If one has a party one week, another must have a finer
one the week after, and so on, until thousands and thousands of dollars
are spent on flowers, for instance, for one afternoon; and in it
nothing is like England. I believe it must be purely American, or
perhaps one ought to say New York.
These two sets meet at Newport, but they won't speak to any others. I
wish we were going to stay long enough to go there.
When all the dinner party had gone, Octavia and I and one of the other
women who are staying in the house, went up with Valerie into her
sitting room, and coseyed round the fire; but when Tom and the Vicomte
knocked at the door, and wanted to come in, too, and cosey with us,
Valerie looked the wee-est trifle shocked, and rather nervously put
them off; and she said to me afterwards that the room opened right into
her bedroom, and Daniel would have been awfully cross if they had come
in! It is in tiny trifles like this that even Valerie is a fraction
provincial. I suppose she had a Puritan ancestor. Puritans, as one
knows, always have those odd minds that see something bad in
everything.
This morning some of them went to church, but I was not in time. I was
so tired I overslept myself and then stayed hours in my bath.
Pages:
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93