ure brow and wound
in massive coils about her head. A Quakeress could have found no fault
with this costume, which placed in grotesque and ridiculous contrast the
hearselike trappings of the other women. It was impossible to be dressed
in better taste. I was afraid lest my Infanta should seize this
opportunity to display some marvellous toilette purchased expressly for
the occasion. That plain muslin gown which never saw India, and was
probably made by herself, touched and fascinated me. Dress has very
little weight with me. I once admired a Granada gypsy whose sole costume
consisted of blue slippers and a necklace of amber beads; but nothing
annoys me more than a badly made dress of an unbecoming shade.

The provincial dandies much preferring the rubicund gossips, with their
short necks covered with gold chains, to Madame Taverneau's young and
slender guest, I was free to talk with her under cover of Louisa
Pugett's ballads and sonatas executed by infant phenomena upon a cracked
piano hired from Rouen for the occasion.

Louisa's wit was charming. How mistaken it is to educate instinct out of
women! To replace nature by a school-mistress! She committed none of
those terrible mistakes which shock one; it was evident that she formed
her sentences herself instead of repeating formulae committed to memory.
She had either never read a novel or had forgotten it, and unless she is
a wonderful actress she remains as the great fashioner, Nature, made
her--a perfect woman. We remained a greater part of the evening seated
together in a corner like beings of another race. Profiting by the great
interest betrayed by the company in one of those _soi-disant_ innocent
games where a great deal of kissing is done, the fair girl, doubtless
fearing a rude salute on her delicate cheek, led me into her room, which
adjoins the parlor and opens into the garden by a glass door.

On a table in the room, feebly lighted by a lamp which Louisa modestly
turned up, were scattered pell-mell, screens, boxes from Spa, alabaster
paper-weights and other details of the art of illuminating, which
profession my beauty practises; and which explains her occasional
aristocratic airs, unbecoming an humble seamstress. A bouquet just
commenced showed talent; with some lessons from St. Jean or Diaz she
would easily make a good flower painter. I told her so. She received my
encomiums as a matter of course, evincing none of that mock-modesty
which I particularly de