k the profit usually gained
by the middle man, who speculates in such labor; this notable
augmentation of wages had spread happiness and comfort through a hundred
necessitous families, who, blessing the munificence of Adrienne, gave
her, as she said, the right to enjoy her luxury as a good action. Nothing
could be fresher or more charming than the interior of this bedchamber.
Mdlle. de Cardoville had just awoke; she reposed in the middle of this
flood of muslin, lace, cambric, and white silk, in a position full of
sweet grace. Never during the night did she cover that beautiful golden
hair (a certain recipe, said the Greeks, for preserving it for a long
while in magnificence). Every evening, her women arranged her long silky
curls in flat tresses, forming two broad bands, which, descending
sufficiently low almost entirely to conceal the small ear, the rosy lobe
of which was alone visible, were joined to the large plait behind the
head.

This head-dress, borrowed from Greek antiquity, set off to admiration the
pure, fine features of Mdlle. de Cardoville, and made her look so much
younger, that, instead of eighteen, one would hardly have given her
fifteen years of age. Gathered thus closely about the temples, the hair
lost its transparent and brilliant hues, and would have appeared almost
brown, but for the golden tints which played here and there, amid the
undulations of the tresses. Lulled in that morning torpor, the warm
languor of which is so favorable to soft reveries, Adrienne leaned with
her elbow on the pillow, and her head a little on one side, which
displayed to advantage the ideal contour of her bared neck and shoulders;
her smiling lips, moist and rosy, were, like her cheeks, cold as if they
had just been bathed in ice-water; her snow-white lids half veiled the
large, dark, soft eyes, which now gazed languidly upon vacancy, and now
fixed themselves with pleasure upon the rosy flowers and green leaves in
the basket of camellias. Who can paint the matchless serenity of
Adrienne's awaking--when the fair and chaste soul roused itself in the
fair and chaste body? It was the awakening of a heart as pure as the
fresh and balmy breath of youth, that made her bosom rise and fall in its
white, immaculate purity. What creed, what dogma, what formula, what
religious symbol, oh! paternal and divine Creator! can ever give a more
complete idea of Thy harmonious and ineffable power, than the image of a
young maiden awaking in