ed with feathers.
Phiale comes after, a clever girl, captured in some sea-skirmish on the
Aegean. In her left hand she holds the ivory box wherein are the phucus
and that white powder, psimythium; in her right a sheaf of slim brushes.
With how sure a touch does she mingle the colours, and in what sweet
proportion blushes and blanches her lady's upturned face. Phiale is the
cleverest of all the slaves. Now Calamis dips her quill in a certain
powder that floats, liquid and sable, in the hollow of her palm.
Standing upon tip-toe and with lips parted, she traces the arch of the
eyebrows. The slaves whisper loudly of their lady's beauty, and two of
them hold up a mirror to her. Yes, the eyebrows are rightly arched. But
why does Psecas abase herself? She is craving leave to powder Sabina's
hair with a fine new powder. It is made of the grated rind of the
cedar-tree, and a Gallic perfumer, whose stall is near the Circus, gave
it to her for a kiss. No lady in Rome knows of it. And so, when four
special slaves have piled up the headdress, out of a perforated box
this glistening powder is showered. Into every little brown ringlet it
enters, till Sabina's hair seems like a pile of gold coins. Lest the
breezes send it flying, the girls lay the powder with sprinkled attar.
Soon Sabina will start for the Temple of Cybele.

Ah! Such are the lures of the toilet that none will for long hold aloof
from them. Cosmetics are not going to be a mere prosaic remedy for age
or plainness, but all ladies and all young girls will come to love them.
Does not a certain blithe Marquise, whose lettres intimes from the Court
of Louis Seize are less read than their wit deserves, tell us how she
was scandalised to see 'meme les toutes jeunes demoiselles emaillees
comme ma tabatiere? So it shall be with us. Surely the common prejudice
against painting the lily can but be based on mere ground of economy.
That which is already fair is complete, it may be urged--urged
implausibly, for there are not so many lovely things in this world that
we can afford not to know each one of them by heart. There is only one
white lily, and who that has ever seen--as I have--a lily really well
painted could grudge the artist so fair a ground for his skill? Scarcely
do you believe through how many nice metamorphoses a lily may be passed
by him. In like manner, we all know the young girl, with her simpleness,
her goodness, her wayward ignorance. And a very charming ideal for
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