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IN A WINTER CITY.
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CHAPTER VI.
"I think Italians are like Russian tea; they spoil you for any other———" wrote Lady Hilda to her brother Clairvaux. It was not a very clear phrase, nor very grammatical; but she knew what she meant herself, which is more than all writers can say they do.
Russian tea, or rather tea imported through Russia, is so much softer and of so much sweeter and subtler a flavour, that once drinking it you will find all other tea after it seem flat or coarse. When she had written this sentiment, however, she tore up the sheet of note paper which contained it, and tossed it in the fire; after all, Clairvaux would not understand—he never un-
