So you see, Mamma, even a person with as fine
perceptions as Octavia can make awkward betises here. It is like steering
among the Thousand Islands and hidden rocks and currents.
Mrs. Van B.-C.'s (the name is really too long to go on writing) house is
perfectly awful. She told us so before we could even formulate the thought
ourselves! It was done up about fourteen years ago, she said, when it was
one of the first houses as high up on Fifth Avenue, and was the time of the
most appalling taste in decoration. Every sort of gilding and dreadful
Louis XV., and gorged cupids sitting on cannon ball clouds, with here and
there a good picture and bit of china, and crimson brocade edged with plush
for curtains!
She told us she did not mean to change it. It is comfortable, she said, and
lots of her new people really admire it in their hearts! And it will last
her time, and when her granddaughter comes into it it will no doubt be
"down town" and turned into a shop, things move so fast.
After lunch we all came up to this fearful salon, and then we saw what a
perfect hostess she is, moving from group to group and saying exactly the
right thing in her crisp, old voice--there is nothing sleepy and Southern
about her.
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