the full moon and some the colour of the russet-tinted dawn. She had none of the complexions of the above two categories, so we can never say she had actually any brilliancy of skin though in magic effects her charms played no less a potency. She was a little darker. But that never suggests the blackness, of which Shyama's mother or Shyama, the good-looking, is the type. The transparency of her skin had as much sparkle as the glow of the dissolved gold. If the white splendour of the full-moon or the first flush of the saffron-coloured dawn be taken the criteria of the skin of the dainty eves, then the refreshing yellow-and-green of the new shafts of mango blossoms shooting up in the divinest of seasons may be made the comparing standard of this damsel's complexion. If amongst readers there might be many who are chivalrous enough to press the claims of the olive-complexioned beauties to the fore-front, and, also, as chance would have it, there might be anyone whose smitten soul has been left to the care of a dark-skinned witch, then the latter in any case can never be called colour-blind. If any body is offended at this, let him paint before his mind's eye the dark silky locks kissing the bright forehead like the deep rows of black bees lining the new-blown mango blossoms—let him imagine the pair of arched eye-brows under a shapely fore-head, as beautiful as a three-quarter silvery moon, overblown by ringlets—Let him idealise the smooth velvety cheeks of the rich mellowed hues of golden
