"The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance, on a large scale.  She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes.  She was lady-like, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterized by a certain state and dignity, rather than by delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace..." (39)

Compare this description also with that of Iola Leroy in Frances E. W. Harper's Iola Leroy:

"Beautiful long hair comes way down her back; putty blue eyes, an' jis' ez white ez anybody's in dis place." (256)