At that moment, Lady Anne wore the _suppressed sigh_, but I did not know
it--I mistook it for _boue de Paris_--conceive my ignorance! No two things
in nature, not a horse-chestnut and a chestnut-horse, could be more
different.

Conceive my confusion! and Colonels Topham and Beauclerk standing by. But I
recovered myself in public opinion, by admiring the slipper on her
ladyship's little foot. Now I showed my taste, for this slipper had but the
night before arrived express from Paris, and it was called a _venez-y
voir_; and how a slipper, with a heel so high, and a quarter so low, could
be kept on the foot, or how the fair could walk in it, I could not
conceive, except by the special care of her guardian sylph.

After the _venez-y voir_ had fixed all eyes as desired, the lady turning
alternately to Colonels Topham and Beauclerk, with rapid gestures of
ecstasy, exclaimed, "The _pouf!_ the _pouf!_ Oh! on Wednesday I shall have
the _pouf_!"

Now what manner of thing a _pouf!_ might be, I had not the slightest
conception. "It requireth," said Bacon, "great cunning for a man in
discourse to seem to know that which he knoweth not." Warned by _boue de
Paris_ and the _suppressed sigh_, this time I found safety in silence. I
listened, and learned, first that _un pouf_ was the most charming thing in
the creation; next, that nobody upon earth could be seen in Paris without
one; that one was coming from Mademoiselle Berlin, per favour of Miss
Wilkes, for Lady Anne Mowbray, and that it would be on her head on
Wednesday; and Colonel Topham swore there would be no resisting her
ladyship in the _pouf_, she would look so killing.

"So killing," was the colonel's last.