[House of Mirth by Edith Wharton]@TWC D-Link bookHouse of Mirth CHAPTER 1 10/25
If she'd be natural herself--fat and vulgar and bouncing--it would be all right; but as soon as she meets anybody smart she tries to be slender and queenly.
She tried it with the Duchess of Beltshire and Lady Skiddaw, and they fled. I've done my best to make her see her mistake--I've said to her again and again: 'Just let yourself go, Louisa'; but she keeps up the humbug even with me--I believe she keeps on being queenly in her own room, with the door shut. "The worst of it is," Mrs.Fisher went on, "that she thinks it's all MY fault.
When the Dorsets turned up here six weeks ago, and everybody began to make a fuss about Lily Bart, I could see Louisa thought that if she'd had Lily in tow instead of me she would have been hob-nobbing with all the royalties by this time.
She doesn't realize that it's Lily's beauty that does it: Lord Hubert tells me Lily is thought even handsomer than when he knew her at Aix ten years ago.
It seems she was tremendously admired there.
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