angelic smile played about her mouth, which was small and delicate; she
wore her hair (which was of an ash color, and uncommonly beautiful) with
an air of negligence that made her appear still more interesting; she was
short, and rather thick for her height, though by no means disagreeably
so; but there could not be a more lovely face, a finer neck, or hands and
arms more exquisitely formed.

Her education had been derived from such a variety of sources, that it
formed an extraordinary assemblage. Like me, she had lost her mother at
her birth, and had received instruction as it chanced to present itself;
she had learned something of her governess, something of her father, a
little of her masters, but copiously from her lovers; particularly a M.
de Tavel, who, possessing both taste and information, endeavored to adorn
with them the mind of her he loved. These various instructions, not
being properly arranged, tended to impede each other, and she did not
acquire that degree of improvement her natural good sense was capable of
receiving; she knew something of philosophy and physic, but not enough to
eradicate the fondness she had imbibed from her father for empiricism and
alchemy; she made elixirs, tinctures, balsams, pretended to secrets, and
prepared magestry; while quacks and pretenders, profiting by her
weakness, destroyed her property among furnaces, drugs and minerals,
diminishing those charms and accomplishments which might have been the
delight of the most elegant circles. But though these interested
wretches took advantage of her ill-applied education to obscure her
natural good sense, her excellent heart retained its purity; her amiable
mildness, sensibility for the unfortunate, inexhaustible bounty, and
open, cheerful frankness, knew no variation; even at the approach of old
age, when attacked by various calamities, rendered more cutting by
indigence, the serenity of her disposition preserved to the end of her
life the pleasing gayety of her happiest days.