Lesbia’s first sensation upon having this accomplished person presented to her was one of shrinking and disgust.  There was something sinister in the sallow face, the small shrewd eyes, and long hooked nose, the crooked figure, and claw-shaped hands.  But when Madame Seraphine began to talk about gowns, and bade her acolytes—­smartly-dressed young women with pleasing countenances—­bring forth marvels of brocade and satin, embroideries, stamped velvets, bullion fringes, and ostrich feather flouncings, Lesbia became interested, and forgot the unholy aspect of the high priestess.

Lady Kirkbank and the dressmaker discussed Lesbia’s charms as calmly as if she had been out of the room.

‘What do you think of her figure?’ asked Lady Kirkbank.

‘One cannot criticise what does not exist,’ replied the dressmaker, in French.  ’The young lady has no figure.  She has evidently been brought up in the country.’

And then with rapid bird-like movements, and with her head on one side, Seraphine measured Lesbia’s waist and bust, muttering little argotic expressions sotto voce as she did so.

‘Waist three inches too large, shoulders six inches too narrow,’ she said decisively, and she dictated some figures to one of the damsels, who wrote them down in an order-book.

‘What does that mean?’ asked Lesbia, not at all approving of such cavalier treatment.

‘Only that Seraphine will make your corsets the right size,’ answered Lady Kirkbank.

’What?  Three inches too small for my waist, and six too wide for my shoulders?’

‘My love, you must have a figure,’ replied Lady Kirkbank, conclusively.  ’It is not what you are, but what you ought to be that has to be considered.’

So Lesbia, the cool-headed, who was also the weak-minded, consented to have her figure adjusted to the regulation mark of absolute beauty, as understood by Madame Seraphine.  It was only when her complexion came under discussion, and Seraphine ventured to suggest that she would be all the better for a little accentuation of her eyebrows and darkening of her lashes, that Lesbia made a stand.

‘What would my grandmother think of me if she heard I painted?’ she asked, indignantly.

Lady Kirkbank laughed at her naivete.

‘My dear child, your grandmother is just half a century behind the age,’ she said.  ’I hope you are not going to allow your life in London to be regulated by an oracle at Grasmere?’

‘I am not going to paint my face,’ replied Lesbia, firmly.

’Well, perhaps you are right.  The eyebrows are a little weak and undecided, Seraphine, as you say, and the lashes would be all the better for your famous cosmetic; but after all there is a charm in what the painters call “sincerity,” and any little errors of detail will prove the genuineness of Lady Lesbia’s beauty.  One may be too artistic.’

And Lady Kirkbank gave a complacent glance at her own image in one of the Marie Antoinette mirrors, pleased with the general effect of arched brows, darkened eyelids, and a daisy bonnet.  The fair Georgie generally affected field-flowers and other simplicities, which would have been becoming to a beauty of eighteen.