and respect. They
appeared to derive an ardent pleasure from the services which they
rendered to their lovely mistress. One would have thought that they
attached to the dressing and embellishment of her person all the merits
and the enjoyment arising from the execution of a work of art, in the
accomplishing of which, fruitful of delights, they were stimulated by
the passions of love, of pride, and of joy.

The sun beamed brightly upon the toilet-case, placed in front of the
window. Adrienne was seated on a chair, its back elevated a little
more than usual. She was enveloped in a long morning-gown of blue silk,
embroidered with a leaf of the same color, which was fitted close to her
waist, as exquisitely slender and delicate as that of a child of twelve
years, by a girdle with floating tags. Her neck, delicately slender
and flexible as a bird's, was uncovered, as were also her shoulders and
arms, and all were of incomparable beauty. Despite the vulgarity of
the comparison, the purest ivory alone can give an idea of the dazzling
whiteness of her polished satin skin, of a texture so fresh and so firm,
that some drops of water, collected and still remaining about the
roots of her hair from the bath, rolled in serpentine lines over her
shoulders, like pearls, or beads, of crystal, over white marble.

And what gave enhanced lustre to this wondrous carnation, known but to
auburn-headed beauties, was the deep purple of her, humid lips,--the
roseate transparency of her small ears, of her dilated nostrils, and
her nails, as bright and glossy, as if they had been varnished. In every
spot, indeed, where her pure arterial blood, full of animation and
heat, could make its way to the skin and shine through the surface, it
proclaimed her high health and the vivid life and joyous buoyancy of her
glorious youth. Her eyes were very large, and of a velvet softness. Now
they glanced, sparkling and shining with comic humor or intelligence
and wit; and now they widened and extended themselves, languishing and
swimming between their double fringes of long crisp eyelashes, of as
deep a black as her finely-drawn and exquisitely arched eyebrows; for,
by a delightful freak of nature, she had black eyebrows and eyelashes to
contrast with the golden red of her hair. Her forehead, small like those
of ancient Grecian statues, formed with the rest of her face a perfect
oval. Her nose, delicately curved, was slightly aquiline; the enamel of
her teeth