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In a luxurious dressing-room in one of the most aristocratic mansions of Montreal, a young girl stood before a cheval-glass which gave back the full-length reflection of her lovely person, from the rich luxuriance of her rose-crowned ringlets to the sole of the fairy foot, now clad in a sylvan buskin, laced with silken strings over the delicate and naked ankle. The girl’s dress was a fanciful one—it had just been sent home from the dress-maker’s, and she was but rehearsing in it, preparatory to her appearance as the goddess Flora at a fancy-ball, to be given shortly by the officers of the garrison to the élite of the city.
An attempt to personate the bright floral divinity of Spring might seem to argue undue vanity on the part of Alicia de Rochemont, but she had consented to do so at the suggestion of her preferred admirer, Captain Clairville, who declared that he had once met the celebrated Dutchess of S—— in that character, at a masquerade, and that she looked divinely, though even her fresh and radiant beauty was far less dazzling than that of Miss De Rochemont’s. Alicia thought every one who flattered her sincere, and so she believed the gay captain, and following his directions as to her costume, stood now before her mirror, a lovely impersonation of the ever-youthful deity who presides over the floral creation.
Her robe, of the finest tissue, changed its hues with every motion of the graceful wearer, now glowing with tints of sapphire, now assuming the hue of the rose, then fading to a tender purple, or a violet-azure, and the effect of all was softened by the transparent folds of an almost impalpable veil, which floated around the figure of the goddess, like the fleecy clouds which in the balmy nights of summer follow the bright pathway of the moon, chastening often, but never obscuring her lustre. Her white and rounded arms, bare to the shoulders, were wreathed with flowers; her hair was crowned with roses, and in one hand she carried a cornucopia filled with exquisite blossoms, which she was supposed to scatter on the earth, as she passed over it.
For a few minutes Alicia continued to survey herself with evident satisfaction—turning first to this side, then to that, and at last retreating step by step, and again slowly advancing toward her mirror, to study the full effect of her brilliant tout ensemble.
“Mrs. Wetmore says, Miss,” remarked her maid, “that there will not be so beautiful a dress among them all as yours.”
“Nor so handsome a goddess,” responded Alicia, “did she not say that also, Ferris?”
“Of course she did, Miss,” returned the maid, who always stood ready to apply the unction of flattery to her young mistress—“everybody says that,” she added, “and sure if they did not, your own mirror would tell it to you.”
“But everybody might not believe what the mirror says, Ferris, though neither you nor I think it tells lies,” said Alicia. “But never mind, it is all very well, except these mock-roses, and they are such trumpery things I will not disgrace myself by wearing them,” and snatching the garland of artificial roses from her head she threw it contemptuously across the floor. “I can have abundance of natural flowers of every description except roses, and every one tells me they are not to be found.”
“Then, Miss, how can you expect to have them? Sure, they will not blow in the midst of these mountains of snow,” said Ferris.