The late lord in autumn filled
Castlewood with company, who drank claret till midnight: the present
man buries himself in a hut on a Scotch mountain, and passes November
in two or three closets in an entresol at Paris, where his amusements
are a dinner at a cafe and a box at a little theatre. What a contrast
there is between _his_ Lady Lorraine, the Regent's Lady Lorraine, and
her little ladyship of the present era! He figures to himself the
first, beautiful, gorgeous, magnificent in diamonds and velvets,
daring in rouge, the wits of the world (the old wits, the old polished
gentlemen--not the _canaille_ of to-day with their language of the
cab-stand, and their coats smelling of smoke) bowing at her feet; and
then thinks of to-day's Lady Lorraine--a little woman in a black silk
gown, like a governess, who talks astronomy, and laboring classes, and
emigration, and the deuce knows what, and lurks to church at eight
o'clock in the morning. Abbots-Lorraine, that used to be the noblest
house in the county, is turned into a monastery--a regular La Trappe.
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