space; and it seemed as though 'Cleopatra's cup' would have been no
impracticable draught for her. She gave me more fully the impression
of luxury, than any person I had ever met with before; and I thought I
had reason when I envied her.

She was lifted into the carriage carefully; carefully swathed in her
splendid furs and lustrous velvets; and placed gently, like a wounded
bird, in her warm nest of down. But she moved languidly, and fretfully
thrust aside her servants' busy hands, indifferent to her comforts,
and annoyed by her very blessings. I looked into her face: it was a
strange face, which had once been beautiful; but ill-health, and care,
and grief, had marked it now with deep lines, and coloured it with
unnatural tints. Tears had washed out the roses from her cheeks, and
set large purple rings about her eyes; the mouth was hard and pinched,
but the eyelids swollen; while the crossed wrinkles on her brow told
the same tale of grief grown petulant, and of pain grown soured, as
the thin lip, quivering and querulous, and the nervous hand, never
still and never strong.

The train-bell rang, the whistle sounded, the lady's servitors stood
bareheaded and courtesying to the ground, and the rapid rush of the
iron giant bore off the high-born dame and the starveling painter in
strange companionship. Unquiet and unresting--now shifting her
place--now letting down the glass for the cold air to blow full upon
her withered face--then drawing it up, and chafing her hands and feet
by the warm-water apparatus concealed in her _chauffe-pied_,
while shivering as if in an ague-fit--sighing deeply--lost in
thought--wildly looking out and around for distraction--she soon made
me ask myself whether my envy of her was as true as deep sympathy and
pity would have been.