Moths by Ouida — page 275: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

MOTHS. | 272 soon forgotten py those who benefit from them. Had she laughed more, danced more, taken more kindly to the fools and their follies, she might have been acid of tongue and niggard of Sympathy; society would have thought her much more amiable than it did now. Her charities were very large, and they were charities often done in secrecy to those of her own rank, who came to her in the desperation of their own needs, or their sons’ or their brothers’ debts of honor; but it would have served her in better stead with the world if she had stayed for the cotillons, or if she had laughed heartily when Madame Judic sang. It would have been so much more natural. ‘‘If she would listen to me!” thought her mother in the - superior wisdom of her little popular life. ‘‘If she would only _ kiss a few women in the morning, and flirt with a few men in the evening, it would set her all right with them ina month. It is no use doing good to anybody; they only hate you for it. You have seen them in their straits; it is like seeing them without their teeth or their wig; they never forgive it. But to be pleas- ant, always to be pleasant, that is the thing; and, after all, it costs nothing.” But to be pleasant in Lady Dolly’s and the world’s meaning of the words was not possible to Vere—Vere, with an aching heart, an outraged pride, and a barren future; Vere, haughty, grave, and delicate of taste, to whom the- whole life she led seemed hardly better or wiser than sitting out the glittering absurdities of the Timbale d’Argent or Niniche. One warm day in December she had the unusual enjoyment of being alone from noon till night. Allin the house were away at Monte Carlo, and Madame Nelaguine had gone for the day te San Remo to see her Empress. It was lovely weather, balmy and full of fragrance, cold enough to make furs needful at nightfall, but without wind, and with a brilliant sun. Vere wandered about the gardens till she was tired; then, her eyes lighting on her own felucca moored with other pleasure- boats at the foot of the garden-quay, she looked over the blue tranquil sea, went down the stairs, and pushed the little vessel off from shore. She had never lost her childish skill at boating and sailing. She set the little sail, tied the tiller-rope to her foot, and, with one oar, sent herself quickly and lightly through the still water. There was nothing in sight; the shore was as deserted as the sea. It’ was only one o’clock. The orange- groves and pine woods of the villa shed their sweet smell for miles over the sea. She ceased to row, and let the boat drift with the slight movement of the buoyant air. She was glad to be alone—absolutely alone—away from all the trifling interruptions which are to some natures as mosquitoes to the flesh. She passed a fishing-felucca, and asked the fisherman in it if the weather would hold: he told her it would be fine like that till the new year. She let the boat goon. The orangeries and pine woods receded farther and farther, the turrets of the Villa Zoure = off grew smaller and smaller in the distance. Eomicboo ‘Ss co