The Sun. — 1862-09-03 (London, England)

ROMANTIC CASE OF DESERTION AND SUICIDE.— Yesterday forenoon the body of a young married woman, named Mrs. Austin, lodging at 4, Hall-place, Hall Park, Paddington, who was found dead from poison, was removed, in pursuance of a coroner's order, to the parish dead-house to await an inquest. The previous night the door of her house had been forced open by a constable whose suspicion had been excited by her threats to destroy herself. He found her lying in bed quite dead, and she had apparently been so several hours. He also found a phial containing laudanum, a portion of a packet of sugar of lead, and an empty half-pint tumbler, which appeared to have contained beer mixed with these poisons, on the dressing-table. After the removal of the body a quantity of poetry was discovered on the mantelpiece. It was dedicated to a man supposed to be her husband, bewailing her deserted and isolated condition, and begging he would forgive and at once receive her back to his arms, all expressed in the most romantic language, but no allusion was made to her intention to take away her own life. A PERSIAN BEAUTY AT SHIRAT,—As I said before, the street was narrow. What was to be done ? Turn I could not, even had I wished to do so, for my servant was following close upon me ; and had I turned back to get out of the way of a woman, he ,A ould probably have instantly poured forth upon her a volume of startling arri horrible abuse. For this a Persian invariably doesif a woman happens to get into his way, and often be will strike at her with his whip. It then occurred to me it was just within the bounds of possibility that, if I pushed my horse close in against the wall to allow her as much room as possible to pass, her curiosity to see the Feringee would cause her to lift her veil as she went by. My curiosity was at that point that I would have charged the very wall itself, had I been sure that the _ _  unveiled face of this majestic form would have greeted me on the other side, In the full consciousness of her youth and beauty—for the latter I had quite made up my mind she possessed—the former could not but exist with that  proud airy step—she advanced towards me, keeping the  very centre of the narrow road. I felt that I positively grew pale with anxie/ y as the veiled face came level with  my horse's head. Was I fated to see only that provoking bit of white gauze that so effectually concealed the face be neath ? or was I to be dazzled with the beauty it so jealously guarded? For a few seconds I was in anxious doubt, and then the rosy-tipped fingers held back for one instant the white gauze veil that fell before the face, And the beauty that shone upon me during that one short instant was one I have never forgotten—never can forget. It was not the soft beauty that floats down upon you from the eyes of the Fornarina—no, far from it; nor was it the beauty of a Magdalen, beaming with love and affection. Yet, by some strange freak of memory, when I recalled afterwards the beautiful myiesniotna,ryl glimpse posdedlwyaesniot7thhartemlifnulddeda of bo I th. n of each particular feature utterly impossible ; but will Sucha emo write as  far as I am able that which remains as a fair memory of the  past. The hair parted low on the forehead, but the hood of the veil, coming well forward, allowed only a little of it to be seen. That, I could not but observe, was black and  glossy as a raven's wing, and the glitter of gold showed that a few coins were " wreathed in the dark midnight of her  hair." The eyebrows were not arched, but appeared—  either by nature or art, I had:not time to distinguish—to be  carried right across in one continuous dark line. Singular as this seems, it by no means marred the strange beauty of the face. The eyes were large and softly brown, as a deer's; for that one instant they flashed forth a look, which was perhaps more of wonderment than alarm, at the blackcoated infidel, over whom, at that very moment, the skirts of her veil were Sweeping. The complexion was exquisitely fair. No wanton ray of old Sol had ever touched that pale, bloodless cheek, which seemed as if it could never have known a blush. One thought of the lines, 1  " In all her veins, No conscious drop, to form a blush, remains." Beyond a small blue spot tatooed on the centre of her chin, I can give no further description of a face that haunts me like a dream whenever I think upon it.— Blackwood's Magazine for September.