“Thus they remained for a long hour, without a word, until Mrs Skewton’s maid appeared, according to custom, to prepare her gradually for the night. At night she should have been a skeleton, with dart and hour-glass, rather than a woman, this attendant; for her touch was as the touch of Death. The painted object shrivelled underneath her hand; the form collapsed, the hair dropped off, the arched dark eyebrows changed to scanty tufts of grey, the pale lips shrunk, the skin became cadaverous and lose; an old worn nodding woman with red eyes, alone remained in Cleopatra’s place, huddled up, like a slovenly bundle, in a greasy flannel gown.”
“Dombey and Sons”, Charles Dickens
A Bird's Eye View of Fashion, Food, Travel, Culture, Beverage and Curiosity 