the masses of her glittering, waving auburn hair rested a slender diadem of the turquoise again—­that whose nameless tint, half blue, half green, makes it an inestimable treasure among the Navajoes, as it was once among the Aztecs, who called it the chalchivitl; each cluster of Maudita’s turquoises set in a frost-work of finest diamonds—­a splendid toilette indeed, as fresh and radiant as the morning dew upon the meadows.  When they set out on the love-path, that is.  When they came home from it, and from all the fatigues and fervors of the German, a metamorphosis.  The gauzy dress was so fringed and trodden on and torn that it seemed to hold together, like many an ill-assorted marriage, by the cohesion of habit alone; the hair—­Madge Wildfire’s was of more respectable appearance; the powder had fallen on arms and shoulders; and to my critical eyes, if to no others, the sunset hues remained on only one of Florimonde’s cheeks; and those enticing shadows round Maudita’s eyes when she went out—­for the best of eyes are dulled by too much wear and tear—­does antimony ‘run,’ or had some pugilistic partner given her a ‘black eye’?  Not that the damsels came home in such trim on every night of the season:  this was the accumulation of six parties in one night, the last of the Germans, when the fun grew fast and furious, the figures and the favors more fantastic; when daylight was breaking ere the champagne breakfast was eaten; and when the drunken coachman, out all night, had kept them shivering in the porch an endless while, and had jolted them about the carriage afterward.  But they had had a glorious time:  their eyes were dancing like marsh-lights, their laughter was ringing like a peal of bells, the jests and bon-mots and flattery they had heard were running off their lips like rain; they had made Goodness knows what conquests, they had made Goodness knows how many engagements; and oh, they were so tired!  I ran into their room to see them next day:  it was afternoon, and they were still in bed.  There was nothing remarkable in that, they said:  some girls were obliged to stay in bed two days out of every week through sheer fatigue, and some got so excited they couldn’t sleep at all, except by means of morphia, and that made them sick a couple of days, any way; but as for themselves, they had never given out yet, and never meant to do so.  While she was speaking, Florimonde’s voice faltered, and the sentence was finished under the breath.  Her voice had given out.  At the moment the muscles round that handsome mouth of hers began to twitch ridiculously:  she yawned and threw up her arms, as a baby stretches itself, and stiffened in that position, with her teeth set and her eyes rolled out of sight, and lay there like a corpse.  Florimonde had given out.  As I sprang to investigate this surprising condition of things, there came a sudden gurgle and a groan from Maudita, who had risen in her own little bed at my motion.  I turned to see her clutching her throat,