The London of 1876 boasted an extraordinary constellation of
lovely women. First and foremost came the two peerless Moncreiffe
sisters, Georgiana Lady Dudley, and Helen Lady Forbes. Lady Dudley
was then a radiant apparition, and her sister, the most perfect
example of classical beauty I have ever seen, had features as
clean-cut as those of a cameo. Lady Forbes always wore her hair
simply parted in the middle, a thing that not one woman in a
thousand can afford to do, and glorious auburn hair it was, with a
natural ripple in it. I have seldom seen a head so perfectly
placed on the shoulders as that of Lady Forbes. The Dowager Lady
Ormonde and the late Lady Ripon were then still unmarried; the
first, Lady Leila Grosvenor, with the face of a Raphael Madonna,
the other, Lady Gladys Herbert, a splendid, slender, Juno-like
young goddess. The rather cruelly named "professional beauties"
had just come into prominence, the three great rivals being Mrs.
Langtry, then fresh from Jersey, Mrs. Cornwallis West, and Mrs.
Wheeler. Unlike most people, I should myself have given the prize
to the second of these ladies.
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