ed together with jet bugles. A very stiff, Spanish ruff
reached almost to her chin, and was secured round her neck by a broad
rose-colored ribbon. This frill, slightly heaving, sloped down as far as
the graceful swell of the rose-colored stomacher, laced with strings of
jet beads, and terminating in a point at the waist. It is impossible to
express how well this black garment, with its ample and shining folds,
relieved with rose-color and brilliant jet, skin, harmonized with the
shining whiteness of Adrienne's and the golden flood of her beautiful
hair, whose long, silky ringlets descended to her bosom.

The young lady was in a half-recumbent posture, with her elbow resting
on a couch covered with green silk. The back of this piece of furniture,
which was pretty high towards the fireplace, sloped down insensibly
towards the foot. A sort of light, semicircular trellis-work, in gilded
bronze, raised about five feet from the ground, covered with flowering
plants (the admirable passiflores quadrangulatoe, planted in a deep
ebony box, from the centre of which rose the trellis-work), surrounded
this couch with a sort of screen of foliage enamelled with large
flowers, green without, purple within, and as brilliant as those flowers
of porcelain, which we receive from Saxony. A sweet, faint perfume,
like a faint mixture of jasmine with violet, rose from the cup of these
admirable passiflores. Strange enough, a large quantity of new books
(Adrienne having bought them since the last two or three days) and
quite fresh-cut, were scattered around her on the couch, and on a little
table; whilst other larger volumes, amongst which were several atlases
full of engravings, were piled on the sumptuous fur, which formed
the carpet beneath the divan. Stranger still, these books, though of
different forms, and by different authors, alt treated of the same
subject. The posture of Adrienne revealed a sort of melancholy
dejection. Her cheeks were pale; a light blue circle surrounded her
large, black eyes, now half-closed, and gave to them an expression of
profound grief. Many causes contributed to this sorrow--amongst others,
the disappearance of Mother Bunch. Without absolutely believing the
perfidious insinuations of Rodin, who gave her to understand that, in
the fear of being unmasked by him, the hunchback had not dared to remain
in the house, Adrienne felt a cruel sinking of the heart, when she
thought how this young girl, in whom she had ha