black ringlets fell on her eyebrows, cheeks, neck, shoulders and breast; while the dark hairs behind were gathered up by an elegant pearl chain. The superb arch of her eyebrows looked like the work of the painter; a shade thicker, and they would have been absolutely faultless. Reader, do you love playful eyes? If so, Tilottama must despair of victory over you; her eyes were gentle; they could not dart glances like the lightning flash. The two dear eyes were very expansive; exquisitely graceful and mild-gleaming. In colour, they resembled delicious blue which appears on the face of the heavens at the "sweet hour of prime." When the damsel gazed with those large clear eyes, not a shadow of guile lurked in them. She had not learnt to look obliquely—her look was all openness and sincerity—-an infallible index to the sincerity of her soul. But when any one happened to look at her in the face, she cast her eyes down. Tilottama's acquiline nose never knew the pain of bearing the burthen of the nasal ring.[1] The two sweet lips were rosy and swam in genial humors; they were small, a little curved, and their habitual expression was a gentle smile. Ah! if your eyes were but once blessed with a sight of a smile on those lips, then be you an ascetic or a sage, young or old, you could never forget it in this life—yet there was nothing in it except sincerity and girlishness.
Although well-made, Tilottama's limbs had not yet attained their full proportions; yet whether owing to her youth or to its natural make, not a tinge of corpulency was perceptible in her beautiful person. Yet all the members of her slender frame were well round-
- ↑ Hindu women wear a ring of golden wire, to which a pearl is strung. It is passed through the left nostril, and comes down to the nether lip of the fair ones.
