But pretty Blanche Kettering enjoyed the glitter and the excitement, and the pleasures of her London life, even as the opening flower enjoys the sunshine and the breeze. It requires a season or two to take the edge off a fresh, healthy appetite, and _ennui_ scowls in vain upon the _very_ young. Gingham thought her young lady had never looked so well as she did to-day, of all days in the year the one in which Blanche was to _be presented_. Yes--it was the day of the Drawing-room, and our former Abigail forgot the supercilious manners of the new porter, and the high and mighty ways of the General’s gentleman, and even her own faded black silk, in a paroxysm of motherly affection and professional enthusiasm, brought on by the beauty of her darling, and the surpassing magnificence of her costume. Blanche was nearly dressed when she arrived, standing like a little princess amongst her many attendants--this one smoothing a fold, that one adjusting a curl, and a third holding the pincushion aloft, having transferred the greater portion of its contents to her own mouth. Would that we had power to describe the young lady’s dress; would that we could delight bright eyes, should bright eyes condescend to glance upon our page, with a critical and correct account of the materials and the fashion that were capable of constituting so attractive a _tout ensemble_--how the gown was brocade, and the train was silk, and the trimmings were gossamer, to the best of our belief!--how pearls were braided in that soft brown hair, and feathers nodded over that graceful little head, though to our mind it would have been even better without these accessories--and how the dear girl looked altogether like a fairy queen, smiling through a wreath of mist, and glittering with the dewdrops of the morning. “Lor’, miss, you do look splendid!” said Gingham, lost in admiration, partly at the richness of the materials, partly at the improvement in her old charge. Blanche was a very pretty girl, certainly, even in a court dress, trying as is that costume to all save the dark, tall beauties, who do indeed look magnificent in trains and feathers; but then the Anglo-Saxon _blonde_ has her revenge next morning in her simple _déshabillé_ at breakfast--a period at which the black-eyed sultana is apt to betray a slight yellowness of skin, and a drowsy, listless air, not above half awake. Well, they are all very charming in all dresses--it’s lucky they are so unconscious of their own attractions.