Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/122

Rh "If she would only have her petites affaires like other ladies she would be much easier to content," said her head maid, who had served the aristocracy ever since the earliest days of the Second Empire.

When there were no lovers, there were much fewer douceurs and perquisites; however, they endured that deprivation because Miladi was so very rich, and so easily plundered.

Miladi, now, arrayed in the silver-grey cloth with the Genoa buttons and the marabout feather trimming, went out to her victoria, en route to the galleries, of which she never tired, and the visits which immeasurably bored her. She had been in the great world for ten years, and the great world is too small to divert one for very long, unless one be as Madame Mila.

Nevertheless, the Lady Hilda found that Floralia interested her more than she would have believed that anything would do.

After all, Floralia was charming by the present, not only by the past.

If it had its kings of Brentford, with its Offenbach choruses, so had every other place; if Rh