Show SALE OF OUIDAS HOUSEHOLD GODS Last week in Rome there were sold at public auction the household goods of j the greatest actress who never appeared on any stage It is true that the footlights foot-lights never knew her but for all that Ouida the novelist was an actress to the manner born Her daily life showed the thespian streak in this woman almost al-most as much as her books have done In the heydey of her career her daily drive through the city gorgeously arrayed ar-rayed plastered with jewels and with her carriage surrounded with a bevy of those dogs which her pen has championed cham-pioned so well was one of the sights for which all tourists used to watch The dogs It seems are almost the only things who are still faithful to her now that her wealth has gone by the board In Rome and Florence they speak of her as a prematurely old woman possessed of those three deadly detriments to popularity pop-ularity a bitter tongue a bee in her bonnet and an empty purse At one time or another almost all of her most sue S dessful books were dramatized Under Two Flaps however was the only one which achieved great success as a play I Speaking x > f Ouidas tongue recalls that story which the late Mr John Bigelow used to tell When she and her husband i Were first in Rome some one remarked that there was qnly two things that Ouida hated women and Americans Mrs Bigelow at once decided to call on herOn her-On her arrival at the house she wafe shown Into an anteroom Through the portieres Mrs Bigelow could see Ouida sitting at her writing desk i Who is it asked Ouida of her maid She says she is an American lady mam S I Why did you let her In shrieked the S novelist at the top of her voice You know loathe Americans t MrS Bigelow took her cue Thats extremely ungrateful of you she remarked in an equally loud tone because were the only people who willS will-S read your nasty books i And thereupon Ouida went off into a fit I of laughter and insisted upon Mrs Bige lows staying to tea New York Evening Sun |