From the windows of my room I saw all London lying in the distance like a great vapour, with here and there some lights twinkling through it.

I had only time, in dressing, to glance at the solid furniture, the framed pieces of work (done, I supposed, by Steerforth's mother when she was a girl), and some pictures in crayons of ladies with powdered hair and bodices, coming and going on the walls, as the newly-kindled fire crackled and sputtered, when I was called to dinner.
There was a second lady in the dining-room, of a slight short figure, dark, and not agreeable to look at, but with some appearance of good looks too, who attracted my attention: perhaps because I had not expected to see her; perhaps because I found myself sitting opposite to her; perhaps because of something really remarkable in her.

She had black hair and eager black eyes, and was thin, and had a scar upon her lip.

It was an old scar--I should rather call it seam, for it was not discoloured, and had healed years ago--which had once cut through her mouth, downward towards the chin, but was now barely visible across the table, except above and on her upper lip, the shape of which it had altered.

I concluded in my own mind that she was about thirty years of age, and that she wished to be married.