Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 13, 2025
A marriage of reason, and which apparently changed his habits and his tastes, more especially as the banker was at that time keeping a perfect little marvel of a woman, a Parisian jewel of unspeakable attractions and of bewitching delicacy, that adorable Suzette Marly who is just like a pocket Venus, and who in some prior stage of her existence must have been Phryne or Lesbia.
Wait till you have seen Smithson's house in Park Lane his team, his yacht, his orchid houses in Berkshire. Lesbia sighed. Her knowledge of London society was only seven weeks old; and yet already the day of disenchantment had begun! She was having her eyes opened to the stern realities of life.
Smithson, she said. 'I hope so too, dear; and yet do you know I have an idea that Lesbia means to accept Mr. Smithson, or she would hardly have consented to go to his house for the Henley week. Here is a letter from Georgie Kirkbank which you will have to answer for me to-morrow a letter full of raptures about Mr. Smithson's place in Berkshire, Rood Hall. I remember the house well.
I would have brought them together myself, could I have but gone to London; but, failing that, I fancied Lady Kirkbank would have divined my wishes without being told them, and would have introduced Hartfield to Lesbia; and now the London season is drawing to a close, and Hartfield and Lesbia have never met. He hardly goes anywhere, I am told.
'If you had only accepted Mr. Smithson it would not matter how much money you owed people, said Lady Kirkbank. 'You had better come down to lunch. A glass of Heidseck will bring you up to concert pitch. Champagne was Lady Kirkbank's idea of a universal panacea; and she had gradually succeeded in teaching Lesbia to believe in the sovereign power of Heidseck as a restorative for shattered nerves.
'Do you care about staying for the end? asked Mr. Smithson of Lesbia. 'It will make us rather late at the Orleans. 'Never mind how late we are, said Lesbia, imperiously. 'I have always been cheated out of this last act for some stupid party.
'When you put on this gown, Ursula, you must think of the poor little woman who hoped to have been your sister. This was one of the pretty little speeches that she often made. Poor dear Lesbia! she always did things so gracefully. In Charlie's lifetime I had thought her cold and frivolous, for she had not then folded up her butterfly wings; but even then she was always doing kind little things.
Cabochon, too. The idea of his charging me three hundred guineas for re-setting those stupid old amethysts. 'My dear, you would have diamonds mixed with them, said Lady Kirkbank, reproachfully. Lesbia turned away her head with an impatient sigh. She remembered perfectly that it was Lady Kirkbank who had persuaded her to order the diamond setting; but there was no use in talking about it now.
She might have been offended by Lesbia saying that I was better than the rest of them, a fact that my conscience most emphatically contradicted; but when Lesbia kissed her, and begged her to think better of things, she cried a little because Charlie was not there to see how pretty she could look, and then cheered up, and made overtures that I might come and kiss her too, which I did most willingly, and with a full heart, remembering she was my father's sister and had been good to me according to her lights.
'Go on, Ursula; I like to hear it, Lesbia would say when I hesitated; she was not looking at me, but at the fire, with her cheek supported against her hand. 'What do you think of it? I asked, presently, when I had finished and we had both been silent a few minutes listening to one of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words that Sara was playing very nicely.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking