describe, when struggling to speak English, as her "combination." Pam
and I laughed nearly to extinction, but I didn't laugh this morning when
I was obliged to help Lady Turnour put on hers.

They say an emperor is no hero to his valet, and neither can an empress
be a heroine to her maid when she bursts for the first time upon that
humble creature's sight, without her transformation.

It _did_ make an unbelievable difference with her ladyship; and it must
have been a blow to poor Sir Samuel, after all his years of hopeless
love for a fond gazelle, when at last he made that gazelle his own, and
saw it running about its bedroom with all its copper-coloured
"ondulations" naively lying on its dressing-table.

Poor Miss Paget's false front was one of those frank, self-respecting
old things one might have allowed one's grandmother to wear, just as she
would wear a cap; but a transformation--well, one has perhaps believed
in it, if one has not the eye of a lynx, and the disillusion is awful.

Of course, a lady's-maid is not a human being, and what it is thinking
matters no more than what thinks a chair when sat upon; so I don't
suppose "her ladyship" cared ten centimes for the impression I was
receiving and trying to digest in the first ten minutes after my morning
entrance.

As my hair waves naturally, I've scarcely more than a bowing
acquaintance with a curling-iron; but luckily for me I always did Cousin
Catherine's when she wanted to look as beautiful as she felt; and though
my hands trembled with nervousness, I not only "ondulated" Lady
Turnour's transformation without burning it up, but I added it to her