emoiselle, regard yourself, and pronounce that you are
ravishing," Victorine said at length, folding her hands with a sigh of
satisfaction, as she fell back in an attitude of serene triumph.

Debby obeyed, and inspected herself with great interest and some
astonishment; for there was a sweeping amplitude of array about the
young lady whom she beheld in the much-befrilled gown and embroidered
skirts, which somewhat alarmed her as to the navigation of a vessel
"with such a spread of sail," while a curious sensation of being
somebody else pervaded her from the crown of her head, with its shining
coils of hair, to the soles of the French slippers, whose energies
seemed to have been devoted to the production of marvellous rosettes.

"Yes, I look very nice, thank you; and yet I feel like a doll, helpless
and fine, and fancy I was more of a woman in my fresh gingham, with a
knot of clovers in my hair, than I am now. Aunt Pen was very kind to
get me all these pretty things; but I'm afraid my mother would look
horrified to see me in such a high state of flounce externally and so
little room to breath internally."

"Your mamma would not flatter me, Mademoiselle; but come now to Madame;
she is waiting to behold you, and I have yet her toilet to make "; and,
with a pitying shrug, Victorine followed Debby to her aunt's room.

"Charming! really elegant!" cried that lady, emerging from her towel
with a rubicund visage.

"Drop that braid half an inch lower, and pull the worked end of her
handkerchief out of the right-hand pocket, Vic. There! Now, Dora,
don't run about and get rumpled, but sit quietly down and practice
repose till I am ready."

Debby obeyed, and sat mute, with the air of a child in its Sunday-best
on a week-day, pleased with the novelty, but somewhat oppressed with
the responsibility of such unaccustomed splendor, and utterly unable to
connect any ideas of repose with tight shoes and skirts in a rampant
state of starch.

"Well, you see, I bet on Lady Gay against Cockadoodle, and if you'll
believe me--Hullo! there's Mrs. Carroll, and deuse take me if she
hasn't got a girl with her! Look, Seguin!"--and Joe Leavenworth, a
"man of the world," aged twenty, paused in his account of an exciting
race to make the announcement.

Mr. Seguin, his friend and Mentor, as much his, senior in worldly
wickedness as in years, tore himself from his breakfast long enough to
survey the new-comers, and then returned to it, sayin