Rose's gratitude was boundless. She never wearied
in rendering small services to her patroness. She would write her notes
for her, as La Raffe did for Richelieu, and fetch and carry like the
best of retrievers; venturing every now and then on a timid caress,
which was permitted rather than accepted with an imperial nonchalance.
The only subject on which she ever expanded into eloquence was the
fascinations of her friend. She spent all her weak breath in blowing
that laudatory trumpet, as if she expected the defenses of the best
guarded heart to fall prostrate before it, like the walls of Jericho.
And yet, if all the truth were known, I think she had as much reason to
complain as the dwarf in the story who swore fellowship in arms with the
giant.
I was sorry to see Livingstone linger at her side, yet more sorry when,
by an easy transition, he passed on to Flora's, and the circle around
her, from old habit, made room for him to pass. He did not stay there
long, though--only long enough to make future arrangements, I
suppose--and then, for some time, I lost sight of him.
I had been driving heavily through a quadrille in the society of a very
foolish virgin, whose ideas of past, present, and future seemed bounded
by the last Opera, which she had and I had not seen.
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