ing to each other, they assumed English poses; the
first keepsakes had just made their appearance, melancholy was dawning
for women, as later on, Byronism dawned for men; and the hair of the
tender sex began to droop dolefully. Zephine and Dahlia had their hair
dressed in rolls. Listolier and Fameuil, who were engaged in discussing
their professors, explained to Fantine the difference that existed
between M. Delvincourt and M. Blondeau.

Blachevelle seemed to have been created expressly to carry Favourite's
single-bordered, imitation India shawl of Ternaux's manufacture, on his
arm on Sundays.

Tholomyes followed, dominating the group. He was very gay, but one felt
the force of government in him; there was dictation in his joviality;
his principal ornament was a pair of trousers of elephant-leg pattern of
nankeen, with straps of braided copper wire; he carried a stout rattan
worth two hundred francs in his hand, and, as he treated himself to
everything, a strange thing called a cigar in his mouth. Nothing was
sacred to him; he smoked.

"That Tholomyes is astounding!" said the others, with veneration. "What
trousers! What energy!"

As for Fantine, she was a joy to behold. Her splendid teeth had
evidently received an office from God,--laughter. She preferred to carry
her little hat of sewed straw, with its long white strings, in her hand
rather than on her head. Her thick blond hair, which was inclined to
wave, and which easily uncoiled, and which it was necessary to fasten
up incessantly, seemed made for the flight of Galatea under the
willows. Her rosy lips babbled enchantingly. The corners of her mouth
voluptuously turned up, as in the antique masks of Erigone, had an
air of encouraging the audacious; but her long, shadowy lashes drooped
discreetly over the jollity of the lower part of the face as though to
call a halt. There was something indescribably harmonious and striking
about her entire dress. She wore a gown of mauve barege, little reddish
brown buskins, whose ribbons traced an X on her fine, white, open-worked
stockings, and that sort of muslin spencer, a Marseilles invention,
whose name, canezou, a corruption of the words quinze aout, pronounced
after the fashion of the Canebiere, signifies fine weather, heat, and
midday. The three others, less timid, as we have already said,
wore low-necked dresses without disguise, which in summer, beneath
flower-adorned hats, are very graceful and enticing; but by the