midnight
The proudest beauty in Calcutta would have been glad to become the wife of the sole heir of that dingy banking-house in St. Gundolph Lane . There was a good deal of excitement upon this subject in the matrimonial market for two or three years after Lady Louisa 's death . A good many young ladies were expressly imported from England by anxious papas and mammas , with a view to the capture of the wealthy widower . But though Griselda 's yellow hair fell down to her waist in glossy , rippling curls , that shone like molten gold ; though Amanda 's black eyes glittered like the stars in a midnight sky ; though the dashing Georgina was more graceful than Diana , the gentle Lavinia more beautiful than Venus , -- Mr. Dunbar went among them without pleasure , and left them without regret . The charms of all these ladies concentrated in the person of one perfect woman would have had no witchery for the banker . His heart was dead . He had given all the truth , all the passion of which his nature was capable , to the one woman who had possessed the power to charm him .