secondly, her lips were a trifle broad; and thirdly, her colour was not fair, in the true sense of the word.
She was rather tall, it is true, but her arms, legs, breast, and in fact all her limbs, were well-rounded and well-developed. Just as in the rains a creeper trembles under the weight of its own leaves, so her frame trembled with its own ripeness; and for this reason her somewhat lofty stature derived an additional beauty from her full development. Of those whom I call really fair-coloured, some resemble the moonlight of the full moon, others again are like the rosy-faced dawn. Her colour was neither of these, and though for this reason I have said she was not really fair, still her complexion was not deficient in fascinating power. She was of a brown[1] colour; not the dark
- ↑ It is impossible to translate adequately the word in the vernacular. The variety of complexions among the Bengalees is scarcely less than the variety of castes. We meet with the jet black, creamy white, turmeric yellow, burnished gold, copper red, lemon, bamboo, chocolate, coffee, and a hundred gradual variations of these colours. The colour referred to in the text is something between, or a combination produced by black, molten lead, coffee, and indigo.
