This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1874 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII. Two months had passed away since the marriage of Baldo and Alberica, and one morning, towards noon, the bride was reclining on a couch, in a large and richly decorated drawing-room. The walls were covered with pictures, and looking-glasses painted over with wreaths of exquisite flowers, while in the alternate spaces were enamelled frescoes. Alberica wore a handsome white morning dress, but her hair was in disorder, and she did not appear half so beautiful as when, sumptuously attired, she presented herself before her admirers. And it must, in truth, be confessed that art not only added to her charms, but, in no scanty measure, created them; for, in the morning, when Alberica first rose from her bed, she was not certainly the lovely woman she seemed in the evening. Possibly she might have been if she had not early adopted those cunning devices of the toilet which, while they increased her natural attractions for the time, made her in the end look prematurely old. Being naturally of a very fair complexion, there existed no necessity that she should render it whiter still by the use of a pomade which made her skin appear dazzlingly fair, but which afterwards made it rough and yellow. The carmine, which coloured her cheeks so exquisitely, had turned them to that yellow and pallid hue which is sometimes seen in those who endeavour to make themselves more beautiful than Dame Nature had created them. All in ATberica was artificial and unreal; but she would have been deemed quite beautiful enough if she had trusted to her own charms, and had not accustomed all who surrounded her to the adventitious beauties derived from art; and if she had not destroyed the fresh bloom of her complexion by corrosive unguents. Alberica was a sad...