I am to have
spoken to you about all this.

Madame F--Have we not been chattering? But it is half-past five, and I
must go and take my cinchona bark. Thirty minutes before meals, it is a
sacred duty. Will you come, pet?

Madame H--Stop a moment, I have lost my thimble again and must find it.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

But she thinks she is affording you pleasure
Do not seek too much
First impression is based upon a number of trifles
Sometimes like to deck the future in the garments of the past
The heart requires gradual changes

MONSIEUR, MADAME AND BEBE

By GUSTAVE DROZ

BOOK 3.

CHAPTER XX

THE HOT-WATER BOTTLE

When midnight strikes, when the embers die away into ashes, when the lamp
burns more feebly and your eyes close in spite of yourself, the best
thing to do, dear Madame, is to go to bed.

Get up from your armchair, take off your bracelets, light your
rosecolored taper, and proceed slowly, to the soft accompaniment of your
trailing skirt, rustling across the carpet, to your dressing-room, that
perfumed sanctuary in which your beauty, knowing itself to be alone,
raises its veils, indulges in self-examination, revels in itself and
reckons up its treasures as a miser does his wealth.

Before the muslin-framed mirror, which reveals all that it sees so well,
you pause carelessly and with a smile give one long satisfied look, then
with two fingers you withdraw the pin that kept up your hair, and its
long, fair tresses unroll and fall in waves, veiling your bare shoulders.
With a coquettish hand, the little finger of which is turned up, you
caress, as you gather them together, the golden flood of your abundant
locks, while with the other you pass through them the tortoiseshell comb
that buries itself in the depths of this fair forest and bends with the
effort.

Your tresses are so abundant that your little hand can scarcely grasp
them. They are so long that your outstretched arm scarcely reaches their
extremity. Hence it is not without difficulty that you manage to twist
them up and imprison them in your embroidered night-cap.

This first duty accomplished, you turn the silver tap, and the pure and
limpid water pours into a large bowl of enamelled porcelain. You throw in
a few drops of that fluid which perfumes and softens the skin, and like a
nymph in the depths of a quiet wood preparing for the toilet, you remove
the drapery that might encumber you