alabaster; but the eye-lid drooped; the eye hung fire, and
under each orb the skin was slightly blue, but so blending with the
paleness of the rest of the face, as rather to give distinctness to
the character of beauty, than to detract from the general effect. Her
second child hung on her left arm, and a certain graceful negligence
in the plaits of her hair and the arrangement of her bosom, showed
that the cares of the young mother had superseded the nicety of the
coquette.

The only other person in the company worthy of remark, was a Frank.
His surtout was of cloth of second or third quality, but profusely
braided. His stock appeared to strangle him, and a diamond breast-pin
was stuck in a shirt of texture one degree removed from sail-cloth.
His blood, as I afterwards learned, was so crossed by Greek, Tsinsar,
and Wallachian varieties, that it would have puzzled the united
genealogists of Europe to tell his breed; and his language was a
mangled subdivision of that dialect which passes for French in the
fashionable centres of the Grecaille.

_Exquisite_. "Quangt etes vous venie, Monsieur?"

_Author_. "Il y a huit jours."

_Exquisite_ (looking at a large ring on his _fore_ finger). "Ce sont
de bons diables dans ce pays-ci; mais tout est un po barbare."

"Assez barbare," said I, as I saw that the exquisite's nails were in
the deepest possible mourning.

_Exquisite_. "Avez vous ete a Boukarest?"

_Author_. "Non--pas encore."

_Exquisite_. "Ah je wous assire que Boukarest est maintenant comme
Paris et Londres;"

_Author_. "Avez-vous vu Paris et Londres?"

_Exquisite_. "Non--mais Boukarest vaut cent fois Galatz et Braila."

During this colloquy, the gipsy music was playing; the first fiddle
was really not bad: and the nonchalant rogue-humour of his countenance
did not belie his alliance to that large family, which has produced
"so many blackguards, but never a single blockhead."

Dinner was now announced. F----'s wife, relieved of her child, acted
as first waitress. The fare consisted mostly of varieties of fowl,
with a pilaff of rice, in the Turkish manner, all decidedly good; but
the wine rather sweet and muddy. When I asked for a glass of water, it
was handed me in a little bowl of silver, which mine hostess had just
dashed into a jar of filtered lymph. Dinner concluded, the party rose,
each crossing himself, and reciting a short formula of prayer;
meanwhile a youthful relation of the house stood with the