h a charming person! Perhaps just a little bit
inclined to put on airs, but then--Oh, a very nice little woman. I don't
suppose she has ever really been accustomed to much, you know. They say
her mother was a dressmaker, but of course one never knows how true
these things may be. She does make frantic efforts to get into society
here: it is quite amusing. I think the Von Z----s have rather taken her
up. She has plenty of money to spend, oh yes. I can't see how her
husband can afford to let her live in the style she does abroad, but
then that is _his_ affair. She entertains all these people, and of
course they go to her house because she can give them some
amusement.'--'Mrs. B----? Do I know anything about her? Well, I think I
do. Nice? Oh, I do not know that there is anything to be said against
her. To be sure, in Paris people _did_ say some rather ugly things.
There was a Count L----. And I heard from a very reliable source that
she was not on exactly good terms with her husband. So, having
daughters, you know, I was obliged to be prudent and rather to shun her
than otherwise. Without wishing to be ill-natured I feel inclined to
advise you to do the same: I think you will find it quite as well to do
so.'--'Mrs. C----? Oh, my dear, such a coarse, common, vulgar creature!
She was never received in any sort of good society in New York. Her
husband made money one fine day, and she has come abroad and is trying
to impose upon people here. She is perfectly ignorant--no education
whatever. And the daughters are horribly _mauvais genre_.'--'Mrs. D----?
I should call her an undesirable acquaintance. Not but what she is a
very nice sort of person--in her way--but she does make up so
frightfully, and she looks so fast. Always has a crowd of officers
dangling about her. Her husband is a stick. They _do_ say that when his
relatives came abroad last winter they would not call upon him. They
were completely incensed at the way in which he permits his wife to
carry on.'--'Mrs. E----? Pray, who is Mrs. E----? and where does she get
the money to live as she does? I knew her a few years ago, when she had
a thousand a year to live on, she and both her children. And now, the
toilettes she makes! And, some people say, the debts! And, really, I
don't see how it can be otherwise, knowing, as I do, that all the
members of her family are as poor as church mice. Her husband committed
suicide, you know.--No! did you never hear that? Oh yes: he was