Dark hair carelessly arranged, an open forehead, large black laughing eyes, a small straight nose, a complexion just relieved from the olive by an evanescent, yet perpetually recurring blush; a round dimpled cheek, an exquisitely-shaped mouth with small pearly teeth, and a light and delicate figure a little below the ordinary standard, completed the picture of Madame de Montaigne.
"Well," said Signor Tirabaloschi, the most loquacious and sentimental of the guests, filling his glass, "these are hours to think of for the rest of life.

But we cannot hope the Signora will long remember what we never can forget.

Paris, says the French proverb, _est le paradis des femmes_: and in Paradise, I take it for granted, we recollect very little of what happened on earth." "Oh," said Madame de Montaigne, with a pretty musical laugh, "in Paris it is the rage to despise the frivolous life of cities, and to affect _des sentimens romanesques_.

This is precisely the scene which our fine ladies and fine writers would die to talk of and to describe.

Is it not so, _mon ami_ ?" and she turned affectionately to De Montaigne.
"True," replied he; "but you are not worthy of such a scene--you laugh at sentiment and romance." "Only at French sentiment and the romance of the Chaussee d'Antin.