Almost before he had an opportunity to compose himself into
anything more than a part of his ordinary sedateness of demeanor,
the silken curtains at the doorway at the other end of the
apartment were suddenly divided, and Jonathan beheld before him a
female figure displaying the most exquisite contour of mould and
of proportion. She was clad entirely in white, and was enveloped
from head to foot in the folds of a veil of delicate silver
gauze, which, though hiding her countenance from recognition,
nevertheless permitted sufficient of her beauties to be discerned
to suggest the extreme elegance and loveliness of her lineaments.
Advancing toward our hero, and extending to him a tapering hand
as white as alabaster, the fingers encircled with a multitude of
jewelled rings, she addressed him thus:
"Sir," she said, speaking in accents of the most silvery and
musical cadence, "you are no doubt vastly surprised to find
yourself thus unexpectedly, and almost as by violence, introduced
into the house of one who is such an entire stranger to you as
myself. But though I am unknown to you, I must inform you that I
am better acquainted with my visitor, for my agents have been
observing you ever since you landed this afternoon at the dock,
and they have followed you ever since, until a little while ago,
when you stopped immediately opposite my garden gate.
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