We will stay with the lady, however, and a very pretty woman she was, though, indeed, there had been a time when she was prettier. She was certainly not less than three or four-and-thirty, with good, small features, and a complexion which had once been exceedingly fine. It had become somewhat coarse now, however, and looked as if the process of deterioration had been assisted by a good deal of wine, or some other stimulant perhaps still more potent. Her eyes were fine dark eyes, but they had grown somewhat watery, and there was an occasional vacancy in them, a wandering uncertainty that bespoke either some intense preoccupation with other subjects than those immediately in question, or some failure of the intellect, either from temporary or permanent causes. Her figure was tall and fine, and her dress very handsome in materials and make; but yet there was a something about it too smart. There was too much lace and ribbon, too many bright and gaudy colours, too much flutter and contrast, to be perfectly ladylike. There was also a negligence in the way of putting it on--almost a slovenliness, if one may go that length, which made things nearly new look old and dirty.
Her air and manner, too, were careless and languid; and as she set herself down on one chair, then moved to another, and rested her feet upon a third, it seemed as if something was continually weighing upon her mind, which yet wanted vigour and solidity enough to make an effort to cast it off.
It was not that she seemed to mope at being left alone by her male companion, or that she felt or cared for his absence very much, although she evidently deemed his plans and purposes imprudent and perilous. Far from it: she was as gay, or perhaps gayer, when he was gone than before; sang a little bit of an Italian song, took a small note-book out of her bag and wrote in it some lines, which seemed, by their regular length, to be verses; and then, getting up again, she opened a portmanteau, brought out a book, and began to read. She had not continued long, however, when she seemed to become tired of that also, and putting back the book again, gave herself up to thought, during the course of which her face was chequered with slight smiles and slight frowns, neither of which had the most pleasant expression in the world. There was a littleness in it all, indeed, a sort of careless indolence, which perhaps bespoke a disposition hackneyed and spoiled by the pleasures, if not the pains of life. And there she sat, casting away from her everything but thought, as if there were nothing in the world valuable or important, except the little accidents, that might disturb or promote her own individual comfort. The maid who carried away the breakfast things informed the landlady that "the woman upstairs was a taking on it easy, a sitting with her feet on one of the best chears." And although the good dame did not think fit to object to this proceeding, she mentally commented on it thus: "Them quality-folks is always giving themselves airs; but if she spiles my new kivers, I'll take it out in the bill, anyhow."