ed certain artistic effects
in her outward adorning. She is style, fashion, elegance, taste
personified; consequently she is very _charming as an exhibition of the
newest and most captivating costumes_,--as an inventor and leader of
modes that become the rage when they have received her stamp."

"But her face and figure,--are they not remarkably handsome?" asked
Bertha.

"Her figure is the _fac-simile_ of one of those waxen statues which are
to be seen in the windows of some of the shops in Paris, and would be
styled faultless by a mantua-maker, though it might drive a sculptor
distracted if set before him as a model. As for her face, the novel
arrangement of her hair and the coquettish disposition of her
head-ornaments have always so completely drawn my attention away from
her countenance, that I could not tell you the color of her eyes, or the
character of any single lineament."

"Perhaps, too," suggested Madeleine, "she is so agreeable in
conversation, that you never thought of scanning her features."

"Of course she is agreeable,--that is, in her own peculiar way; for she
has an archly graceful manner of discussing the only subjects that
interest _her_, and always as though they must be of the deepest
interest to _you_. If you speak to her of her projects for the winter or
the summer, she will dwell upon the style of dress appropriate in the
execution of such and such schemes. If you express your regret at her
recent indisposition, she will describe the exquisite _robes de chambre_
which rendered her sufferings endurable. If you mention her brother, who
has lately received an appointment near the person of the emperor, she
will give you a minute account of the most approved court-dresses. If
you allude to the possibility that her husband (for such is the rumor)
may be sent as ambassador to the United States, she will burst forth in
bitter lamentations over the likelihood that American taste may not be
sufficiently cultivated to appreciate a Parisian toilet, or to comprehend
the great importance of the difficult art of dressing well. If you give
the tribute of a sigh to the memory of the lovely sister she lost a year
ago, she will run through a list of the garments of woe that gave
expression to her sorrow,--passing on to the shades of second, third,
and fourth mourning through which she gradually laid aside her grief.
You laugh, young ladies. Oh, very well; but I declare to you she went
through the catalogue of