I
generally awaked about eleven, and then dressed with the simplicity of
a young man whose good looks and figure set off his plain attire. I was
always neatly shod, besides having white linen and a black coat,
carefully brushed by my own hands, which I buttoned up to the throat,
after the fashion of the young disciples of the schools of the Middle
Ages. A military cloak, whose ample folds were thrown over my left
shoulder, preserved my dress from being splashed in the streets, and,
on the whole, my plain and unpretending costume, which neither aspired
to elegance nor betrayed my distress, admitted of my passing from my
solitude to a drawing-room without either attracting or offending the
eye of the indifferent. I always went on foot; for the price of one
evening's coach-hire would have cost me a day of my life of love. I
walked on the pavement, keeping close along the walls to avoid the
contact of carriage-wheels, and proceeded slowly on tip-toe for fear of
the mud, which in a well-lighted drawing-room would have betrayed the
humble pedestrian.
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