y sought rather the coolness and the shade.

Julia's apartment at that season was in the lower part of the house,
immediately beneath the state rooms above, and looking upon the garden,
with which it was on a level. The wide door, which was glazed, alone
admitted the morning rays: yet her eye, accustomed to a certain
darkness, was sufficiently acute to perceive exactly what colors were
the most becoming--what shade of the delicate rouge gave the brightest
beam to her dark glance, and the most youthful freshness to her cheek.

On the table, before which she sat, was a small and circular mirror of
the most polished steel: round which, in precise order, were ranged the
cosmetics and the unguents--the perfumes and the paints--the jewels and
combs--the ribands and the gold pins, which were destined to add to the
natural attractions of beauty the assistance of art and the capricious
allurements of fashion. Through the dimness of the room glowed brightly
the vivid and various colourings of the wall, in all the dazzling
frescoes of Pompeian taste. Before the dressing-table, and under the
feet of Julia, was spread a carpet, woven from the looms of the East.
Near at hand, on another table, was a silver basin and ewer; an
extinguished lamp, of most exquisite workmanship, in which the artist
had represented a Cupid reposing under the spreading branches of a
myrtle-tree; and a small roll of papyrus, containing the softest elegies
of Tibullus. Before the door, which communicated with the cubiculum,
hung a curtain richly broidered with gold flowers. Such was the
dressing-room of a beauty eighteen centuries ago.

The fair Julia leaned indolently back on her seat, while the ornatrix
(i.e. hairdresser) slowly piled, one above the other, a mass of small
curls, dexterously weaving the false with the true, and carrying the
whole fabric to a height that seemed to place the head rather at the
centre than the summit of the human form.

Her tunic, of a deep amber, which well set off her dark hair and
somewhat embrowned complexion, swept in ample folds to her feet, which
were cased in slippers, fastened round the slender ankle by white
thongs; while a profusion of pearls were embroidered in the slipper
itself, which was of purple, and turned slightly upward, as do the
Turkish slippers at this day. An old slave, skilled by long experience
in all the arcana of the toilet, stood beside the hairdresser, with the
broad and studded girdle of h