The advent of her aunt’s maid, Victorine, some two hours later, was the signal to be “up and doing”; and she meekly resigned herself into the hands of that functionary, who appeared to regard her in the light of an animated pin-cushion, as she performed the toilet-ceremonies with an absorbed aspect, which impressed her subject with a sense of the solemnity of the occasion.

“Now, Mademoiselle, regard yourself, and pronounce that you are ravishing,” Victorine said at length, folding her hands with a sigh of satisfaction, as she fell back in an attitude of serene triumph.

Debby obeyed, and inspected herself with great interest and some astonishment; for there was a sweeping amplitude of array about the young lady whom she beheld in the much-befrilled gown and embroidered skirts, which somewhat alarmed her as to the navigation of a vessel “with such a spread of sail,” while a curious sensation of being somebody else pervaded her from the crown of her head, with its shining coils of hair, to the soles of the French slippers, whose energies seemed to have been devoted to the production of marvellous rosettes.

“Yes, I look very nice, thank you; and yet I feel like a doll, helpless and fine, and fancy I was more of a woman in my fresh gingham, with a knot of clovers in my hair, than I am now.  Aunt Pen was very kind to get me all these pretty things; but I’m afraid my mother would look horrified to see me in such a high state of flounce externally and so little room to breathe internally.”

“Your mamma would not flatter me, Mademoiselle; but come now to Madame; she is waiting to behold you, and I have yet her toilet to make”; and, with a pitying shrug, Victorine followed Debby to her aunt’s room.

“Charming! really elegant!” cried that lady, emerging from her towel with a rubicund visage.  “Drop that braid half an inch lower, and pull the worked end of her handkerchief out of the right-hand pocket, Vic.  There!  Now, Dora, don’t run about and get rumpled, but sit quietly down and practise repose till I am ready.”

Debby obeyed, and sat mute, with the air of a child in its Sunday-best on a week-day, pleased with the novelty, but somewhat oppressed with the responsibility of such unaccustomed splendor, and utterly unable to connect any ideas of repose with tight shoes and skirts in a rampant state of starch.

* * * * *

“Well, you see, I bet on Lady Gay against Cockadoodle, and if you’ll believe me—­Hullo! there’s Mrs. Carroll, and deuse take me if she hasn’t got a girl with her!  Look, Seguin!”—­and Joe Leavenworth, a “man of the world,” aged twenty, paused in his account of an exciting race to make the announcement.

Mr. Seguin, his friend and Mentor, as much his senior in worldly wickedness as in years, tore himself from his breakfast long enough to survey the new-comers, and then returned to it, saying, briefly,—­

“The old lady is worth cultivating,—­gives good suppers, and thanks you for eating them.  The girl is well got up, but has no style, and blushes like a milk-maid.  Better fight shy of her, Joe.”