[Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte]@TWC D-Link bookJane Eyre CHAPTERXVIII
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She, too, was attired in oriental fashion: a crimson scarf tied sash-like round the waist: an embroidered handkerchief knotted about her temples; her beautifully-moulded arms bare, one of them upraised in the act of supporting a pitcher, poised gracefully on her head.
Both her cast of form and feature, her complexion and her general air, suggested the idea of some Israelitish princess of the patriarchal days; and such was doubtless the character she intended to represent. She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher; she again lifted it to her head.
The personage on the well-brink now seemed to accost her; to make some request:--"She hasted, let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink." From the bosom of his robe he then produced a casket, opened it and showed magnificent bracelets and earrings; she acted astonishment and admiration; kneeling, he laid the treasure at her feet; incredulity and delight were expressed by her looks and gestures; the stranger fastened the bracelets on her arms and the rings in her ears.
It was Eliezer and Rebecca: the camels only were wanting. The divining party again laid their heads together: apparently they could not agree about the word or syllable the scene illustrated.
Colonel Dent, their spokesman, demanded "the tableau of the whole;" whereupon the curtain again descended. On its third rising only a portion of the drawing-room was disclosed; the rest being concealed by a screen, hung with some sort of dark and coarse drapery.
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