Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/127

 fragrant rose-leaves of an imperishable Past, and the shining sands of a sweet unspent Time.

She made a poor sculptor happy for a year; she freed a young and promising painter from a heavy debt; she was often impatient with their productions, but she was most patient with their troubles.

She was only a woman of the world, touched for a day into warmer sympathies, but the blessings she drew down on her sank somehow into her heart, and made her half ashamed, half glad.

What was the use of writing fine contemptuous things of society unless one tried to drop oneself some little holy relic into the golden Ostensoir? She went home contented, and was so gentle with her maids that they thought she must be going to be unwell.

Her friend the Princess Olga came to chat with her, and they had their tea cosily in her dressing-room; and at eight o'clock she went to dine with Mrs. Washington, an American Parisienne or Parisian American, known wherever the world of fashion extended, and was taken into dinner by the Duca della Rocca.