Sprowle and
Miss Matilda were moving about, directing and helping as they best
might, all day long. When the evening came, it might be feared they
would not be in just the state of mind and body to entertain company.
----One would like to give a party now and then, if one could be a
billionnaire.--"Antoine, I am going to have twenty people to dine
to-day." "_Bien, Madame_." Not a word or thought more about it, but get
home in season to dress, and come down to your own table, one of your
own guests.--"Giuseppe, we are to have a party a week from
to-night,--five hundred invitations,--there is the list." The day
comes. "Madam, do you remember you have your party to-night?" "Why, so
I have! Everything right? supper and all?" "All as it should be,
Madam." "Send up Victorine." "Victorine, full toilet for this
evening,--pink, diamonds, and emeralds. Coiffeur at seven.
_Allez_."--Billionism, or even millionism, must be a blessed kind of
state, with health and clear conscience and youth and good looks,--but
most blessed in this, that it takes off all the mean cares which give
people the three wrinkles between the eyebrows, and leaves them free to
have a good time and make others have a good time, all the way along
from the charity that tips up unexpected loads of wood at widows'
doors, and leaves foundling turkeys upon poor men's doorsteps, and sets
lean clergymen crying at the sight of anonymous fifty-dollar bills, to
the taste which orders a perfect banquet in such sweet accord with
every sense that everybody's nature flowers out full-blown in its
golden-glowing, fragrant atmosphere.
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