heir long
lashes, allowed eyes lustrous with the humid gleam of life to shine
between their lines of antimony. One could have sworn they were about to
shake off, as a light dream, their sleep of thirty centuries. The nose,
delicate and fine, preserved its pure outline; no depression deformed
the cheeks, which were as round as the side of a vase; the mouth,
coloured with a faint blush, had preserved its imperceptible lines, and
on the lips, voluptuously moulded, fluttered a melancholy and mysterious
smile, full of gentleness, sadness, and charm,--that tender and resigned
smile which pouts so prettily the lips of the adorable heads which
surmount the Canopean vases in the Louvre.

Around the forehead, low and smooth in accordance with the laws of
antique beauty, was massed jet-black hair divided and plaited into a
multitude of fine tresses which fell on either shoulder. Twenty golden
pins stuck into the tresses, like flowers in a ball head-dress, studded
with brilliant points the thick dark hair which might have been thought
artificial, so abundant was it. Two great earrings, round discs
resembling small bucklers, shimmered with yellow light by the side of
the brown cheeks. A magnificent necklace, composed of three rows of
divinities and amulets in gold and precious stones, encircled the neck
of the coquettish mummy, and lower down upon her breast hung two other
collars, the pearl, gold, lapis-lazuli, and cornelian rosettes of which
alternated symmetrically with the most perfect taste. A girdle of nearly
the same design enclosed her waist with a belt of gold and gems. A
double bracelet of gold and cornelian beads adorned her left wrist, and
on the index of the left hand shone a very small scarabaeus of golden
cloisonne enamel, which formed a seal ring and was held by a gold thread
most marvellously plaited.

Strange were the sensations of the two men as they found themselves face
to face with a human being who had lived in the days when history was
yet young and was collecting the stories told by tradition; face to face
with a body contemporary with Moses, which yet preserved the exquisite
form of youth; as they touched the gentle little hand impregnated with
perfumes, which a Pharaoh perhaps had kissed; as they fingered the hair,
more durable than empire, more solid than granite monuments. At the
sight of the lovely dead girl, the young nobleman felt the retrospective
desire often inspired by the sight of a statue or a