"You are a very
pretty creature! And though no doubt young lips often tell you this, the
compliments of the old have the merit of being quite sincere!"
She bent down, and Sylvia, to her confusion and surprise, felt her cheeks
lightly kissed by the withered lips of Paul de Virieu's godmother.
"Madame Bailey's rouge is natural; it does not come off!" the old lady
exclaimed, and a smile crept over her parchment-coloured face. "Not but
what a great deal of nonsense is talked about the usage of rouge, my
dear children! There is no harm in supplementing the niggardly gifts of
nature. You, for instance, Marie-Anne, would look all the better for a
little rouge!" She spoke in a high, quavering voice.
The Duchesse smiled. Her brother had always been the old Marquise's
favourite.
"But I should feel so ashamed if it came off," she said lightly; "if, for
instance, I felt one of my cheeks growing pale while the other remained
bright red?"
"That would never happen if you used what I have often told you is
the only rouge a lady should use, that is, the sap of the geranium
blossom--that gives an absolutely natural tint to the skin, and my own
dear mother always used it.
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