Moths by Ouida — page 53: what you’re looking at

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

MOTHS. fis ‘* What can I do with her, dearest?” she cried, plaintively, in the pretty little morning room, whose windows looked over the geranium-beds to the gray sea. Lady Stoat was doing crewel-work; a pale, slight, gracefully- made woman, with small, straight features, and the very sweet- est and saddest of smiles. ) | ‘* What young men are there?’ said Lady Stoat, now in ree sponse, still intent on her crewel-work. ‘‘ I have not thought about them at all since the happiness of my own treasure was secured. By the by, I heard from Gwen this morning; she tells me she has hopes,—Our Mother in Heaven has heard my prayers. Imagine, love, my becoming a grandmamma! It was what J long so tor!—just a silly old grandmamma, spoiling all her pets! I feel I was born to be a grandniamma!” ‘‘I am so glad! How very charming!” murmured Lady Dolly, vaguely and quite indifferent. ‘‘I am so terribly afraid Vere won’t please, and [am soafraid of this affair with Correze.” ‘What affair? with whom?’ asked Lady Stoat of Stichley, waking from her dreams of being grandmamma. Whereon she told it, making it look very odd and very bad, in- © deed, in the unconscious exaggeration which accompanied Lady Dolly’s talk as inevitably as a great track of foam precedes and follows the track of a steamer, Lady Stoat was rather amused than shocked. ‘*It is very like Correze, and he is the most dangerous man in the world; everybody is in love with him; Gwendolen was, but — all that is nothing, it is not as if he were one of us.” ‘* He is one of us! He goes everywhere!” ‘*Oh, goes!—well, that is because people like to ask him; so- ciety is a pig-stye; but all that does not alter his being a singer.” ‘‘He is a marquis, you know, they say!” ‘‘ Allsingers are marquises, if you like to believe them. My dear Dolly, you cannot be serious in being afraid of Correze? If you are, all the more reason to marry her at once.” ‘¢ She is not the style that anybody likes at all nowadays,” re- plied Lady Dolly, in a sort of despair. ‘‘She is not the style of the day at all, you know. She has great natura] distinction, but I don’t think people care for that, and they like chien. She will always look like a gentlewoman, and they like us best when we don’t. I have a conviction that men will be afraid of her. Is there anythixg more fatal? Vera will never look like a belle petite, in a tea-gown, and smoke, never! She has gonea hundred years back, being brought up by that horrid old woman. You could fancy her going to be guillotined in old lace, like Marie Antoin- ette. What can I do?” } Bsc ‘‘ Keep her with you six months, dear,” said the friend, who was a woman of some hwmnor. ‘‘ And I don’t think poor,Marie Antoinette had any lace left to wear.” ‘*Of course I must keep her with me,” said Lady Dolly, with exasperation, who was not a woman of humor, and who did not see the jest. Ny Lady Stoat reflected a moment. She liked arranging things, whether they closely concernes her or not. (eo)