The salons presented a magnificent spectacle to the eye,--flowers, diamonds, and brilliant head-dresses; all jewel-boxes emptied; all resources of the toilet put under contribution.

The ball-room might be compared to one of those choice conservatories where rich horticulturists collect the most superb rarities,--same brilliancy, same delicacy of texture.

On all sides white or tinted gauzes like the wings of the airiest dragon-fly, crepes, laces, blondes, and tulles, varied as the fantasies of entomological nature; dentelled, waved, and scalloped; spider's webs of gold and silver; mists of silk embroidered by fairy fingers; plumes colored by the fire of the tropics drooping from haughty heads; pearls twined in braided hair; shot or ribbed or brocaded silks, as though the genius of arabesque had presided over French manufactures,--all this luxury was in harmony with the beauties collected there as if to realize a "Keepsake." The eye received there an impression of the whitest shoulders, some amber-tinted, others so polished as to seem colandered, some dewy, some plump and satiny, as though Rubens had prepared their flesh; in short, all shades known to man in white.

Here were eyes sparkling like onyx or turquoise fringed with dark lashes; faces of varied outline presenting the most graceful types of many lands; foreheads noble and majestic, or softly rounded, as if thought ruled, or flat, as if resistant will reigned there unconquered; beautiful bosoms swelling, as George IV.
admired them, or widely parted after the fashion of the eighteenth century, or pressed together, as Louis XV.

required; some shown boldly, without veils, others covered by those charming pleated chemisettes which Raffaelle painted.