Nevermore in my life would I do or say or think
a mean thing, or an impure, or an unkind one, if I could help it.
* * * * *
Next day, as we walked to the Foundling Hospital for divine service,
Mrs. Lintot severely deigned--under protest, as it were--to
cross-examine me on the adventures of the evening.
I did not mention the Duchess of Towers, nor was I able to describe the
different ladies' dresses; but I described everything else in a manner I
thought calculated to interest her deeply--the flowers, the splendid
pictures and curtains and cabinets, the beautiful music, the many lords
and ladies gay.
She disapproved of them all.
Existence on such an opulent scale was unconducive to any qualities of
real sterling value, either moral or intellectual. Give _her_, for one,
plain living and high thinking!
"By-the-way," she asked, "what kind of supper did they give you?
Something extremely _recherche_, I have no doubt. Ortolans,
nightingales' tongues, pearls dissolved in wine?"
Candor obliged me to confess there had been no supper, or that if there
had I had managed to miss it. I suggested that perhaps everybody had
dined late; and all the pearls, I told her, were on the ladies' necks
and in their hair; and not feeling hungry, I could not wish them
anywhere else; and the nightingales' tongues were in their throats to
sing heavenly Italian duets with.
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