ace frills. Do my
hair in a way to astonish a woman.--This woman plays a part against
mine; and tell the lady--for she is a real, great lady, my girl, nay,
more, she is what you will never be, a woman whose prayers can rescue
souls from your purgatory--tell her I was in bed, as I was playing last
night, and that I am just getting up."

The Baroness, shown into Josepha's handsome drawing-room, did not note
how long she was kept waiting there, though it was a long half hour.
This room, entirely redecorated even since Josepha had had the house,
was hung with silk in purple and gold color. The luxury which fine
gentlemen were wont to lavish on their _petites maisons_, the scenes of
their profligacy, of which the remains still bear witness to the follies
from which they were so aptly named, was displayed to perfection, thanks
to modern inventiveness, in the four rooms opening into each other,
where the warm temperature was maintained by a system of hot-air pipes
with invisible openings.

The Baroness, quite bewildered, examined each work of art with the
greatest amazement. Here she found fortunes accounted for that melt in
the crucible under which pleasure and vanity feed the devouring flames.
This woman, who for twenty-six years had lived among the dead relics of
imperial magnificence, whose eyes were accustomed to carpets patterned
with faded flowers, rubbed gilding, silks as forlorn as her heart, half
understood the powerful fascinations of vice as she studied its results.
It was impossible not to wish to possess these beautiful things, these
admirable works of art, the creation of the unknown talent which abounds
in Paris in our day and produces treasures for all Europe. Each thing
had the novel charm of unique perfection. The models being destroyed,
every vase, every figure, every piece of sculpture was the original.
This is the crowning grace of modern luxury. To own the thing which
is not vulgarized by the two thousand wealthy citizens whose notion of
luxury is the lavish display of the splendors that shops can supply, is
the stamp of true luxury--the luxury of the fine gentlemen of the day,
the shooting stars of the Paris firmament.

As she examined the flower-stands, filled with the choicest exotic
plants, mounted in chased brass and inlaid in the style of Boulle, the
Baroness was scared by the idea of the wealth in this apartment. And
this impression naturally shed a glamour over the person round whom all
this p