"No," said Elise, after a moment's consideration; "the powder shakes off all over everything and you can't make it really white, anyway; and besides, Patty, your hair is too pretty a colour to disguise with powder."
"Thank you for the compliment, Elise, though a little belated; all right, then, I'll leave my tow-coloured tresses their natural shade, and decorate them with strings of pearls and light blue ostrich tips."
The pearls and feathers and the manipulations of Franchise's artistic fingers transformed Patty's head into the semblance of an old French miniature, and even Patty herself cast an approving glance at the pretty reflection in the gilt-framed mirror.
The girls were wild with enthusiasm over Patty's appearance, though truth to tell, their own effects were scarcely less picturesque.
But Patty's style lent itself peculiarly well to the Watteau dress, and her little feet with their dainty silk stockings and high-heeled paste-buckled slippers twinkled beneath the quilted petticoat with all the grace of a real Watteau picture.
When they were ready, they walked down stairs, single file, with great pomp and dignity, to find awaiting them three polished young courtiers, who might have belonged to the Court of Versailles.
Ma'amselle herself was scarcely disguised, for in her ordinary costume she never strayed very far from the styles and materials of her beloved ancestors.
But she had on a royal robe, with a great jewelled collar, and strings of gems depending from her throat. She wore a coronet that had belonged to some of the ladies of her family, and she seemed more than ever a chatelaine of a bygone day.
The rooms were decorated with flowers and plants, in honour of the occasion, and hundreds of wax lights added to the brilliancy of the scene.
An orchestra of stringed instruments played delightful music, and Patty tried to forget entirely that she lived in the twentieth century, and pretended that time had been turned back many, many years.