Her long fair hair, that
had hitherto been hid under the coarse mob-cap, usually
worn by the wives of the soldiers, was now divested of
all fastening, and lay shadowing a white and polished
bosom, which, in her violent struggles to detain the
governor, had burst from its rude but modest confinement,
and was now displayed in all the dazzling delicacy of
youth and sex. If the officers gazed for a moment with
excited look upon charms that had long been strangers to
their sight, and of an order they had little deemed to
find in Ellen Halloway, it was but the involuntary tribute
rendered by nature unto beauty. The depth and sacredness
of that sorrow, which had left the wretched woman
unconscious of her exposure, in the instant afterwards
imposed a check upon admiration, which each felt to be
a violation of the first principles of human delicacy,
and the feeling was repressed almost in the moment that
gave it birth.
They were immediately in front of the room occupied by
Charles de Haldimar, in the piazza of which were a few
old chairs, on which the officers were in the habit of
throwing themselves during the heat of the day.
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