The Babe and his sisters laugh with much irreverent enjoyment; her Grace is not more appreciated by her grandchildren than she was by Ireland.
"If I had known you were going to be so kind as to remember us, I would have invited some of your friends," says his hostess, without coming to the rescue of her august mother's name. "I am so sorry; but there is nobody I think who will be very sympathetic to you. Besides, you know them all already."
"And is that fatal to sympathy? What a cruel suggestion, dear Lady Usk!"
"Sympathy is best new, like a glove. It fits best; you don't see any wrinkles in it for the first hour."
"What cynicism! Do you know that I am very fond of old gloves? But, then, I never was a dandy——"
"Lord Brandolin will like Madame Sabaroff," says Dodo, a very éveillé young lady of thirteen.
"Fair prophetess, why? And who is Madame Sabaroff? A second O. K., a female Stepniak?"
"What are those?" says Dodo. "She is very handsome, and a princess in her own right."
"She gave me two Ukraine ponies and a real droschky," says the Babe.
"And Boom a Circassian mare, all white, and each of us a set of Siberian turquoises," says Lilie.