Having first divested myself from head to foot of every habiliment, I took a long piece of the finest cambric, and twice wound it gracefully round my shoulders and bosom, and twice enveloped my form in its folds; which, while they delineated the outline of my shape, veiled the tincture of my skin. I then flung over it a drapery of embroidered gauze, and its unimplicated simplicity gave to my perfect figure the spirit of an antique statue. An apparent tissue of woven air, it fell like a vapour round me. A zone of gold and a clasp prettily imprisoned my waist; and my graceful arms, undegraded by gloves, were bare to the shoulder. Part of my hair was confined by a bodkin, and part floated over my neck in native ringlets. As I could not well wear my leg naked, I drew on it a texture of woven silk; and laced a pair of sandals over my little foot; which resembled that of a youthful Thetis, or of a fugitive Atalanta.
I then bathed my face with the dew which I had gathered in the morning, poured on my hair and bosom the balmy waters of the distilled rose, and sprinkled my drapery with fragrant floods of lavender; so that I might be said to move in an ambient atmosphere of odours.
Behold me now, dressed to a charm, to a criticism. Here was no sloping, or goring, or seaming, or frilling, or flouncing. Detestable mechanism of millinery! No tedious papillotes, or unpoetical pins were here. All was done, in a few minutes, with a clasp, a zone, and a bodkin.
As I surveyed my form in the mirror, I was enraptured at its Sylphic delicacy; but I trembled to reflect, that the fairest flowers are the most fragile. You would imagine that a maiden's sigh could dissipate the drapery; and its aerial effect was as if a fairy were to lift the filmy gossamer on her spear, and lightly fling it over a rose-bud.
Resolving not to make myself visible till all the guests had arrived, I sat down and read Ossian, to store my mind with ideas for conversation. I love Ossian, it is so sublime, so bewildered, so full of a blue and white melancholy; of ghosts, and the four elements. I likewise turned over other books; for, as I had never mixed in fashionable society, I could not talk that nothingness, which is every thing in high life. Nor, indeed, if I could, would I; because, as a heroine, it was my part to converse with point, flowers, and sublimation.
About to appear in a world where all was new to me; ignorant of its forms, inexperienced in its rules; fair, young, and original, I resolved on adopting such manners as should not be subject to place, time, accident, or fashion. In short, to copy universal, generalized, unsophisticated nature, and Grecian statues.
As I had studied elegance of attitude before I knew the world, my graces were original, and all my own creation; so that if I had not the temporary mannerisms of a marchioness, I had, at least, the immortal movements of a seraph. Words may become obsolete, but the language of gesture is universal and eternal.
As for smiles, I felt myself perfect mistress of all that were ever ascribed to heroines;—the fatal smile, the smile such as precedes the dissolution of sainted goodness, the fragment of a broken smile, and the sly smile that creates the little dimple on the left side of the little mouth.
At length the most interesting moment of my life arrived; the moment when I was to burst, like a new planet, on the fashionable hemisphere. I descended the stairs, and pausing at the door, tried to tranquillize my fluttered spirits. I then assumed an air-lifted figure, scarcely touching the ground, and glided into the room.
The company were walking in groups, or sitting.