Mrs Maria Scattergood

Mrs. Scattergood took Miss Taverner's breath away. She was a very thin lady of no more than medium height, certainly on the wrong side of forty, but dressed in an amazingly youthful fashion, with her improbably chestnut-coloured hair cropped short at the back, and crimped into curls in front, and her sharp, lively countenance painted in a lavish style that quite shocked the country-bred Judith.
She was dressed in a semi-transparent gown of jaconet muslin, made up to the throat with a treble ruff of pointed lace, and fastened down the back with innumerable little buttons. Her gown ended in a broad embroidered flounce, and on her feet she had lace stockings and yellow kid Roman boots. A lavender chip hat, tied under her chin with long yellow ribands, was placed over a small white satin cap beneath, and she carried a long-handled parasol, and a silk reticule.
(ch. v)