“Lady Chevenix and Lady Valmond, I want to present you to Mrs. Colonel Prodgers.”  Then Mrs. Colonel Prodgers repeated, “Lady Chevenix, Lady Valmond,” and so on all down the line, until our poor names rang in our heads; and Tom and the Senator and the Vicomte just the same.  The company were about seven women besides our hostess, and only three young, the others verging on forty; and all the men were husbands, whom the wives spoke of as “Mr.”  So and So when they mentioned them—­just as the townspeople do when they come out to the Conservative meetings or bazaars at home; and the husbands did the same.  But they do this in New York even, unless in the very highest set; no man is spoken of by his wife as “Bob” or “Charlie” or “my husband;” always “Mr.”  So and So.

Is it not odd, Mamma, that they who are so wonderfully quick and adaptive should not have noticed that this is a purely middle class peculiarity?  Mr. Purdy had just time to tell us he had paid $40,000 for a large Dutch picture hanging against the Gothic stone of one panel of the wall, and $50,000 for a Gainsborough on the next (yes, Mamma, a beautiful powdered lady in a white robe was smiling down with whimsical sorrow upon us).  Then luncheon was announced and we went in.

The dining-room had been decorated, he told us, a year or two ago, when taste was even different to what it is now!  And he was thinking of altering it and having it pure Louis XIV.  At present it was composed of saddle-bag coverings, varnished mahogany and a stencilled fleur-de-lys wall with crossed battle-axes upon it, between pictures and some china plates, while the table was lit by two huge lamps from the ceiling, shaded by old gold silk shades with frills.  It was as gay as possible, and the time flew.  Here the implements to eat with were more varied and numerous than even at the Spleists, and the tablecloths more lacy, and quantities of gold dishes full of almonds and olives and candies and other nice things, were by one’s plate, and one could eat them all through the meal.  Everyone else did, so we did, too, Mamma! and I think it is a splendid idea.  Our host spent his time in telling, first Octavia, then me, of his fortune and possessions, and how there was no picture in Europe he could not buy if he wished it, and he intended to start a gallery.  Octavia said he was quite right, as he evidently had a most original taste; and he was delighted.

The cold in the wife’s head could be heard quite plainly even where we were, and the host shouted so kindly:  “Say, Anabel, be careful of that draught.”

Fancy an English husband bothering to think of a draught after a catarrh had been there for fifteen years!

I admired her diamond dog collar and splendid pearls, and he replied with open-hearted pride, “They came from Tiffany’s in New York, Ma’am.  I don’t hold with buying foreign goods for American ladies; Mrs. Purdy has got as first-class stones as any Princess in the world, and they are every one purchased in America!”