passed before their eyes.

"Oh! there is Madame Villegry," cried Jacqueline; "how handsome she is!
I should like one of these days to be that kind of beauty, so tall and
slender. Her waist measure is only twenty-one and two thirds inches.
The woman who makes her corsets and my mamma's told us so. She brought
us one of her corsets to look at, a love of a corset, in brocatelle, all
over many-colored flowers. That material is much more 'distingue' than
the old satin--"

"But what a queer idea it is to waste all that upon a thing that nobody
will ever look at," said Dolly, her round eyes opening wider than before.

"Oh! it is just to please herself, I suppose. I understand that!
Besides, nothing is too good for such a figure. But what I admire most
is her extraordinary hair."

"Which changes its color now and then," observed the sharpest of the
three Wermant sisters. "Extraordinary is just the word for it. At
present it is dark red. Henna did that, I suppose. Raoul--our brother--
when he was in Africa saw Arab women who used henna. They tied their
heads up in a sort of poultice made of little leaves, something like tea-
leaves. In twenty-four hours the hair will be dyed red, and will stay
red for a year or more. You can try it if you like. I think it is
disgusting."

"Oh! look, there is Madame de Sternay. I recognized her by her perfume
before I had even seen her. What delightful things good perfumes are!"

"What is it? Is it heliotrope or jessamine?" asked Yvonne d'Etaples,