Page:Lesbia Newman - Dalton - 1889.djvu/211

 society were so frivolous as that! Women—that is, women who are in society—are Bunglers because bungling keeps up the decencies and amenities of life. I’ve no patience with your national reformers and agitators and mischief makers. Why must they go about the country, putting notions into people’s heads that never had any, and upsetting the order which Providence has established from time immemorial?’

‘I’ll tweak Providence’s nose if ever he has the impertinence to come ordering me about.’

‘For shame, Friga!’ said her mother; ‘you have made me forget what I was going to say. Ah—as for your hoydens of girls like Lesbia Newman, they’re the worst of the lot; they unsex each other, and they unsex men.’

‘But then, you see, mamma,’ said Hilda, with a peculiar look at her sister, ‘unsexing is just what that wicked girl opposite me, and her wickeder absent friend, delight in. Don’t you, Fri? But never mind, mamma, go on; it’s so nice to hear all about the proprieties.’

‘I am sorry you make game of me, Hilda,’ said Lady Humnoddie bitterly, ‘although I know, of course, that mothers have no claim upon their daughters’ respect in these enlightened times. However, I think the days are coming when we shall keep a tight rein upon all this nonsense.’

‘I think not,’ said Lord Humnoddie.

‘Yes we shall,’ persisted his wife; ‘we shall keep a tight rein upon all social and political tantrums. We English have always been a practical people, and we don’t stand nonsense after a certain point.’

‘What point, pray, mamma?’ asked Friga.

‘As for those Irish rebels,’ pursued the Marchioness, ‘I can hardly trust myself to speak of them and their doings. Never mind, when this war’s over, and we’ve given a lesson to these foreign interlopers, their turn will come. We shall have to deal with Ireland once for all; and, in my opinion,