Mademoiselle Cormon did not possess in her person an obliging auxiliary to her desires.  She had no other beauty than that very improperly called la beaute du diable, which consists of a buxom freshness of youth that the devil, theologically speaking, could never have,—­though perhaps the expression may be explained by the constant desire that must surely possess him to cool and refresh himself.  The feet of the heiress were broad and flat.  Her leg, which she often exposed to sight by her manner (be it said without malice) of lifting her gown when it rained, could never have been taken for the leg of a woman.  It was sinewy, with a thick projecting calf like a sailor’s.  A stout waist, the plumpness of a wet-nurse, strong dimpled arms, red hands, were all in keeping with the swelling outlines and the fat whiteness of Norman beauty.  Projecting eyes, undecided in color, gave to her face, the rounded outline of which had no dignity, an air of surprise and sheepish simplicity, which was suitable perhaps for an old maid.  If Rose had not been, as she was, really innocent, she would have seemed so.  An aquiline nose contrasted curiously with the narrowness of her forehead; for it is rare that that form of nose does not carry with it a fine brow.  In spite of her thick red lips, a sign of great kindliness, the forehead revealed too great a lack of ideas to allow of the heart being guided by intellect; she was evidently benevolent without grace.  How severely we reproach Virtue for its defects, and how full of indulgence we all are for the pleasanter qualities of Vice!

Chestnut hair of extraordinary length gave to Rose Cormon’s face a beauty which results from vigor and abundance,—­the physical qualities most apparent in her person.  In the days of her chief pretensions, Rose affected to hold her head at the three-quarter angle, in order to exhibit a very pretty ear, which detached itself from the blue-veined whiteness of her throat and temples, set off, as it was, by her wealth of hair.  Seen thus in a ball-dress, she might have seemed handsome.  Her protuberant outlines and her vigorous health did, in fact, draw from the officers of the Empire the approving exclamation,—­

“What a fine slip of a girl!”

But, as years rolled on, this plumpness, encouraged by a tranquil, wholesome life, had insensibly so ill spread itself over the whole of Mademoiselle Cormon’s body that her primitive proportions were destroyed.  At the present moment, no corset could restore a pair of hips to the poor lady, who seemed to have been cast in a single mould.  The youthful harmony of her bosom existed no longer; and its excessive amplitude made the spectator fear that if she stooped its heavy masses might topple her over.  But nature had provided against this by giving her a natural counterpoise, which rendered needless the deceitful adjunct of a bustle; in Rose Cormon everything was genuine.  Her chin, as it doubled, reduced the length of her neck, and hindered the easy carriage of her head.  Rose had no wrinkles, but she had folds of flesh; and jesters declared that to save chafing she powdered her skin as they do an infant’s.