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214 effect—all is in such exquisite keeping. I always admire their management of their bonnet. A young Frenchwoman will come in, the said bonnet put on as if a morning had been devoted to its becoming position: she will take it off, and not a curl will be displaced—put it on again with all apparent carelessness, but as gracefully as ever." "Remember," said Lady Mandeville, "the previous study. I recollect, when we were last in Paris, I expressed to that pretty Mde. de St. Elve the very same admiration. Truly it was 'the carelessness, yet the most studied to kill.' We were at that time quite confidential. 'You see,' said she, 'the result of my morning.'" "It is a pity," replied her husband, "but a fair exchange could be effected—that the Englishwoman could give her general neatness, and the Frenchwoman her particular taste." "Ah," observed Lady Mandeville, "but the strength of a feeling lies in its concentration. The Englishwoman diffuses over a whole day what the French reserves for a few hours. Effect there is the summing up. In great, as in little things, the French are a nation of actors—life is to them a great melodrame.