front of the gown look like a pelisse. The corsage, ornamented with
buttons and caps to the sleeves, ended in a point in front, and was
laced up behind like a corset. This species of corset defined the
back, the hips, and the bust perfectly. The skirt, trimmed with three
rows of fringe, fell in charming folds, showing by its cut and its
make the hand of a Parisian dressmaker. A pretty fichu edged with lace
covered her shoulders; around her throat was a pink silk neckerchief,
charmingly tied, and on her head was a straw hat ornamented with one
moss rose. Her hands were covered with black silk mittens, and her
feet were in bronze kid boots. This gala air, which gave her somewhat
the appearance of the pictures in a fashion-book, delighted her
father.

Cecile was well made, of medium height, and perfectly
well-proportioned. She had braided her chestnut hair, according to
the fashion of 1839, in two thick plaits which followed the line of
the face and were fastened by their ends to the back of her head. Her
face, a fine oval, and beaming with health, was remarkable for an
aristocratic air which she certainly did not derive from either her
father or her mother. Her eyes, of a light brown, were totally devoid
of that gentle, calm, and almost timid expression natural to the eyes
of young girls. Lively, animated, and always well in health, Cecile
spoiled, by a sort of bourgeois matter-of-factness, and the manners of
a petted child, all that her person presented of romantic charm.
Still, a husband capable of reforming her education and effacing the
traces of provincial life, might still evolve from that living block a
charming woman of the world.

Madame Beauvisage had had the courage to bring up her daughter to good
principles; she had made herself employ a false severity which enabled