Hatton, with a little
start of admiring surprise, praised the taste displayed in her dress,
regretted her being so late in adopting it, it so became her. He
looked round, appealing to the bystanders, all of whom assented to his
opinion, except the discriminating Goring, who asserted that it was
not the costume which became Lady Mabel, but Lady Mabel who set off
the costume, and he carried the popular voice with him. "No head looks
so well under a Turk's turban as a Christian's," he continued, "and no
native could show off the national dress here like a genuine English
beauty." Lady Mabel had learned to listen complacently to the broadest
language of admiration.
There were handsome women present--for Elvas could boast its share of
beauty--but none to rival hers; the more conspicuous, too, from being
loveliness of a different type, and not likely to be overlooked among
the dumpy Portuguese ladies, few indeed of whom equaled her in
height. Lady Mabel would have been no woman had she not enjoyed the
admiration she excited; but she remembered the business of the night,
when Goring, bowing to L'Isle, spoke of the unexpected pleasure of
seeing him here.
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