The girl had selected a demi-toilet, a dress of rich blue velvet trimmed with white lace. She arranged the wavy masses of light brown hair so as to show its silky abundance, she placed a white camelia in it, and then she opened a jewel ease that lay on the table. It contained a suite of pearls, a beautiful necklace, bracelet, and ear-rings.
When her toilette was complete and the last finishing touch had been given by her attentive hand-maiden, Avoline looked at herself in one of the survey glasses which reflected on its face the whole of the figure, and She was perfectly dazzled at her resplendent appearance.
Could it be possible that the lovely, radiant, magnificently dressed woman was the wife of Tom Gatliffe, a poor working man?
The white graceful neck and exquisitely moulded shoulders were fair as the soft gleaming pearls—the rounded arms were perfect in shape as the small white hands.
She smiled to herself.
It seemed hardly possible that she could have been so transformed.
It has been said that beauty unadorned is adorned the most, but it would be in vain to conceal that the most beautiful woman is not enhanced by the aid of elegant attire and rendered still more radiant by glittering jewels.
“I wish poor Tom could see me now,” she murmured, “he would hardly recognise me. Indeed, to say the truth, I hardly know myself.”
She went down to the drawing-room where the Earl and Mr. Chicknell awaited her.
They both looked up in wonder as the magnificently-attired girl entered the room.