression so often seen in women of an
ardent, impetuous nature, now languishing, melting with tender desires,
now darting forth arrows of hate and rage--these were the
characteristics of the Duchess! There she lay, the very personification
of voluptuousness--large in stature, full in form, and exquisitely
beautiful in feature! Her limbs (once the model of a renowned sculptor
at Athens,) would have crazed Canova, and made Powers break his "Greek
Slave" into a thousand fragments; and those limbs--how visible they were
beneath the light, transparent gauze which but partially covered them!
Her leg, with its exquisite ankle and swelling calf,--faultless in
symmetry,--was terminated by a tiny foot which coquettishly played with
a satin slipper on the carpet,--a slipper that would have driven
Cinderella to the commission of suicide. Her ample waist had never been
compressed by the wearing of corsets, or any other barbarous tyranny of
fashion; yet it was graceful, and did not in the least degree approach
an unseemly obesity; and how magnificently did it expand into a glorious
bust, whereon two "hillocks of snow" projected their rose-tinted peaks,
in sportive rivalry--revealed, with bewildering distinctness, by the
absence of any concealing drapery! When she smiled, her lips, like "wet
coral," parted, and displayed teeth of dazzling whiteness, and when she
laughed, she did so _musically_. Her hand would have put Lord Byron in
extacies, and her taper fingers glittered with costly gems. Such was the
glorious creature who entranced the senses of the Honorable Timothy
Tickels on entering her luxurious _boudoir_.

She greeted her brother the Chevalier with a smile, and his friend with
a graceful inclination of her head; but she did not arise, for which she
apologized by stating that she was afflicted with a slight lameness
caused by a recent fall. Then she glided into a discourse so witty, so
fascinating, that Mr. Tickels was charm