She wore a low-cut dress of crimson velvet, embroidered about the bodice with dead gold, which enhanced the dazzling whiteness of her shapely neck and bosom.

Round her throat hung a string of great pearls, and on her head was a net of gold, studded with smaller pearls, from beneath which her glorious, chestnut-black hair flowed down in rippling waves almost to her knees.
Having her father's bidding so to do, she had adorned herself thus that she might look her fairest, not in the eyes of their guest, but in those of her new-affianced husband.

So fair was she seen thus that d'Aguilar, the artist, the adorer of loveliness, caught his breath and shivered at the sight of her.
"By the eleven thousand virgins!" he said, "your daughter is more beautiful than all of them put together.

She should be crowned a queen, and bewitch the world." "Nay, nay, Senor," answered Castell hurriedly; "let her remain humble and honest, and bewitch her husband." "So I should say if I were the husband," he muttered, then stepped forward, bowing, to meet her.
Now the light of the silver lamp she held on high flowed over the two of them, d'Aguilar and Margaret, and certainly they seemed a well-matched pair.

Both were tall and cast by Nature in a rich and splendid mould; both had that high air of breeding which comes with ancient blood--for what bloods are more ancient than those of the Jew and the Eastern ?--both were slow and stately of movement, low-voiced, and dignified of speech.