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54
ROMANCE AND REALITY.

last braid of pearls; the professor of papillotes had decided, and she quite agreed with him, that à la Calypso best suited with her Grecian style of feature. The white satin slip, over which floated the cloud-like gauze, suited well with the extreme delicacy of her figure; and the little snow-slipper would not have disgraced the silver-footed Thetis, or Cinderella herself. The bouquet de rois shed its last tears on the cambric parsemés de lis—and Emily turned from her glass with that beau idéal of all reflections, "I am looking my very best!"

"Really, Emily you are very pretty," said Lady Alicia, when she entered the drawing room. Emily quite agreed with her.

The carriage soon whirled them to Lady Mandeville's; a proper length of time elapsed before they penetrated the blockade of coaches; a most scientific rap announced their arrival, and Emily's heart went quicker than the knocker. The old song says,

"My heart with love is beating—"

of pleasure, should be added. But soon admiration was the only active faculty. The noble staircase was lined with the rarest greenhouse plants; she might have gone through a whole