Cross--she always sent a budget. Few
of these lengthy epistles contained anything bearing upon Angela's own
existence--except the oft-repeated entreaty that she would make haste and
join them--or even the flippant suggestion that Mother Anastasia should
make haste and die. They were of the nature of news-letters; but the news
was tinctured by the feminine medium through which it came, and there was
a flavour of egotism in almost every page. Lady Fareham wrote as only a
pretty woman, courted, flattered, and indulged by everybody about her, ever
since she could remember, could be forgiven for writing. People had petted
her and worshipped her with such uniform subservience that she had grown to
thirty years of age without knowing that she was selfish, accepting homage
and submission as a law of the universe, as kings and princes do.
Only in one of those letters was there that which might be called a
momentous fact, but which Angela took as easily as if it had been a mere
detail, to be dismissed from her thoughts when the letter had been laid
aside.
It was a letter with a black seal, announcing the death of the Marquise de
Montrond, who had expired of an apoplexy at her house in the Marais, after
a supper party at which Mademoiselle, Madame de Longueville, Madame de
Montausier, the Duchesse de Bouillon, Lauzun, St.
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