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288 The bright color was all on her account. I have no doubt it looked very pleasing, but I knew it would not remain. I was one of those unfortunate girls who rarely look rosy unless they are blushing or suffering from indigestion.

Mr. Donaldson was delighted with his wife. To him she was a perpetual source of pleasing astonishment. He saw nothing improper in her costume—or rather want of costume—and I am quite convinced that if she had set forth for the Opera, attired in a sweet smile and a tunic, he would have been satisfied. I reflected that there would probably be other women as outrageously clad as my friend, and reconciled myself in this manner to being seen with her.

I was right. In the vast Opera House the display of feminine undress was so startling, that it look my breath away. It was ten times worse than anything I had ever seen in London. I had been told that New York was, in many respects, an exaggeration of London, and I felt I could believe it.

"Lohengrin," as I had already said, was the