The Indianapolis leader. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1879-1890, 1879-11-29

it, and found it an embarrassing and un.
profitable state. | told him how | fell in
with an old but much-respected friend, a
lady who was pursuing her art studies in
Paris Before joining her husband in America
it was her wish to see something of Europe.
/ was about beginning the tour of Great
Britain. She threw aside her brush, and
together we set forth to view the land. We
consoled ourselves amid the vexations and
disappointments of travel with II thousand
recollections of home. All went well enough
so long as we were among friends, but the
suspicious of stranger were at once aroused.
/ think it was in the Gap of Dudloe where
she fingered botanizng. | had pressed for
ward TO escape the echoes, the deafen-
ing and distracting echoes which are
touched off at the approach of every sue
ceeding tourist. A young man, one of our
impromptu party, turned to my friend and
said: "Your husband seems to have no ear
for musicp "Why do you think him my hus-
band?" she asked, and his reply was, BE
cause he takes such little care of you He
was u student of human nature. Later we
drove one day TO famous old inn in York
We were welcomed at the threshold by a
portly servant" Can you give us two rooms?"
asked. Certainly. sir; parlor and bed
room?" | explained TO him that we desired
two beds. "Ah, IA double-bedded room?" was
his next interrogation. 1t was with difficulty
that we were suitably provided for in the
chaste hosterly The climax came in Edin-
burg. Our apartments were mt the opposite
and extreme ends of the building. 1t is the
pleasant custom in that conventional land to
place a jug of hot water at the door of each
chamber of a morning, there being no water
Al " 1aI 81,
on the evening previous to the chamber Of my
friend and ordered hot water, for it was our
wish, after the
FATIGUEs OF THE DAY,
To compose ourselves over a cup of tea
Scotch tea. The next morning. upon open
ing my door, l missed the customary jug,
and, having completed chilly and hasty
toilet, / repaired to my friends door to
escort her to breakfast. She was tardier
than common; at her door stood two jugs of
hot water-no wonder that l missed mine.
How seldom is virtue rewarded, save in the
fifth act of melodrama! l turned to our
host after relating these experiences; he was
wrapped in gentle and profound slumber.
Nor did he join us in the smoking room; nor
did we see him more; but the Countess, with
her fagons of Monte Fiascone, lounged lux
uriously and passed her cigars with all the ease
of an old smoker The cigaret is of course,
natural to women, but we soon became ac-
custon.ed to seeing cigar daintly poised
in the exquisite hands of fair dame and
pulled between coral lips that have just
breathed forth with startling brilliancy the
wine song in Girofe. There is positively
nothing like it, except an encore. When we
were about to leave the palace the countess
admitted us to gallery we had not yet Wis
tied. 1t was treasury of bric-a-brac. but
the most prominent object, the one that caught
the eye first and heldit longest, was superb
statue, life-size reclining figure, guiltless of
any ornamentation whatever save what was
natures own. A soft glow suffused the mag
nifcent undulations of the figure, for the
light from u tinted globe was directed full
upon it. Floating home through canals as
dark as the Styx, it transpired that the chum
knew the history of this statue. 1t was
modelled from reflection in mirror-it
was the chef d'euvre of the countess, it was
herself! All, pretty prudes, how much of the
light of this life is denied you by reason of
the great cloud of your prejudices