Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1912-08-06

cato nine-tails so extemporised and ST.
DOME would not even wink.
From which it will be seen that Sido-
ME was Indispensable.
The suite of rooms Madame Savaran
occupied in the Hotel MonOlith consisted
of "parlor, two bedrooms and bath" One
of the bedrooms had until the previous
day been occupied by the unhappy Miss
Biddle-the latest of long series ofin-
digent lady companions whom madame
had suffered to the best of her endur-
ance and whom Sidonie had conspired to
GUST with ultimately invariable success.
Now after madame had had her cold
bath and Sidonie had dressed her to the
breakfast-gown point and performed sun
dry wondrous acts of skill and daring in
the arrangement of madames hair,
browning the achievement with a coquet-
fish cap of lace and ribbons, which the
wearer would have died rather than
done had not the mode of the moment
prescribed that article for all matrons
without respect to age-after all this,
madame frigidly called for her cane and
hobbled into the so-styled parlor, where
her breakfast was served.
The cane, like the hobble, should be
accounted for, by the way; both we're
cherished mementos of the aristocratic
disease known as govt, from which Ma
/
long that she could not recall her last
twinge, but the semblance of which she
would as willingly have abandoned as
she would the component parts of that
miraculous edifice Sidonie had just build
ed beneath her breakfast cap. Govt at
so lends one an air; it is besides a SOW
ereign excuse for grumbling and an ex-
cellent mask for the infirmities of ad-
vancing years
Ac Madame at IA
joying the clean and sweet if slightly
warm breeze that sighed in through the
window at her elbow, and likewise en-
joying iced cantaloupe, she looked easily
| five years younger than the hard-faced
Belgian woman attending her. But then
Sidonie looked. older than her age by
an equivalent SPANS. So that the mis-
tress would have passed for so at face
value. And valuable face it was to
her, with a better natural color than
many girl of 80 could boast, and a fine
and prideful cast Of feature that told
truthfully the tale of youth of unusual
beauty. The adjective patrician, though
overworked, seems the most fitting
wherewith to characterize madame's
cast of countenance; it betokened breed
ing. intelligence, a proper self-esteem,
and good, strong will whose consutu-
ton had by no means been undermined
4
was beautiful but ductIle; it's abundance
never brimmed over or bulged unbecom-
ingly. Her eyes were handsome blue
grey, strong and humorous; if capable of
ominous fire-play. In European termin-
ology she would doubtless have fallen
under the classification of grande dame;
in the kings English, unquestionably, a
deuced fine woman in everyday Amer
lean, a mighty well-preserved lady.
donr nnF ff-fA rrrfA1 -
digestion. Madame's morning meal
comprised simply fruit. dry toast, and
coffee She consumed it at leisure, a
newspaper propped before her; an en-
croachment on the bestial ways of man
in itself betraying an advanced state of
intelligence which, had Madame been 20
years younger. would certainly have
made of her militant suffragist
The meal concluded. SidOnie removed
the tray, in its place presenting the
morning mail and one long and corpu-
lent cigarette. Though Madame Savar-
an restricted herself to a single matu-
final smoke, she procured for the pur-
pose the largest cigarette she could
find.
1t was really astonishing how daintily
she could WELD so massive a roll of
pa per-wrapped tobacco
Smoking, she poked through the batch
of letters, to a running accompaniment
of trenchant comment. Their majority
went to the waste basket half read; and
with these went the picture postcards.
as to the place of which in polite CORE
spondence Madame Savaran entertained
profound and unpOlite convictions. The
remainder of the mail was intrusted to
Sidonie to be placed in the leather writ
ing case madame used when travelling.
And now Madame Savaran rested and
smiled a sweetly dangerous smile, with
dilated nostrils seeming the imminent
hour of battle.
"Sidonie" said she, IN deceptively
dulcet tones.
But Sidonie was too old in madames