he witty converser will store himself with his best
resources for your _salons_. There will be all the freedom of a club to
these men, with the added charm of that fascination your presence
will confer; and thus, through all their intercourse, will be felt
the '_parfum de femme_,' as Balzac calls it, which both elevates and
entrances."

"But will not society revenge itself on all this?" "It will invent a
hundred calumnious reports and shocking stories; but these, like the
criticisms on an immoral play, will only serve to fill the house.
Men--even the quiet ones--will be eager to see what it is that
constitutes the charm of these gatherings; and one charm there is that
never misses its success. Have you ever experienced, in visiting some
great gallery, or, still more, some choice collection of works of art, a
strange, mysterious sense of awe for objects which you rather knew to
be great by the testimony of others, than felt able personally to
appreciate? You were conscious that the picture was painted by Raphael,
or the cup carved by Cellini, and, independently of all the pleasure it
yielded you, arose a sense of homage to its actual worth. The same
is the case in society with illustrious men. They may seem slower of
apprehension, less ready at reply, less apt to understand; but there
they are, Originals, not Copies of greatness. They represent value."

Have we said enough to show our reader the kind of persuasion by which
Madame de Sabloukoff led her friend into this new path? The flattery
of the argument was, after all, its success; and the Countess was
fascinated by fancying herself something more than the handsomest and
the best-dressed woman in Florence. They who constitute a free port of
their house will have certainly abundance of trade, and also invite no
small amount of enterprise.

A little after midnight the _salons_ began to fill, and from the Opera
and the other theatres flocked in all that was pleasant, fashionable,
and idle of Florence. The old beau, painted, padded, and essenced, came
with the younger and not less elaborately dressed "fashionable," great
in watch-chains and splendid in waistcoat buttons; long-haired artists
and moustached hussars mingled with close-shaven actors and pale-faced
authors; men of the world, of politics, of finance, of letters, of
the turf,--all were there. There was the gossip of the Bourse and the
cabinet, the green-room and the stable. The scandal of society, the
events