Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman
judiciously, she would not have to appeal so persistently; some of us did contrive to keep the machine running even before my Lady Maitland descended upon us. . . It does not affect me much, because I am never able to contribute more than a trifle; one cannot undertake her new charities indiscriminately without doing an injustice to the old. Others are more happily placed, and my only quarrel with Connie is that I must either drop her or else consent to embrace all her new friends. This Mrs. Sawyer, for instance. . .
I forget whether you were in London at the time. . . No, of course not. Well, I can testify to you that her arrival created quite a stir. The rastaquouère type is not unknown to me by any means, but I thought Mrs. Sawyer a very favourable specimen. Not more than two or three and twenty, though these South American women reach their prime very early—and pass it; jet-black hair and eyes, dead-white face, scarlet lips, really beautiful teeth; altogether a very striking young woman, with just enough of a foreign accent to give an added charm—for those who like that sort of thing. She had a wistful, mysterious manner which accorded well with the ensemble . . . and with the story they told about her. I never heard her maiden name, but I was told at once that she
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