to notice them.

These three girls had reached that age when young women's hands are
slender but still rosy, when their forms have still that charming
delicacy which some people call thinness and others youthfulness, and
when their movements have that excessive suppleness which is like
awkwardness, but which it would be the height of art to imitate. Leaning
back with easy grace in their arm chairs, which were drawn up close
together, they were laughing unrestrainedly. Already women and
coquettes, they would from time to time stretch out their well-gloved
hands and pat their ample draperies with a thousand graceful little
gestures. They were already mistresses of the art of looking at things
without seeing them, of laughing when they were not amused, of showing
their white teeth while smoothing their gloves at the wrist, and while
modestly looking down of giving a vibration to their voices like the
striking of glass, which cannot fail to attract attention. They had,
too, the trick of stopping short in the midst of a movement and posing
that you might see the turn of a shoulder or a graceful arm, and of
turning their profile to you to show a pretty nose, of catching up their
skirts and turning away with a movement like a frightened dove till the
ear alone is visible, and replying, "Oh, how you frightened me!" when
you have said nothing to them but "How do you do?" Then their way of
prattling unceasingly without rhyme or reason, or when both ideas and
words fail them of exclaiming, "Oh! oh! oh! yes, indeed!" while stroking
their hair!

Ah, dear little creatures! I love them just as they are, so knowing and
so pure, so gracious and so skillful. I really love these little angels
who make their entrance into the great world between two polkas--who go
to a ball instead of going to bed--who broke their doll into pieces two
days ago, and now think of painting themselves under the eyes like
mamma--who know to a louis the price of a cashmere shawl--are
connoisseurs in diamonds, look men straight in the eye, are all worn out
when Lent comes, and who during Holy Week, after devoutly nibbling a bit
of salmon salad, run off to their religious exercises in boots with
tassels and with their hair powdered. I love these little painted lambs
as one loves roses in December or green peas in the middle of January.
There is simplicity even in their excessive self-possession--something,
at any rate, which reminds one of green apples which one