Moths by Ouida — page 259: what you’re looking at

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

MOLES. | OR® tle sherry or a little chloral. according to the time of day, and very soon was herself again. To be able todo no wrong at ail in one’s own sight, is one of the secrets of personal comfort in this life. Lady Dolly never admitted, even to herself, that she did any. If anything looked a little wrong, it was only because she was the victim to unkind- ly circumstance over which she had no control. People had always been so jealous of her, and so nasty to her about money. “* It is all very well to talk about the saints,” she would say to herself, ‘‘ but they never had any real trials. If the apostles had had bills due that they couldn’t meet, or Saint Helen and Saint Ursula had had their curls come off just as they were being taken in to dinner, they might have talked. As it was. t am sure they enjoyed all their martyrdom, just as people scream about being libeled in ‘ Truth’ or ‘ Figaro,’ and delight in hav- ing their names in them. Lady Dolly always thought herself an ill-used woman. If things had been in the least just, she would have been born with thirty thousand a year and six inches more stature. Meanwhile, she was even prettier than ever, Shehad under- gone a slight transformation; her curls were of a richer, ruddier hue, her eyelashes were darker and thicker, her mouth was a lit- tle pomegranate bud. It was all Piver; butit was the very per- fection of Piver. She had considered that the hues and style of the fashions of the coming year, which were always disclosed to her very early in secret conclave in the Rue de la Paix, required this slight deepening and heightening of her complexion. ‘*T do wish you would induce Vera to rouge a little, just a lit- tle. Dress this winter really will want it: the colors will all be dead ones,” she had said this day at Svir to her son-in-law, who shrugged his shoulders, ! ‘*T have told her she would look better; but she is obstinate, you know.” ) ‘‘Ohb-h-h!” assented Lady Dolly. ‘‘Obstinate is no word for it; she is mulish, of course; I understand. She is very proud of | her skin, but it would look all the better if it were warmed up a little; it is too white, too fair, if one can say such a thing, don’t — you know? And, besides, even though she may look well now without it, a woman who never rouges has a frightful middie- age before her. Didn’t Talleyrand say so?” ‘‘“You are thinking of whist; but the meaning is the same. Both are resources for autumn that are better to take to in summer,” said Madame Nelaguine, with her little cynical smile. ‘Vere is very fantastic,” said the Duchesse Jeanne. ‘*‘ Besides, she is so handsome she is not afraid of growing older: she thinks she will defy Time.” ‘‘T believe you can if you are well enameled,” said Lady Dolly, seriously. ‘ ‘¢ Vera will be like the womati ander vhe Mero\ingian kings,” gaid Madame Nelaguine—‘‘ the woman who went every dawa of comicboo cS Keo)