One of her amusements was studying her companions, and for a time
this occupied her, for Christie possessed penetration and a feminine
fancy for finding out people.
Mrs. Saltonstall's mission appeared to be the illustration of each
new fashion as it came, and she performed it with a devotion worthy
of a better cause. If a color reigned supreme she flushed herself
with scarlet or faded into primrose, made herself pretty in the
bluest of blue gowns, or turned livid under a gooseberry colored
bonnet. Her hat-brims went up or down, were preposterously wide or
dwindled to an inch, as the mode demanded. Her skirts were rampant
with sixteen frills, or picturesque with landscapes down each side,
and a Greek border or a plain hem. Her waists were as pointed as
those of Queen Bess or as short as Diana's; and it was the opinion
of those who knew her that if the autocrat who ruled her life
decreed the wearing of black cats as well as of vegetables, bugs,
and birds, the blackest, glossiest Puss procurable for money would
have adorned her head in some way.
Her time was spent in dressing, driving, dining and dancing; in
skimming novels, and embroidering muslin; going to church with a
velvet prayer-book and a new bonnet; and writing to her husband when
she wanted money, for she had a husband somewhere abroad, who so
happily combined business with pleasure that he never found time to
come home.
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