Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 231: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HER ROYAL LOVER. 223 speak to her. Dear me! what was the matter! Like the poor bird upon the branch, the nervous Najeska [vanowna trembles unceasingly lest an indiscre- tion may come to reveal and hinder this marriage so desired, but yet so apprehended! Reassure yourself, dear timid creature! Madame la Comtesse wiil happily be the last to know of the event; a living gazelle, notwithstanding the immortality which she imposed on her daughters and the other ladies of honor, her sharp tongue would have quickly propa- gated it. She knows nothing, and, like everybody, will only know the truth when it will be an accom- plished fact. The Countess Langweilig came about a petty question of ceremonial. We say petty, but that is not exact, for it could not be fvtile for her, whose contracted brain was only filled with ideas of prece- dence and etiquette. She understood better than any one to admirably instruct all the newly arrived ladies of honor, to extinguish their minds and to make veritable manikins of them, moving only at prescribed days and hours. Nothing was to be done spontaneously before their majesties and the court, according to her; nothing equaled her science of muzzling or fettering all instincts which might arise. The two old maid daughters of Madame de Lang- weilig, flowers very much faded and run to seed, and in whom she had stifled all personality, were the most perfect specimens of her instructions. Al- though the dots of Mademoiselles de Langweilig were very small, their mother did not despair of marrying them, she was constantly going about the world, seeking sons-in-law whom she could mold and educate. It might be at this fete, perhaps, where Eomichooks.com —