She was like a child dressing for her first party. Twice did her hair fall about her shoulders and twice must she gather it up, fingering carefully the long curl, patting it into place; hooking the bodice so that all its modesty would be preserved and yet the line of the throat show clear, shaking out the full, pannier-like skirt until it stood out quite to her liking. Then with a mock curtsey to herself in the glass, she dashed out of the room, up the narrow stairs and into the garret again before he had had time to sort over his brushes.
“Lovely!” he burst out enthusiastically when she had whirled round so he could see all sides of her. “It’s more beautiful than the one I first saw you in. Now you look like a bit of old Dresden china—No, I think you look like a little French queen. No, I don’t know what you do look like, only you’re the loveliest thing I ever saw!”
The gown fitted her perfectly; part of her neck was bare, the single curl, just as he wanted it, straying over it. Then came the waist of ivory-white flowered satin with elbow sleeves, and then the puffy panniers drooped about the slender bodice. As he drank in her beauty the blood went tingling through his veins. He had thought her lovely that first morning when he saw her on the porch: then she was all blossoms; now she was a vision of the olden time for whose lightest smile brave courtiers fought and bled.
“That’s it, keep your head up!” he cried, as with many steppings backward and forward, he conducted her to the old chair, and with the air of a grand chamberlain placed her upon it, adding in mock gallantry:
“Sit there, fair lady mine, while your humble slave makes obeisance. To touch the hem of your garment would be—Oh, but aren’t you lovely! And the tone of old ivory in the satin, and the exquisite flesh notes—and the way the curl lies on the shoulder! You are adorable!”
And so the picture was begun.
The hours and the days that followed were hours and days of never-ending joy and frolic. While it was still “Mr. Gregg” and “Mrs. Colton,” it was as often “Uncle Adam” by little Phil (the three were never separated) and now and then “Marse Adam” by old Bundy, who sought in this way to emphasize his master’s injunction to “look after Mr. Gregg’s comfort.”
