But her shoulders were high and square, and there was a sort of angularity and harshness about all the lines of her person.

Her head seemed somewhat too large for her body; and the upper part of it seemed too large for the lower portion.
She had a large, square forehead, white enough, but strongly marked with inequalities of surface, which, however much they might have delighted a phrenologist, were not conducive to girlish comeliness.

Her hair was of the very light reddish quality, which has not a single touch in it of that rich sunny auburn, which makes so many heads charming, red though they be.

Her face was perfectly white, yet not clear of complexion.

And the pale grey eyes beneath their all but colourless brows completed the impression of a general want of vigour and vitality.
A little before the end of that year in which the Ravenna impresario performed his memorable journey to Milan with the results that have been recorded, Violante di Marliani reached her twenty-third birthday; a few months before that day the Marchese Ludovico had reached his twenty-second.