The magnificent hair was brushed till it gleamed like burnished gold as the sun-rays played upon it.  But when ready to be coiled in the artistic masses, which Gigia knew well how to arrange, variously, according to the style and nature of the effect designed to be produced, it was left uncoiled, streaming in great ripples over back and shoulders in its profuse abundance.  An exquisite little pair of boots, of black satin, clasping ankle and instep like a glove, were chosen to match the black satin dress laid out on the bed:  but, like the dress, were not put on.  The place of the black satin dress was supplied by a wrapper of very fine white muslin, edged with delicate lace, so shaped with consummate skill that, though the snowy folds seemed to lie loosely within the girdle that confined them at the waist, no part of the effect of the round elastic slimness of the waist was lost; open at the neck, from a point about a span beneath the collar-bone, it allowed the whole of the noble white column of the grandly-formed throat to be visible from its base above the bosom to the opening out of the exquisite lines about the nape of the neck into the tapering swelling of the classically-shaped head.  The exact arrangement of the shape of this opening of the dress, from the throat down to about a hand’s-breadth above the girdle, was very carefully attended to; the lace-edged folds of the muslin being three or four times drawn a little more forward so as to conceal, or a little back so as to show, a more liberal glimpse of the swelling bosom on either side, by the doubting Diva, as she stood before the glass.

“E troppo, cosi.” she said to her attendant at last.  “Is that too much so?”

Gigia looked critically before she answered, “To receive, yes,—­a little, perhaps.  But to be caught unawares, no; and then with a handkerchief, you know—­”

“Oh, yes!  One knows the exercise,” said Bianca, with a laugh; “blush and call attention to it by covering it with one’s handkerchief, which falls down as often as one chooses to repeat the manoeuvre.  A chi lo dite?”

“Style?” said Gigia.

“Sentimental,—­eyes soft and dreamy; therefore the very faintest blush of rouge.  Yes; not a shade more.”

“You won’t put your bottines on?”

“No; there’ll be time afterwards.  Give me a pair of bronze kid slippers.  After all, there is nothing that shows a foot so well:  and look here, Gigia, draw this stocking a little better; I’d almost as soon have a wrinkle in my face as in the silk on my instep.  That’s better!  The narrow black velvet with the jet cross for my neck, nothing else.  Now, you understand?  Anybody who comes after one o’clock may be admitted; before that you will let in no soul save the Marchese Lamberto, in case he should come.  I don’t at all know that he will.  And, Gigia,” continued her mistress, as she passed into the sitting-room, “draw this sofa over to the other side of the fireplace, so as to face the window; ten years hence,