The Duchess having decided on getting
all her wardrobe from the magic scissors of Worth, had determined to
retrench in the matter of wines, etc., not putting faith in the adage
that "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach."
"Believe me," she would say to her butterfly friends, "I know men's
tastes, and they would rather feast their eyes than their stomachs."
You may be very wise, Posey Wyesdale, but trust me, a man has no eyes
for either you or your gown, if after a long ride or much calling he
finally, in an evil hour, succumbs to your invitation to lunch and you
give him a mouthful of chicken and one slice of wafer-like bread and
butter, the mighty whole washed down with a cup of weak tea or thin
wine; rather would he (curled darling though he be) return to the
primitive custom of his forefathers and feed the inner man at the
much-despised mid-day dinner on steaming slices of venison or beef,
while he slaked his thirst in a bumper of British beer. But as
O'Gormon said to Castenelli, on dining with him on that same evening:
"Faith, all that was on the table of Lady Wyesdale wouldn't add to the
hips of a grasshopper.
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