Whatever it might cost her to do so, the future Countess Larinski faithfully kept the promise she had made to her father.Mme.de Lorcy was strictly on her guard; she hastened to meet her, held out both hands, kissed her on both cheeks, and reproached her, in the most affectionate tone in the world, for the rarity of her visits.

Then she presented her to the princess, who said: "Come here, my beauty, that I may look at you; I have been told that you are adorable." When Antoinette approached, she fixed on her a keen, penetrating glance, examined her from head to foot, passed all her perfections in review: one might have taken her for some Normandy farmer at a cattle-fair.
The result of this investigation was satisfactory; the princess cried, "Truly she does very well!" and proceeded to assert that Mlle.

Moriaz greatly resembled a certain person who had played a certain role in a certain adventure that she undertook to narrate.

She had scarcely finished this recital when she entered on another.Mme.de Lorcy was on thorns.

She knew by experience that the anecdotes of Princess Gulof were ordinarily somewhat indelicate and ill-suited to maiden ears.
She watched Antoinette anxiously, and, when she saw the approach of an especially objectionable passage, she was suddenly seized with a fit of coughing.