"That is an agreeable hallucination with which Englishwomen have ever
consoled themselves for not being French," said De Malfort, who sat lolling
against the marble balustrade, nursing the guitar on which he had been
playing when Fareham interrupted their noontide idleness; "but your
ladyship may be sure that London milliners are ever a twelvemonth in the
rear of Paris fashions. It is not that they do not see the new mode. They
see it, and think it hideous; and it takes a year to teach them that it is
the one perfect style possible."
"I was not thinking of kerchiefs or petticoats," said Fareham. "You are a
book-lover, sister, like myself. Can I bring you no books you wish for?"
"If there were a new comedy by Moliere; but I fear it is wrong to read him,
since in his late play, performed before the King at Versailles, he is so
cruel an enemy to our Church."
"A foe only to hypocrites and pretenders, Angela. I will bring you his
_Tartuffe_, if it is printed; or still better, _Le Misanthrope_, which I am
told is the finest comedy that was ever written; and the latest romance, in
twenty volumes or so, by one of those lady authors Hyacinth so admires, but
which I own to finding as tedious as the divine Orinda's verses.
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