Last and least, but not the most unlovely, in this display of female
charms, was the youngest daughter of Mr. Wharton. Frances, we have
already mentioned, left the city before she had attained to the age of
fashionable womanhood. A few adventurous spirits were already beginning
to make inroads in those customs which had so long invaded the comforts
of the fair sex; and the youthful girl had ventured to trust her beauty
to the height which nature had bestowed. This was but little, but that
little was a masterpiece. Frances several times had determined, in the
course of the morning, to bestow more than usual pains in the decoration
of her person. Each time in succession, as she formed this resolution,
she spent a few minutes in looking earnestly towards the north, and then
she as invariably changed it.
At the appointed hour, our heroine appeared in the drawing-room, clothed
in a robe of pale blue silk, of a cut and fashion much like that worn by
her sister. Her hair was left to the wild curls of nature, its
exuberance being confined to the crown of her head by a long, low comb,
made of light tortoise shell; a color barely distinguishable in the
golden hue of her tresses. Her dress was without a plait or a wrinkle,
and fitted the form with an exactitude that might lead one to imagine
the arch girl more than suspected the beauties it displayed.
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