Richmond Enquirer

PORTRAIT OF A PARISIAN COQUETTE.

I went with a friend to the new opera; we had scarcely taken our places in the front of the Amphitheatre, when a beautiful elegante, accompanied by an elderly cavalier who it was easy to see was her husband, took the second row. (by the bye, English gentlemen would have yielded to the lady and her husband the front seat.) The lady was beautiful, her tournure distinguished, her toilette elegant, and an air of languishing candor and enchanting amenity, struck every spectator. The heat induced her to take off her hat, and we discovered the most superb comb of polished steel terminating in points of diamonds. By the bye, a buckle of hair escaping from the comb, obliged her to take off a glove, and let us to admire a hand and arm of the most polished symmetry, and of the most healthful freshness, enriched with precious rings and bracelets. The arm was exposed to the shoulder. It no doubt cost her some pains to conceal for a time her finely turned neck, but it was necessary that her rich cashmere should produce its effect. At length, however, the cashmere dropped, and discovered the finest shoulders in the world, and a bosom the most seductive. Neither my companion nor I could avoid from time to time in audible whispers, to praise short sleeves, naked shoulders, and ornamented necks; compliments which did not escape the attention of the lady and her husband. The latter, perhaps, found the air, from the occasional opening of the door a little too keen, and he said with great sweetness, "Ma bonne Amie, I entreat you to draw on your shawl and your gloves." "I assure you," she said in return, "I do not feel the air from the door: but yet I thank you for your attention, and I will instantly give you a proof of it, my love." And in less than a minute we could see nothing. Happily for me, a little old lady was placed by the side of the elegante. I offered her my place on the front seat, and in a moment I took her station. In a minute or two my beautiful neighbor taking advantage of her husband's eye being turned, pulled off a glove to re-adjust her comb, and suffered her cashmere to fall off one shoulder, which she gathered round under the arm; and the husband being on her other side could not observe the fact, so the glove and the shawl remained off during the rest of the performance. I had not an eye to the stage. On rising to depart, the husband said, "Perhaps I have a little chagrined you, my dear, your robe is so beautiful—but your health is every thing." "O! I have given you pleasure," she replied, "and that is every thing to me."

[French paper.]