back of her neck. A
clever combination of enamel imitated to perfection the plumage of the
bird. Ostrich-feathers, planted in the helmet like an aigrette,
completed this head-dress, which was reserved for young virgins, as the
vulture, the symbol of maternity, is worn only by women. The hair of the
young girl, of a brilliant black, plaited into tresses, hung in masses
on either side of her smooth, round cheeks, and fell down to her
shoulders. In the shadowy masses of the hair shone, like suns in a
cloud, great discs of gold worn as earrings. From the head-dress hung
gracefully down the back two long bands of stuff with fringed ends. A
broad pectoral ornament, composed of several rows of enamels, gold and
cornelian beads, and fishes and lizards of stamped gold, covered her
breast from the lower part of the neck to the upper part of the bosom,
which showed pink and white through the thin warp of the calasiris. The
dress, of a large checkered pattern, was fastened under the bosom with a
girdle with long ends, and ended in a broader border of transverse
stripes edged with a fringe. Triple bracelets of lapis-lazuli beads,
divided here and there by golden balls, encircled her slender wrists,
delicate as those of a child; and her lovely, narrow feet with long,
supple toes, were shod with sandals of white kid stamped with designs in
gold, and rested on a cedar stool incrusted with red and green enamel.

Near Tahoser (for this was the name of the young Egyptian) knelt, one
leg drawn back under the thigh and the other forming an obtuse angle, in
the attitude which the painters love to reproduce on the walls of
hypogea, a female harpist placed upon a sort of low pedestal, destined
no doubt to increase the resonance of the instrument. A piece of stuff
striped with coloured bands, the ends of which, thrown back, hung in
fluted lappets, bound her hair and framed in her face, smiling
mysteriously like that of a sphinx. A narrow dress, or rather sheath, of
transparent gauze outlined closely the youthful contours of her elegant,
slender form. Her dress, cut below the breast, left her shoulders,
chest, and arms free in their chaste nudity. A support, fixed to the
pedestal on which was placed the player, and traversed by a bolt in the
shape of a key, formed a rest for the harp, the weight of which, but for
that, would have borne wholly upon the shoulders of the young woman. The
harp, which ended in a sort of keyboard, rounded like a shell