Erlach Court by Ossip Schubin — Read

A few days after the appearance at Erlach Court of the grass-widow, the mail brings Rohritz a letter with the Paris post-mark. Edgar recognizes his sister-in-law's hand, opens it not without haste, and reads it not without interest. It runs thus:

"_Eh bien_, my dear Edgar, _j'espere que vous serez content de moi_," Therese always writes to her brother in a jargon of French, Italian, German, and English, which, out of regard for the pedantry of modern purists, we translate into as good English as we are able to command: "I hope you will be pleased with me. I frankly confess to you, what you probably guessed from my last postal card, that your request to me to try to brighten their life in Paris for two of your countrywomen did not afford me much pleasure. As a rule, compatriots so recommended are an unmitigated bore, from the pianists whose three hundred -- no, that's too few -- five hundred tickets we must dispose of, and who then, when you ask them to a soiree, are too grand to play the smallest mazourka of Chopin, to the Baronesses Wolnitzka, who request you to introduce them to Parisian society because they never have an opportunity to see any one at home. The pianists are bad enough, but the Wolnitzkas -- oh! In one respect they are precisely alike: they are always offended. If you invite them _en famille_ they are offended because they suppose you are ashamed of them; if you invite them to a ball they are offended because you pay them no particular attention. The upshot is that you always have to refuse them something, -- to lend a thousand francs to the genius when he already owes you five hundred, -- to procure for the Wolnitzkas an invitation to some ball at the embassy; then ensues a quarrel, and they draw down the corners of their mouths and look the other way when they meet you in the street.