iamond ear-rings; some excellent
drawings from Raphael and Titian, painted by Adrienne herself,
consisting of portraits of both men and women of exquisite beauty;
several consoles of oriental jasper, supporting ewers and basins of
silver and of silver gilt, richly chased and filled with scented waters;
a voluptuously rich divan, some seats, and an illuminated gilt fable,
completed the furniture of this chamber, the atmosphere of which was
impregnated with the sweetest perfumes.

Adrienne, whom her attendants had just helped from the bath, was seated
before her toilette, her three women surrounding her. By a caprice, or
rather by a necessary and logical impulse of her soul, filled as it
was with the love of beauty and of harmony in all things, Adrienne had
wished the young women who served her to be very pretty, and be dressed
with attention and with a charming originality. We have already seen
Georgette, a piquante blonde, attired in her attractive costume of an
intriguing lady's maid of Marivaux; and her two companions were quite
equal to her both in gracefulness and gentility.

One of them, named Florine, a tall, delicately slender, and elegant
girl, with the air and form of Diana Huntress, was of a pale brown
complexion. Her thick black hair was turned up behind, where it was
fastened with a long golden pin. Like the two other girls, her arms were
uncovered to facilitate the performance of her duties about and upon the
person of her charming mistress. She wore a dress of that gay green so
familiar to the Venetian painters. Her petticoat was very ample. Her
slender waist curved in from under the plaits of a tucker of white
cambric, plaited in five minute folds, and fastened by five gold
buttons. The third of Adrienne's women had a face so fresh and
ingenuous, a waist so delicate, so pleasing, and so finished, that her
mistress had given her the name of Hebe. Her dress of a delicate rose
color, and Grecian cut, displayed her charming neck, and her beautiful
arms up to the very shoulders. The physiognomy of these three young
women was laughter loving and happy. On their features there was no
expression of that bitter sullenness, willing and hated obedience, or
offensive familiarity, or base and degraded deference, which are the
ordinary results of a state of servitude. In the zealous eagerness of
the cares and attentions which they lavished upon Adrienne, there seemed
to be at least as much of affection as of deference