Though she was past thirty years old she looked scarcely more than sixteen.

Her eyes, of porcelain blue, overweighted by heavy eyelids which fell nearly straight from the arch of the eyebrows, had little light in them.

Everything about her appearance was commonplace: witness her flaxen hair, tending to whiteness; her flat forehead, from which the light did not reflect; and her dull complexion, with gray, almost leaden, tones.

The lower part of the face, more triangular than oval, ended irregularly the otherwise irregular outline of her face.
Her voice had a rather pretty range of intonation, from sharp to sweet.
Elisabeth was a perfect specimen of the second-rate little bourgeoisie who lectures her husband behind the curtains; obtains no credit for her virtues; is ambitious without intelligent object, and solely through the development of her domestic selfishness.

Had she lived in the country she would have bought up adjacent land; being, as she was, connected with the administration, she was determined to push her way.