stomer's
figures, and made their corsets, and lectured them if they allowed
nature to get the upper hand.

'If Madame's waist gets one quarter of an inch thicker it must be that I
renounce to make her gowns,' she would tell a ponderous matron, with
cool insolence, and the matron would stand abashed before the little
sallow, hooked-nosed, keen eyed Jewess, like a child before a severe
mother.

'Oh, Seraphine, do you really think that I am stouter?' the customer
would ask feebly, panting in her tightened corset.

'Is it that I think so? Why that jumps to the eyes. Madame had always
that little air of Reubens, even in the flower of her youth--but now--it
is a Rubens of the Fabourg du Temple.'

And horrified at the idea of her vulgarised charms the meek matron would
consent to encase herself in one of Seraphine's severest corsets, called
in bitterest mockery _a la sante_--at five guineas--in order that the
dressmaker might measure her for a forty-guinea gown.

'A plain satin gown, my dear, with an eighteenpenny frilling round the
neck and sleeves, and not so much trimming as would go round my little
finger. It is positive robbery,' the matron told her friends afterwards,
not the less proud of her skin-tight high shouldered sleeves and the
peerless flow of her train.

Seraphine was an artist in complexions, and it was she who provided her
middle-aged and elderly customers with the lilies and roses of youth.
Lady Kirkbank's town complexion was superintended by Seraphine,
sometimes even manipulated by those harpy-like claws. The eyebrows of
which Lesbia complained were only eyebrows _de province_--eyebrows _de
voyage_. In London Georgie was much more particular; and Seraphine was
often in Arlington Street with her little morocco bag of washes and
creams, and brushes and sponges, to prepare Lady Kirkbank for some great
party, and to instruct Lady Kirkbank's maid. At such times Georgie was
all affection for the little dressmaker.

'_Ma chatte_, you have made me positively adorable,' she would say,
peering at her reflection in the ivory hand-mirror, a dazzling image of
rouge and bismuth, carmined lips, diamonds, and frizzy yellow hair; 'I
verily believe I look under thirty--but do not you think this gown is a
thought too _decolletee--un peu trop de peau, hein?_'

'Not for you, Lady Kirkbank, with your fine shoulders. Shoulders are of
no age--_les epaules sont la vraie fontaine de jouvence pour les jolies
femmes._'

'Y