Moths by Ouida — page 67: what you’re looking at

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

MOTHS. ey | 63 sean taught to hold sacred left a sickening sense of solitude and depression behind it. Those who are little children now will have little left to learn when they reach womanhood. The little children that are about us at afternoon tea and at lawn tennis, that are petted by house-parties and romped with at pigeon. shooting, will have little left to discover. They are miniatures women already; they know the meaning of many a dubious rac they know the relative value of secial positions; they ow much of the science of flirtation which society has substi- tuted for passion; they understand very thoroughly the shades of intimacy, the suggestions of a smile, the degrees of hot and cold that may be marked by a bow or emphasized with a ‘‘ good-day.” All the subtle science of society is learned by them instinctively and unconsciously, as they learn French and German from their tnaids. Whenthey are women they will at least never have Eve’s . excuse for sin; they will know everything that any tempter could tell them. Perhaps their knowledge may prove their safe- guard, perhaps not; perhaps without its bloom the fruit to men’s taste may seem prematurely withered. Another ten years wil® tell. At any rate, those we pet to-day will be spared the pang of disillusion when they shall be fairly out in a world that they already know with cynical thoroughness—baby La.Bruyeres, and Rochefoucaulds in frills and sashes. To Vere Herbert, on the contrary, reared as she had been upon grave studies and in country loneliness, the shock her faiths and her fancies received: was very cruel. Sometimes she though bitterly she would have minded nothing if only her mother ha been a thing she could have reverenced, a creature she could have gone to for support and sympathy. But her mother was the most frivolous of the whole sea of froth arcund her—of the whole frivolous womanhood about her the very emptiest bubble. Vere, who herself had been cast by nature in the mold to be anoble mother of children, had antique, sacred fancies that went with the name of mother. The mother of the Gracchi, the mother of Bonaparte, the mother of Garibaldi, the many nob!s and maternal figures of history and romance, were forever in her thoughts; thu time-honored word embodied to her all sacri< fice, all nobility, all holiness. And her mother was this pretty foolish painted toy with false curls ina sunny circlet above her kohl-washed eye:, with her heart set on a cotillon, and her name in the mouths of the clubs; whose god was her tailor, and whose gospel was Zola; whose life was an opera-bouffe, and who, when she costumed for her part in it, took ‘‘/a moindre excuse pour paraitre nue!” Thethought of her mother, thus, hurt her, as, in revolutions, it hurts those who believe in Mary to see a Madonna spit upon by a mob. Lady Stoat saw this, and tried, in her fashion, to console her for it. ‘<My dear, your mother is young still, She must divert her- self. It would be very hard on her not tu be allowed. You must not think she is not fond of you because she still likes to waltz.” Vere’s eyes were very somber as she heard. ~. wo wa ~~ comicbhoo ‘ ’