sant season. Her mode of living
was altogether different to anything she had already known. The house
in Bruton Street had never been very bright, but the appendages of
life there had been of a sort which was not known in the gorgeous
mansion in Grosvenor Square. It had been full of books and little toys
and those thousand trifling household gods which are accumulated in
years, and which in their accumulation suit themselves to the taste of
their owners. In Grosvenor Square there were no Lares;--no toys, no
books, nothing but gold and grandeur, pomatum, powder and pride. The
Longestaffe life had not been an easy, natural, or intellectual life;
but the Melmotte life was hardly endurable even by a Longestaffe. She
had, however, come prepared to suffer much, and was endowed with
considerable power of endurance in pursuit of her own objects. Having
willed to come, even to the Melmottes, in preference to remaining at
Caversham, she fortified herself to suffer much. Could she have ridden
in the park at mid-day in desirable company, and found herself in
proper houses at midnight, she would have borne the rest, bad as it
might have been. But it was not so. She had her horse, but could with
difficulty get any proper companion. She had been in the habit of
riding with one of the Primero girls,--and old Primero would accompany
them, or perhaps a brother Primero, or occasionally her own father.
And then, when once out, she would be surrounded by a cloud of young
men,--and though there was but little in it, a walking round and round
the same bit of ground with the same companions and with the smallest
attempt at conversation, still it had been the proper thing and had
satisfied her. Now it was with difficulty that she could get any
cavalier such as the laws of society demand. Even Penelope Primero
snubbed her,--whom she, Georgiana Longestaffe, had hitherto endured and
snubbed. She was just allowed to join them when old Primero rode, and
was obliged even to ask for that assistance.

But the nights were still worse. She could only go where Madame
Melmotte went, and Madame Melmotte was more prone to receive people at
home than to go out. And the people she did receive were antipathetic
to Miss Longestaffe. She did not even know who they were, whence they
came, or what was their nature. They seemed to be as little akin to
her as would have been the shopkeepers in the small town near
Caversham. She would sit through long evenings almost