answer.

And so we settled it.

* * * * *

"Well done, Lucy Snowe!" cried I to myself; "you have come in for a
pretty lecture--brought on yourself a 'rude savant,' and all through
your wicked fondness for worldly vanities! Who would have thought it?
You deemed yourself a melancholy sober-sides enough! Miss Fanshawe
there regards you as a second Diogenes. M. de Bassompierre, the other
day, politely turned the conversation when it ran on the wild gifts of
the actress Vashti, because, as he kindly said, 'Miss Snowe looked
uncomfortable.' Dr. John Bretton knows you only as 'quiet Lucy'--'a
creature inoffensive as a shadow;' he has said, and you have heard him
say it: 'Lucy's disadvantages spring from over-gravity in tastes and
manner--want of colour in character and costume.' Such are your own and
your friends' impressions; and behold! there starts up a little man,
differing diametrically from all these, roundly charging you with being
too airy and cheery--too volatile and versatile--too flowery and
coloury. This harsh little man--this pitiless censor--gathers up all
your poor scattered sins of vanity, your luckless chiffon of
rose-colour, your small fringe of a wreath, your small scrap of ribbon,
your silly bit of lace, and calls you to account for the lot, and for
each item. You are well habituated to be passed by as a shadow in
Life's sunshine: it its a new thing to see one testily lifting his hand
to screen his eyes, because you tease him with an obtrusive ray."

CHAPTER XXIX.

MONSIEUR'S FETE.

I was up the next morning an hour before daybreak, and finished my
guard, kneeling on the dormitory floor beside the centre stand, for the
benefit of such expiring glimmer as the night-lamp afforded in its last
watch.

All my materials--my whole stock of beads and silk--were used up before
the chain assumed the length and richness I wished; I had wrought it
double, as I knew, by the rule of contraries, that to, suit the
particular taste whose gratification was in view, an effective
appearance was quite indispensable. As a finish to the ornament, a
little gold clasp was needed; fortunately I possessed it in the
fastening of my sole necklace; I duly detached and re-attached it, then
coiled compactly the completed guard; and enclosed it in a small box I
had bought for its brilliancy, made of some tropic shell of the colour
called "nacarat," and decked with a little coronal of sparkli