would be forgotten.

But, however that might be, these young girls, sitting or standing, in
the midst of their color-boxes, playing with their brushes or preparing
them, handling their dazzling palettes, painting, laughing, talking,
singing, absolutely natural, and exhibiting their real selves, composed
a spectacle unknown to man. One of them, proud, haughty, capricious,
with black hair and beautiful hands, was casting the flame of her glance
here and there at random; another, light-hearted and gay, a smile upon
her lips, with chestnut hair and delicate white hands, was a typical
French virgin, thoughtless, and without hidden thoughts, living her
natural real life; a third was dreamy, melancholy, pale, bending her
head like a drooping flower; her neighbor, on the contrary, tall,
indolent, with Asiatic habits, long eyes, moist and black, said but
little, and reflected, glancing covertly at the head of Antinous.

Among them, like the "jocoso" of a Spanish play, full of wit and
epigrammatic sallies, another girl was watching the rest with a
comprehensive glance, making them laugh, and tossing up her head, too
lively and arch not to be pretty. She appeared to rule the first
group of girls, who were the daughters of bankers, notaries, and
merchants,--all rich, but aware of the imperceptible though cutting
slights which another group belonging to the aristocracy put upon them.
The latter were led by the daughter of one of the King's ushers, a
little creature, as silly as she was vain, proud of being the daughter
of a man with "an office at court." She was a girl who always pretended
to understand the remarks of the master at the first word, and seemed
to do her work as a favor to him. She used an eyeglass, came very much
dressed, and always late, and entreated her companions to speak low.

In this second group were several girls with exquisite figures and
distinguished features, but there was little in their glance or
expression that was simple and candid. Though their attitudes were
elegant and their movements graceful, their faces lacked frankness; it
was easy to see that they belonged to a world where polite manners
form the character from early youth, and the abuse of social pleasures
destroys sentiment and develops egotism.

But when the whole class was here assembled, childlike heads were seen
among this bevy of young girls, ravishingly pure and virgin, faces with
lips half-opened, through which shone spotless teeth,