How long she
leaned there Debby did not know; steps from below
roused her from her reverie, and led her back
into the world again. Smiling at herself, She stole
to bed, and lay wrapped in waking dreams as
changeful as the shadows. ancing on her charnber-
wall.
The advent of her aunt's maid, Victorine, some
two hours later, was the signal to be "up and
doing"; and she meekly resigned herself into the
hands of that functionary, who appeared to regard
her in the light of an animated pin-cushion, as she
performed the toilet-ceremonies with an absorbed
aspect, which impressed her subject with a sense
of the solemnity of the occasion.
"Now, Mademoiselle, regard yourself, and
pronounce that you are ravishing" Victorine said
at length, folding her hands with a sigh of
satisfaction, as she fell back in an attitude of
serene triumph.
Debby robeyed, and inspected herself with great
interest and some astonishment; for there was a
sweeping amplitude of array about the young
lady whom she beheld in the much-befrilled gown
and embroidered skirts, which somewhat alarmed
her as to the navigation of a vessel "with such a
spread of sail," while a curious sensation of being
somebody else pervaded her from the crown of
her head, with its shining coils of hair, to the soles
of the French slippers, whose energies seemed to
have been devoted to the production of marvellous
rosettes.
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