Moths by Ouida — page 52: what you’re looking at

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

4 43. MOTHS. used to be in the old days of strong feelings and the foolish exe pression of them. . This friend was her dear Adine, otherwise Lady Stoat of Stitchley, who had just won the honor of the past year’s season by marrying her daughter (a beauty) toa young marquis, who, with the small exceptions of being a drunkard, a fool, and a brute, was everything that a mother’s soul could desire; and ail the mother’s souls in the great world had accordingly burned for him passionately, and Lady Stoat had won him. » Lady Stoat was as much revered as a maternal model of ex- - cellence in her time es the mother of the Gracchi in hers. She was a gentle-looking woman, with a very soft voice, which she mever raised under any provocation. She had a will of steel, but -' she made it look like a blossoming and pliant reed; she was very Seligious and strongly ritualistic. When Lady Dolly awoke the next morning, with the vague remembrance of something very unpleasant having happened to her, it was to this friend that she fled for advice as soon as she was dressed, having for that purpose to drive over to Deauville, where Lady Stoat, who thought Trouville vulgar, had a charming little place, castellated, coquettish, Gothic, Chinese, Moorish, all kinds of things in a pretty pell-mell of bonbon-box architect- ure, set in a frame of green turf and laurel hedges, and round- headed acacias, and with blazing geranium-beds underneath its ilded balconies and marqueterie doors. Lady Dolly had herself riven over in the Duc de Dinant’s panier with his four ponies, and while he went to find out some friends and arrange the coming races, she took her own road to the Maison Perle. ‘‘Adine always knows,” she thought. She was really fond of her Adine, who was many years older than herself. But for her Adine, certaim little bits of nonsense and imprudence in Lady Dolly’s feverish little life might have made people talk, and given trouble to Mr. Vanderdecken, absorbed as he might be in Java, Japan, or Jupiter. Lady Stoat of Stitchley was one of those invaluable characters who love to do govd for good’s own sake, and to set things straight for the mere Pleasure of being occupied. As some per: sons of an old-maidish or old-bachelor turn of mind, will go far out of their way to smooihe a crease or remove a crum>®. though neither be marring their Gwn property, so would La‘y “toat go _ far out of her way to prevent a scandal, reconcile two enemies, or clear a tangled path. It was her way of amusing herself. She had a genius for management. She was a clever tactician, and her tactics interested her and employed her time agreeably. If any one in her world wanted a marviage arranged, a folly pre- vented, a disgrace concealed, or a refractory child brought to Yeason, Lady Stoat of Stitchley would do it in the very best possible manner. ** It is only my duty,” she would say, in her hushed melodi- ous monotonous voice, and nearly everylody thought Lady Stoat . the modern substitute of a saint on earth. To this saint now went Lady Dolly with wer trexdles and heg G. ; 2 | & 5 te comicbooks P { Ke)