Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/233

 Drawing-room this month! Have you seen the new book 'Confessions d'un Feu Follet'? Maurice has just brought it to me. It is rivalling Jenny Léa, and they say it is worse—quite ummentionable—everybody is talking about it. It was out last week, and they have sold five editions. The man called Bistrim in it is Bismarck. No; I don't know that it is witty. I don't think things are witty nowadays. It is horrible and infecte—but you can't put it down till you've done it. Old Lady Mauleverer is dying at the Pace hôtel here—of undigested scandal, Featherleigh says, but I believe it's gastritis—what a nasty old woman she has always been. I have just left a card with inquiries and regrets; I do hope she won't get better. I won ever so much at play last night. I forgot to tell you so: I bought that rocaille necklace on the Jewellers' Bridge; it was only six thousand francs, and it really did belong to the Comtesse d'Albany. It's very pretty too"

So Madame Mila discoursed, greatly to her own satisfaction. She loved so much to hear her own tongue, that she always chose the stupidest