The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1909-07-11

home, the house itself-a magnificent
palace In the most golden part Of the
golden city-was put in Milady's name.
This was because the husbands wealth
had come practically from her or
through her.
She was like a princess or a queen
She held her court once a week In this
splendid hall Of her museum. There the
men and women who were greatest in
art, in literature or in achievement
gathered. An invitation from Milady
was a cachet of responsibility and
standing. Her dinners were intellectual
as well as gastrOnOmic delights. She
was the most charming Of hostesses.
There was no home in New York that
seemed so well balanced, so harmonious,
so perfect in every detail, and there
seemed to be no couple in all the great
city so well mated and so perfectly in
accord. OF the twenty-five servants one
had been with the family from the day
Milady and her husband had been mar
ried, fifty years before, and the latest
conner among the domestics had been
at least five years in Milady's service.
They had a yacht and a country
house Milady, like every fashionable
woman, dressed magnificently. It
seemed that aside from her art treas
ures, her greatest devotion was to her
clothes. She had dresses in tints of
rose, dresses in shades of lavender, OF
every hue and texture that would en-
nance her great beauty. Her caskets
Of Jewels were full almost to overflow
ing. Few women in all the spendthTift
city could equal her collection of gems
Some were in quaintest settings, in cum
ningly wrought marvels Of the gold
smiths art. She had gems to match the
T,,F Na
wardrobe represented a fortune IN At
self and would ravish the eyes of any
woman.
But in a closet near to those in
which hung her wonderful gowns was
the skeleton Of Milsdy's house. There
was not one skeleton, but forty. The
forty skeletons were canes. For Milady
was a trif1e lame, and all her life. from
the day when, a few years after her
marriage, she had had q fall that had
turned the whole current Of her life, she
had had TO wear a cane. But with her
vanity no one except her husband and
few Of the servants who were admitted
into her chamber ever knew 1t.
With a skill that was past under
standing she concealed this little phys
zeal defect. For every gown that she
wore she had g cane that matched it
pSELeCuy IN nue. ana III every gown
that she had made there was a cleverly
concealed slit, large enough to admit her
hand so that she could grasp the cane
that was hidden beneath her skirt. For
more than two-score years she deceived
the cleverest eyes in New York, the
eyes Of the fashionable women whom
she met day after day. Proud, austere
and imperious, she held her court. The
amount OF dexteTity she had to display
to keep up this deception, the amount
Of money she had to expend in having
these canes made and IN getting them
OF the exact shade that she wished. was
probably without parallel In the life of
any woman in New York.
There was another sorrow to enter
into Milady's life, and that came a few
years ago. Perhaps she grew old faster
than her husband, but at any rate,
they became less and less devoted to
each other than they were in former
days If Milady noticed it, she was too
proud to show it, and month by month
and year by year the two old people