res betokened those qualities.

Caroline was little, though evidently full grown; raven-black hair,
very dark eyes, absolutely regular features, with a colourless olive
complexion, clear as to the face and sallow about the neck, formed in
her that assemblage of points whose union many persons regard as the
perfection of beauty. How, with the tintless pallor of her skin and the
classic straightness of her lineaments, she managed to look sensual, I
don't know. I think her lips and eyes contrived the affair between
them, and the result left no uncertainty on the beholder's mind. She was
sensual now, and in ten years' time she would be coarse--promise plain
was written in her face of much future folly.

If I looked at these girls with little scruple, they looked at me
with still less. Eulalie raised her unmoved eye to mine, and seemed to
expect, passively but securely, an impromptu tribute to her majestic
charms. Hortense regarded me boldly, and giggled at the same time, while
she said, with an air of impudent freedom--

"Dictez-nous quelquechose de facile pour commencer, monsieur."

Caroline shook her loose ringlets of abundant but somewhat coarse hair
over her rolling black eyes; parting her lips, as full as those of a
hot-blooded Maroon, she showed her well-set teeth sparkling between
them, and treated me at the same time to a smile "de sa facon."
Beautiful as Pauline Borghese, she looked at the moment scarcely purer
than Lucrece de Borgia. Caroline was of noble family. I heard her
lady-mother's character afterwards, and then I ceased to wonder at the
precocious accomplishments of the daughter. These three, I at once saw,
deemed themselves the queens of the school, and conceived that by their
splendour they threw all the rest into the shade. In less than five
minutes they had thus revealed to me their characters, and in less than
five minutes I had buckled on a breast-plate of steely indifference, and
let down a visor of impassible austerity.

"Take your pens and commence writing," said I, in as dry and trite a
voice as if I had been addressing only Jules Vanderkelkov and Co.

The dictee now commenced. My three belles interrupted me perpetually
with little silly questions and uncalled-for remarks, to some of which I
made no answer, and to others replied very quietly and briefly. "Comment
dit-on point et virgule en Anglais, monsieur?"

"Semi-colon, mademoiselle."

"Semi-collong? Ah, comme c'est drole!" (giggle.)