Everything in society was splendid, polished, decorous, cultivated without; but within, hollow and rotten.
[86] _Mimae_.
Cornelia grew weary and sick of the excitement, the fashionable chatter, the mongering of low gossips.

She loathed the sight of the effeminate young fops who tried to win her smiles by presenting themselves for a polite call each morning, polished and furbelowed, and rubbed sleek and smooth with Catanian pumice.

Her mother disgusted her so utterly that she began to entertain the most unfilial feeling toward the worthy woman.

Cornelia would not or could not understand that in such hot weather it was proper to wear lighter rings than in winter, and that each ring must be set carefully on a different finger joint to prevent touching.

Cornelia watched her servants, and reached the astonishing conclusion that these humble creatures were really extracting more pleasure out of life than herself.