robe; the corsage, high at the back, opens before in a long V, and is a little pointed at the bottom. Sleeves a half-length. Demi-pelisse, a high corsage, tight at the back, loose and very open in front. Sleeves a three-quarter length. The front of the corsage and skirt, the round of the pelisse, and the bottoms of the sleeves, are ornamented with a wreath of foliage and flowers corresponding with those on the ground. Muslin chemisette, trimmed with Valenciennes lace ruffles. White poult de soie capote, a drawn shape, the exterior trimmed with a bouquet composed of a full-blown and half-blown rose and foliage, and a tuft of small red blossoms; the interior with half-wreaths of blossoms and white brides. SECOND PLATE. CARRIAGE DRESS.-Italian taffeta robe; a strawcoloured ground; the corsage a three-quarter height at the back, opening in a low cœur in front. The sleeve, a three-quarter length, is finished by a deep round cuff. The skirt is completely covered by five flounces festooned in light scallops with embroidery in each. Small mantelet of the same material, open on the bosom, descending in a rounded point, and trimmed with volants. Rice straw chapeau, the exterior decorated at the side with a marabout plume attached by a knot of white ribbon; the interior with a rose and cluster of buds at each side, and white brides. PUBLIC PROMENADE DRESS.-Robe of green soie broché; a high corsage open on the bosom, trimmed with a pelerine lappel narrowing to a point as it approaches the bottom of the waist, and closed at some distance from it by silk buttons. Sleeves a three-quarter length, wide and round at bottom. The front of the skirt is decorated en tablier with ribbon disposed in lozenges and fancy silk buttons. Embroidered cambric fichu; cambric under-sleeves. Black filet de soie shawl, bordered with one of the new fancy trimmings. Fancy straw chapeau lined with pink taffeta, and trimmed with pink ribbons and a white tulle veil. HALF-LENGTH FIGURES. No. 3. MORNING DRESS.-Muslin robe trimmed with flounces festooned and embroidered round the borders. Embroidered muslin cazaweck terminated by a flounce corresponding with those on the skirt. Rose-coloured sleeve knots and breast knot. Rice straw chapeau, the exterior trimmed with white ribbon; the interior with blue flowers. No. 4. HOME DINNER DRESS.-India muslin robe; the skirt is trimmed with deep flounces, festooned in sharp points. The corsage a three-quarter height at the back, and very open on the bosom, is decorated with a lappel of two falls, festooned at the edges. Sleeves a half-length, terminated by three festooned flounces. Muslin chemisette, made high, and arranged in bouillonné by entre deux. Head dress of hair. No. 5. PUBLIC PROMENADE DRESS. - Lilac silk robe; a high corsage, moderately open on the bosom, tight to the shape, and terminated by a round basquine. The corsage and front of the skirt are trimmed with narrow black velvet ribbon, disposed in festoons. Sleeves rather more than a halflength, of a novel form, for which we refer to our plate; they are trimmed with velvet. Muslin under-sleeves, lace ruffles, muslin chemisette. Fancy chapeau lined with straw-coloured taffeta, and trimmed with flowers and ribbon to cor respond. A barège, or China crape shawl, should be worn with this dress. TO CORRESPONDENTS. DECLINED, with thanks: C., and "Annabel." Several correspondents will find themselves privately answered. Mrs. S, Worcestershire, will find it the simplest and surest plan to order the "LADIES' COMPANION" from some respectable bookseller in the nearest town to her residence; he will take all "the trouble" of which she complains. E. K., Woodbridge. This correspondent accuses us of wrong-doing in giving currency to certain "libellous remarks" upon the sect of Quakers in an article entitled "Drab Morality," in our last number. If the doctrine be correct that "the greater the truth the greater the libel," we must plead guilty to the charge which our correspondent brings against us. The article in question was a literal extract from a book recently published entitled Quakerism; or the Story of my Life. By a Lady who for forty years was a Member of the Society of Friends;" published by Oldham, of Dublin. The authoress undertakes to give up her own name and the names of all the sly people she has depicted if her statements should be seriously disputed. Wo ourselves can personally testify to the accuracy of her report, as similar circumstances to those which she has described have come under our own observation in the neighbourhood of London; and what is commonly done in one locality is probably practised in other parts of the kingdom. We must therefore content ourselves with emphatically setting our experience in opposition to the assertions of our correspondent, and leaving the public to decide between us. We entertain the highest respect for conscientious scruples, and would be the last to bring them into ridicule; but when they are paraded under the mask of an affectation of persecution, we think the profitable artifice ought to be exposed. Our correspondent adds that "she has left the Society of Friends, on religious grounds alone, to become a member of the Church of England:" we congratulate her upon her conversion, and trust that to her other amendments may be added the adoption of a more courteous style of phraseology. We have no objection to give publicity to opposite sides of an argument when they are equally temperate in their modes of expression. A LOVER OF TRUTH AND JUSTICE- whose courtesy we acknowledge-will find his remarks already answered. The Publishers of the LADIES' COMPANION are happy to announce that a story by Mrs. CROWE, author of " Susan Hopley," "Lilly Dawson," &c., &c., to be entitled "VICTOR MIROTIN AND HIS DAUGHTER," will shortly be commenced in its pages; also a series of articles by Mrs. COWDEN CLARK, to be called "The Woman of the Writers." They have likewise received promises of literary assistance from MARY HOWITT, Mrs. ABDY, Mrs. T. K. HERVEY, DORA GREENWELL, Mrs. NEWTON CROSLAND (late CAMILLA TOULMIN), C. H. HITCHINGS, W. C. BENNETT, &c., &c., &c. Arrangements are also being made to continue he series of articles of which the "Chapter on Shoes," in the last number, was one. London.- Published at the Office, 246, Strand. CHAP. I. THE NIGHT SIDE OF NATURE," &c. &c. "How I envy you, dear Sophie," said Adèle Mirotin to Mademoiselle de Beaulieu; "and how dull I shall be without you! I wonder if I am to be shut up for ever in this convent!" "It really looks like it," replied Sophie; "I should be quite miserable if I were you!”. "It does make me very unhappy sometimes," said Adèle. "I feel as if I belonged to nobody, and as if nobody cared for me-except you." I shall often think of you when I am in the gay world," returned Sophie. "I shall fancy you sitting under the old tree, and walking up and down those dull cloisters, with those tiresome old nuns, when I am dancing at the court balls and enjoying all the gaieties of Paris. But when I am married, you must come and see me, Adèle." "That will be something for me to look forward to," said the latter, with a sigh. But what can be the reason that my grandpapa will not let me go home?" "I'm sure I can't conceive," replied Sophie; "for as for his saying it's because you have no mother to take care of you, that is nonsense! He might find a gouvernante for you, as Monsieur de Rivremont did for Lucile. However, he'll find a parti for you instead; that will be better -you'll be married, and then we shall meet again in Paris!" At this hint Mademoiselle de Mirotin blushed, and said she did not wish to be married, a declaration which made her friend Sophie laugh very much; for as in France young ladies are looked upon as children, and are rarely admitted into society till they are wives, they naturally begin at a very early age to wish for a husband, as an indispensable passport into the gay world. This conversation took place in the garden of a convent, situated about sixty miles from Paris; and in this establishment, famous for education, these two young girls had been brought up from their childhood. Adèle, indeed, had been placed there at so early an age, that she remembered nothing antecedent to her removal thither. Sophie had come later, and was the youngest of the two; but from the first an intimacy had sprung up between them; insomuch, that Mademoiselle de Beaulieu had introduced Adèle to her parents and her cousin Hector, who not unfrequently visited her; and on one occasion, when they were staying at a château they possessed at no great distance from the convent, Adèle had, at the earnest request of Sophie, been invited to spend a week there with her. It was the only time the poor girl had been out of the convent, or that she had seen anything of society, and it was almost a pity that she had seen it; for although she had enjoyed her holiday beyond measure, it had awakened wishes and developed tastes, that if she were destined to spend her life in the seclusion of a convent, could only prove to her sources of misery. On the day subsequent to the above conversation, Sophie de Beaulieu, after taking a joyous leave of her young companions and her instructors, and a more tender one of her friend Adèle, stept gaily into her mother's carriage, and bade a glad farewell to the cloisters of St. Ursule. The contrast betwixt the pleasures that awaited her friend, and the dull existence that seemed stretching out before herself, quite overcame the spirits of poor Adèle; and after the convent gates had closed, and she could no longer hear the roll of the wheels that were bearing the happy Sophie to Paris, she seated herself under her favourite tree to weep and to wonder-for wherefore she was kept at school when her education was finished, instead of being taken away to be married, like the other young girls; and why her grandfather, who sent her such charming, eloquent, and affectionate letters, should not either come to visit her or allow her to visit him, was a source of never-ceasing amazement to her. Letter after letter had she written to him, earnestly entreating to see him, and to be allowed to quit the convent, of which, especially since her visit to the Château de Beaulieu, she was heartily tired; but the answer of Monsieur Mirotin, though kind in the extreme, always eluded, rather than denied her request. K He 66 assured her that he longed to see her quite as much as she could long to see him; "nay," he subjoined, much more; for whilst it was impossible she could remember him, he had a thousand interesting recollections of her infancy to quicken his desires for a reunion;" then there always came a but. She had, alas! no mother, no female relation fit to take the charge of her and he was old and infirm, and so forth. "If you are old and infirm, the more you must need me," returned Adèle in her answers; " and if I have no female relation now, I suppose none are likely to spring up to rescue me from my prison; and am I to stay here for ever waiting for such a miracle?" But it was all in vain. Adèle could not succeed in wresting from this in dulgent and affectionate grandfather any distinct promise that she should ever see him or her home. restless longings and disappointed hopes, to be surprised at her speedy recovery. On the contrary, they dilated on the happiness she would enjoy in meeting her grandfather, and cheering his declining years with her presence, with exactly the same benevolent intention that they handed her her restorative draughts; whilst her younger friends and fellow-scholars expatiated on the delights of Paris, and on the balls and fêtes that awaited her, with equal unction. The day came at last-it was a fine, bright Spring morning, and Adèle, who had scarcely slept for expectation, was up with the dawn to prepare for the grand event, and take a last leave of those who, weary as she was of their mode of life, she knew had been faithful friends and guardians to her. The young girls, too, the companions of her studies, with eager faces and extended arms, were crowding about her. How they envied her happiness! How they wished their period of release was come! There was one poor child, whose relations were urging her, for family reasons, to become a nun, who sat in a corner and wept with anguish of heart at the contrast of her own fate and Adèle's; and Adèle tempered her joy as she kissed the tearful cheek of the doomed victim, and with a tender sympathy bade her farewell. As she had been very much attached to Sophie de Beaulieu, and as their intimacy enabled her to mitigate, in some degree, her regret and anxiety, by talking and wondering about the cause of it, the vexation she suffered had been sufficiently alleviated to preclude any serious effect upon her health and spirits; but that alleviation lost, the consequences of this protracted state of "hope deferred" soon became perceptible. She lost her appetite, grew pale A letter the preceding day had announced and thin, kept herself much alone, and shewed that the carriage would be at the door at an symptoms of nervous disorder. The doctor early hour, in order that Mademoiselle Mirotin who was called in gave her tisanes and eau might without difficulty reach Paris on the same sucrée, and decoctions of herbs; and, as they night; and, accordingly, the breakfast and did not make her any better, came to the con- leave-taking were scarcely over, before the heavy clusion that she had something on her mind, bell of the convent gate clung out notice of an adding, that if her uneasiness was not removed, arrival, and the wheels of a carriage were heard he feared she would go into a decline. The driving into the court-yard. Adèle wondered superior of the convent being informed of this whether her grandfather would be in it, and— opinion, she presented herself at Adèle's bedside we must confess it-she was curious to ascer for the purpose of learning the source of her tain what were his emblazonments, and what his grief; and the young girl, afraid of saying it liveries. She was accustomed to see splendid was her impatience of the dull, unvarying life ones in attendance on the parents of her young she led, put it upon the ardent longing she felt friends; and as her natural taste for the magto see her grandfather; whereupon, urged by nificent had been very much developed during the physician's serious view of the case, the her short visit at Madame de Beaulieu's, she abbess wrote to Monsieur Mirotin to explain would have been pleased to see her grandhis granddaughter's situation. A letter, almost father's footmen bien galonnés. But her cuby return of post, announced that as soon as riosity was not destined to be satisfied on this she was well enough to be removed, a carriage occasion, for there were no footmen; and as the would be sent to convey Mademoiselle Mirotin carriage was evidently an old job postchaise, to Paris; and half cured already by the news, there were no arms. When by taking a peep Adèle sat up joyfully in her bed to communicate from the window of the corridor she made this the glad tidings to her friend. "As soon as I discovery, we fear she was a little disappointed; arrive," she said, "I will send you a little note but her eagerness to see her grandfather dissi to tell you where I live, and I am sure my dear-pated the unpleasant feeling, and she hastened est Sophie will fly to welcome me. What happy hours we shall spend together!" Everybody knows how soon, in such cases, the relieved mind makes whole the sick and sympathetic body; and accordingly Adèle's feverish hand became cool, and the hectic in her cheek subsided, and her sleep and her appetite returned, with a rapidity that might have led an inexperienced observer to suspect that her whole indisposition had been feigned; but the good sisters who attended her bedside had had too many opportunities of studying the effects of on to the parlour. But here was another disappointment-instead of the venerable and dignified old gentleman she expected to meet, she found a common looking middle-aged bonne which means a maid servant-who had been sent to fetch her. Well, it was but a pleasure deferred; she should doubtless see him on that evening. So she stepped into the carriage, followed by the stranger, and away they drove, till they reached the neighbouring town, where they joined the diligence for Paris. |