artificial flowers to support the flower-makers."--"Upon my word,
it is not uninteresting. There is always some _haute nouveauté_ in
economy. The ways of depriving one's self are infinite. There is wine,
now."--"Not own your residence! As soon not own your tomb as your
residence! My mama used to scream that in my ears. According to her,
it was not _comme il faut_ to board or live in a rented house.
How little she knew!"

When her friends, learning her increasing difficulties, which they did
from the best authority (herself), complimented her, as they were
forced to do, upon her still handsome appearance, pretty laces,
feathers, jewelry, silks, "Fat," she would answer--"fat. I am living
off my fat, as bears do in winter. In truth, I remind myself of an
animal in more ways than one."

And so every one had something to contribute to the conversation about
her--bits which, they said, affection and admiration had kept alive in
their memory.

Each city has its own roads to certain ends, its ways of Calvary, so
to speak. In New Orleans the victim seems ever to walk down Royal
street and up Chartres, or _vice versa_. One would infer so, at least,
from the display in the shops and windows of those thorough-fares.
Old furniture, cut glass, pictures, books, jewelry, lace, china--the
fleece (sometimes the flesh still sticking to it) left on the
brambles by the driven herd. If there should some day be a trump of
resurrection for defunct fortunes, those shops would be emptied in
the same twinkling of the eye allowed to tombs for their rendition of
property.