This lady assumed the sentimental literary _role_.

She was always cultivating herself in her own way; that is to say, she was assiduous in what she called keeping up her French.
In the opinion of many of her class of thinkers, French is the key of the kingdom of heaven; and, of course, it is worth one's while to sell all that one has to be possessed of it.

Mrs.Follingsbee had not been in the least backward to do this; but, as to getting the golden key, she had not succeeded.

She had formed the acquaintance of many disreputable people; she had read French novels and French plays such as no well-bred French woman would suffer in her family; she had lost such innocence and purity of mind as she had to lose, and, after all, had _not_ got the French language.
However, there are losses that do not trouble the subject of them, because they bring insensibility.

Just as Mrs.Follingsbee's ear was not delicate enough to perceive that her rapid and confident French was not Parisian, so also her conscience and moral sense were not delicate enough to know that she had spent her labor for "that which was not bread." She had only succeeded in acquiring such an air that, on a careless survey, she might have been taken for one of the _demi-monde_ of Paris; while secretly she imagined herself the fascinating heroine of a French romance.
The friendship between Mrs.Follingsbee and Lillie was of the most impassioned nature; though, as both of them were women of a good solid perception in regard to their own material interests, there were excellent reasons on both sides for this enthusiasm.
Notwithstanding the immense wealth of the Follingsbees, there were circles to which Mrs.Follingsbee found it difficult to be admitted.
With the usual human perversity, these, of course, became exactly the ones, and the only ones, she particularly cared for.