Madame Midas, however, had experienced poverty and the coldness of
friends, so was completely disillusionised as to the disinterested
motives of the people who now came flocking around her. She was very
wealthy, and determined to stop in Melbourne for a year, and then go
home to Europe, so to this end she took a house at St Kilda, which
had been formerly occupied by Mark Frettlby, the millionaire, who
had been mixed up in the famous hansom cab murder nearly eighteen
months before. His daughter, Mrs Fitzgerald, was in Ireland with her
husband, and had given instructions to her agents to let the house
furnished as it stood, but such a large rent was demanded, that no
one felt inclined to give it till Mrs Villiers appeared on the
scene. The house suited her, as she did not want to furnish one of
her own, seeing she was only going to stop a year, so she saw
Thinton and Tarbet, who had the letting of the place, and took it
for a year. The windows were flung open, the furniture brushed and
renovated, and the solitary charwoman who had been ruler in the
lonely rooms so long, was dismissed, and her place taken by a whole
retinue of servants. Madame Midas intended to live in style, so went
to work over the setting up of her establishment in such an
extravagant manner that Archie remonstrated. She took his
interference in a good humoured way, but still arranged things as
she intended; and when her house was ready, waited for her friends
to call on her, and prepared to amuse herself with the comedy of
human life.
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