Her turban of yellow silk suited well with the darkness of her complexion.

The brilliancy of her eyes, the superb arch of her eyebrows, her well-formed aquiline nose, her teeth as white as pearl, and the profusion of her sable tresses, which, each arranged in its own little spiral of twisted curls, fell down upon as much of a lovely neck and bosom as a simarre of the richest Persian silk, exhibiting flowers in their natural colours embossed upon a purple ground, permitted to be visible--all these constituted a combination of loveliness, which yielded not to the most beautiful of the maidens who surrounded her.

It is true, that of the golden and pearl-studded clasps, which closed her vest from the throat to the waist, the three uppermost were left unfastened on account of the heat, which something enlarged the prospect to which we allude.

A diamond necklace, with pendants of inestimable value, were by this means also made more conspicuous.

The feather of an ostrich, fastened in her turban by an agraffe set with brilliants, was another distinction of the beautiful Jewess, scoffed and sneered at by the proud dames who sat above her, but secretly envied by those who affected to deride them.
"By the bald scalp of Abraham," said Prince John, "yonder Jewess must be the very model of that perfection, whose charms drove frantic the wisest king that ever lived! What sayest thou, Prior Aymer ?--By the Temple of that wise king, which our wiser brother Richard proved unable to recover, she is the very Bride of the Canticles!" "The Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley,"-- answered the Prior, in a sort of snuffling tone; "but your Grace must remember she is still but a Jewess." "Ay!" added Prince John, without heeding him, "and there is my Mammon of unrighteousness too--the Marquis of Marks, the Baron of Byzants, contesting for place with penniless dogs, whose threadbare cloaks have not a single cross in their pouches to keep the devil from dancing there.