that--who lives as independently as if she were a middle-aged widow,
receives every week (she has her Thursdays), with no other chaperon than
an old _ci-devant_ Italian singing woman, dressed like a guy--must set
Parisian tongues into play even if she had not written the crack book of
the season."

"Mademoiselle Cicogna receives on Thursdays,--no harm in that; and if she
have no other chaperon than the Italian lady you mention, it is because
Mademoiselle Cicogna is an orphan, and having a fortune, such as it is,
of her own, I do not see why she should not live as independently as many
an unmarried woman in London placed under similar circumstances. I
suppose she receives chiefly persons in the literary or artistic world,
and if they are all as respectable as the Savarins, I do not think ill-
nature itself could find fault with her social circle."

"Ah! you know the Cicogna, I presume. I am sure I did not wish to say
anything that could offend her best friends, only I do think it is a pity
she is not married, poor girl!"

"Mademoiselle Cicogna, accomplished, beautiful, of good birth (the
Cicogna's rank among the oldest of Lombard families), is not likely to
want offers."

"Offers of marriage,--h'm--well, I dare say, from authors and artists.
You know Paris better even than I do, but I don't suppose authors and
artists there make the most desirable husbands; and I scarcely know a
marriage in France between a man-author and lady-author which does not
end in the deadliest of all animosities--that of wounded _amour propre_.
Perhaps the man admires his own genius too much to do proper homage to
his wife's."