young lady from America. My host (I wish I could remember his name)
carried his love of celebrities so far, that even his servants were
persons of considerable notoriety. His head butler, a man named
MULVANEY, was an old soldier, who, with the two footmen (formerly his
companions-in-arms) had been known in India by the name of "Soldiers
Three."

"It was so good of you to come, although your husband had Russian
influenza," remarked our host to ANNA KARENINA, who was seated on his
left.

"My dear friend," she replied, "I was only too delighted; for really
my husband cracks his finger-joints so much more lately, and it makes
me so nervous, that I often think, if it were not that Mr. WRONGSKY
sometimes calls on my day at home, I am sure I should be bored to
death!"

"Ah! I know what that is!" said HEDDA GABLER, nodding sympathetically.
"My husband, when he heard I wanted to come to-day, said 'Fancy that!'
and I really felt I could have thrown something at him. They are
so irritating," she added, with a glance at THÉRÈSE RAQUIN who was
sitting very silent at the other end of the table softly caressing a
fruit-knife.

"Ah!" sighed DORIAN GRAY, as he dipped his white taper fingers in a
red copper bowl of rose-water. "I have had an exquisite life. I have
drunk deeply of everything. I have crushed the grapes against my
palate. And it has all been to me no more than the sound of music. It
has not marred me. I am still the same. More so, if anything."