"Elles sont toujours au premier rang a l'eglise et a la promenade; une blonde superbe, une jolie espiegle, une belle brune." "Exactly." "Lovely creatures all of them--heads for artists; what a group they would make, taken together! Eulalie (I know their names), with her smooth braided hair and calm ivory brow.

Hortense, with her rich chesnut locks so luxuriantly knotted, plaited, twisted, as if she did not know how to dispose of all their abundance, with her vermilion lips, damask cheek, and roguish laughing eye.

And Caroline de Blemont! Ah, there is beauty! beauty in perfection.

What a cloud of sable curls about the face of a houri! What fascinating lips! What glorious black eyes! Your Byron would have worshipped her, and you--you cold, frigid islander!--you played the austere, the insensible in the presence of an Aphrodite so exquisite ?" I might have laughed at the director's enthusiasm had I believed it real, but there was something in his tone which indicated got-up raptures.

I felt he was only affecting fervour in order to put me off my guard, to induce me to come out in return, so I scarcely even smiled.