One _may_ be too artistic.'
And Lady Kirkbank gave a complacent glance at her own image in one of
the Marie Antoinette mirrors, pleased with the general effect of arched
brows, darkened eyelids, and a daisy bonnet. The fair Georgie generally
affected field-flowers and other simplicities, which would have been
becoming to a beauty of eighteen.
'One is obliged to smother one's self in satin and velvet for balls and
dinners,' said Lady Kirkbank, when she discussed the great question of
gowns; 'but I know I always look my best in my cotton frock and straw
hat.'
That first visit to Seraphine's den--den as terrible, did one but know
it, as that antediluvian hyena-cave at Torquay, where the threshold is
worn by the bodies of beasts dragged across it, and the ground paved
with their bones--that first visit was a serious business. Later
interviews might be mere frivolities, half-an-hour wasted in looking at
new fashions, an order given carelessly on the spur of the moment; but
upon this occasion Lady Kirkbank had to arm her young _protegee_ for the
coming campaign, and the question was to the last degree serious.
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