Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

THE HISTORY OF THELENEF.107

forehead; her blue eyes, fringed with long black lashes, which cast a shadow on her fresh yet scarcely coloured cheeks, were transparent as a fountain of limpid water; her eyebrows, perfectly, though delicately pencilled, were of a darker shade than her hair ; her mouth, of the usual size, displayed teeth so white as to irradiate the whole countenance: her rosy lips were bright with the bloom of innocence : her face, though rather round, possessed much nobleness, and her expression embodied a delicacy of sentiment and a religious tenderness, with the charm of which it was, at the first glance, impossible not to sympathise. She needed only the silver glory to form one of the most lovely of those Byzantine madonnas, with which it is not permitted to adorn the churches.*

Her foster-brother was one of the handsomest men of a part of the empire renowned for the tall and elegant forms, the healthful appearance, and the carelessly graceful air of its inhabitants. The serfs of this portion of the empire are, unquestionably, the men who least need pity in Russia.

The elegant costume of the peasants became him admirably. His light hair, gracefully parted, fell in silky ringlets on either side of the face, the form of which was a perfect oval. His large and powerful neck remained bare, owing to the locks being cut oft'

* The use of images is always forbidden to a certain point in the Greek church, in which, the true believers admit only those of a particular conventional style, covered with various gold and silver ornaments, under which the merit of the woik is entirely lost. — Note by the Author of the Travels.