"

"No, indeed! What a horrid suggestion!" she cried, running up to the box
which was half open. "You'll see how much better I can look in a moment
or two."

"I put no faith in your fancies about your toilette. I certainly don't
promise to accept them."

Nevertheless, he left her alone with her Bernese governess, saying:
"Call me when you are ready, I shall be in the next room."

A quarter of an hour, and more, passed, and no signal had been given.
Marien, getting out of patience, knocked on the door.

"Have you nearly done beautifying yourself?" he asked, in a tone of
irony.

"Just done," replied a low voice, which trembled.

He went in, and to the great amusement of Fraulein Schult, who was not
too preoccupied to notice everything, he stood confounded--petrified,
as a man might be by some work of magic. What had become of Jacqueline?
What had she in common with that dazzling vision? Had she been touched
by some fairy's wand? Or, to accomplish such a transformation, had
nothing been needed but the substitution of a woman's dress, fitted
to her person, for the short skirts and loose waists cut in a boyish
fashion, which had made the little girl seem hardly to belong to any
sex, an indefinite being, condemned, as it were, to childishness? How
tall, and slender, and graceful she looked in that long gown, the folds
of which fell from her waist in flowing lines, a waist as round and
flexible as the branch of a willow; what elegance there was in her
modest corsage, which displayed for the first time her lovely arms and
neck, half afraid of their own exposure. She still was not robust,
but the leanness that she herself had owned to was not brought into
prominence by any bone or angle, her dark skin was soft and polished,
the color of ancient statues which have been slightly tinted yellow by
exposure to the sun. This girl, a Parisienne, seemed formed on the model
of a figurine of Tanagra. Greek, too, was her small head, crowned only
by her usual braid of hair, which she had simply gathered up so as to
show the nape of her neck, which was perhaps the most beautiful thing in
all her beautiful person.

"Well!--what do you think of me?" she said to Marien, with a searching
glance to see how she impressed him--a glance strangely like that of a
grown woman.

"Well!--I can't get over it!--Why have you bedizened yourself in that
fashion?" he asked, with an affectation of 'brusquerie', as he tried to
recover his power of sp