figures in jewelry and precious stones, and supported on four feet
of gilt bronze, contained various necessaries for the toilette; two
frosted Psyches, decorated with diamond ear-rings; some excellent
drawings from Raphael and Titian, painted by Adrienne herself, consisting
of portraits of both men and women of exquisite beauty; several consoles
of oriental jasper, supporting ewers and basins of silver and of silver
gilt, richly chased and filled with scented waters; a voluptuously rich
divan, some seats, and an illuminated gilt fable, completed the furniture
of this chamber, the atmosphere of which was impregnated with the
sweetest perfumes.

Adrienne, whom her attendants had just helped from the bath, was seated
before her toilette, her three women surrounding her. By a caprice, or
rather by a necessary and logical impulse of her soul, filled as it was
with the love of beauty and of harmony in all things, Adrienne had wished
the young women who served her to be very pretty, and be dressed with
attention and with a charming originality. We have already seen
Georgette, a piquante blonde, attired in her attractive costume of an
intriguing lady's maid of Marivaux; and her two companions were quite
equal to her both in gracefulness and gentility.

One of them, named Florine, a tall, delicately slender, and elegant girl,
with the air and form of Diana Huntress, was of a pale brown complexion.
Her thick black hair was turned up behind, where it was fastened with a
long golden pin. Like the two other girls, her arms were uncovered to
facilitate the performance of her duties about and upon the person of her
charming mistress. She wore a dress of that gay green so familiar to the
Venetian painters. Her petticoat was very ample. Her slender waist curved
in from under the plaits of a tucker of white cambric, plaited in five
minute folds, and fastened by five gold buttons. The third of Adrienne's
women had a face so fresh and ingenuous, a waist so delicate, so
pleasing, and so finished, that her mistress had given her the name of
Hebe. Her dress of a delicate rose color, and Grecian cut, displayed her
charming neck, and her beautiful arms up to the very shoulders. The
physiognomy of these three young women was laughter loving and happy. On
their features there was no expression of that bitter sullenness, willing
and hated obedience, or offensive familiarity, or base and degraded
deference, which are the ordinary results of a stat