As to the drapery, I shall take the more notice of it, as, whether in a dishabille or otherwise, I have always seen you dressed with more taste than you are in the portrait: the head-dress is too large; you will say it is composed only of flowers. That’s true; but there are too many. Don’t you remember the ball, at which you were dressed like a country girl, and your cousin told me I danced like a philosopher? You had then no other head-dress than your long tresses, turned up and fastened at top with a golden bodkin, in the manner of the villagers of Berne. No, the sun glittering in all its radiance displays not half that lustre, with which you then engaged the eyes and hearts of the beholders; and there is no one who saw you that day, that can ever forget you during his whole life. It is thus, my Eloisa, your head ought to have been dressed. It is your charming hair that should adorn your face, and not those spreading roses. Tell my cousin, for I discover her choice and direction, that the flowers with which she has thus covered and profaned your tresses, are in no better taste than those she gathers in _Adonis_. One might overlook them did they serve as an ornament to beauty, but I cannot permit them to hide it. With respect to the bust, it is singular that a lover should be more nice in this particular than a father; but, to say the truth, I think you are too carelessly dressed. The portrait of Eloisa should be modest as herself. These hidden charms should be sacred to love. You say the painter drew them from his imagination. I believe it; indeed, I believe it. Had he caught the least glimpse of thine, his eyes would have gazed on them for ever, but his hand would not have attempted to paint them: why was it necessary the rash artist should form them in imagination? this was not only an offence against decency, but I will maintain it also to be want of taste. Yes, your countenance is too modest to support the disorder of your breast; it is plain that one of these objects ought to hinder the other from being seen: it is the privilege of love alone to see both together, and when its glowing hand uncovers the charms that modesty conceals, the sweet confusion of your eyes shews that you forget not that you expose them.