uragement.

Her arms were bare, and her wrists covered with bracelets; the upper
part of her neck was insufficiently veiled by the too slight fabric of
a transparent gauze; in short, the desire to please was displayed in her
by all the details of her appearance. I was stirred at the aspect of so
much frivolity, and I felt myself blush for pity, almost for shame.

We reached, at length, the verge of the stream. She loosed my arm and
unceremoniously slid down, I can not say seated herself, upon the
grass, throwing back the long curls depending from her chignon. The
word chignon, in the language of society, denotes that prominence of the
cranium which is to be seen at the back of ladies' heads. It is produced
by making coils or plaits of their long hair. I have cause to believe,
from certain allusions I have heard, that many of these chignons are not
natural. There are women, most worthy daughters of Eve, who purchase
for gold the hair--horyesco referens--of the wretched or the dead. It
sickens one.

"It is excessively hot, my dear cousin," said she, fanning herself. "I
tremble every moment in such weather lest Monsieur de Beaurenard's nose
should explode or catch fire. Ha, ha, ha. Upon my word of honor I do."

She exploded with laughter at this joke, an unbecoming one, and without
much point. Monsieur de Beaurenard is a friend of the Marquis, who
happens to have a high color. Out of politeness, I forced a smile, which
she, no doubt, took for approbation, for she then launched out into
conversation--an indescribable flow of chatter, blending the most
profane sentiments with the strangest religious ideas, the quiet of
the country with the whirl of society, and all this with a freedom of
gesture, a charm of expression, a subtlety of glance, and a species
of earthly poesy, by which any other soul than mine would have been
seduced.

"This is a pretty spot, this charming little nook, is it not?"

"Certainly, my dear cousin."

"And these old willows with their large tops overhanging the stream;
see how the field-flowers cluster gayly about their battered trunks! How
strange, too, that young foliage, so elegant, so silvery, those branches
so slender and so supple! So much elegance, freshness and youth shooting
up from that old trunk which seems as if accursed!"

"God does not curse a vegetable, my cousin."

"That is possible; but I can not help finding in willows something which
is suggestive of humanity. Perpetual old