perfectly fascinating at first, and you can see why the poor girl's
fiance should be so taken with her. But I'm sure no one could say you
had ever given Mr. Ashley the least encouragement. It would be pure
justice on your part. I think you are grand! I shall always be proud
of knowing what you were going to do."

_Miss Ramsey_, after some moments of snubbing intention: "I don't know
what I am going to do myself, yet. Or how. What _was_ that play? I
never heard of it."

_Miss Garnett_: "I don't remember distinctly, but it was about a young
man who falls in love with her, when he's engaged to another girl, and
she determines, as soon as she finds it out, to disgust him, so that
he will go back to the other girl, don't you know."

_Miss Ramsey_: "That sounds rather more practical than the Peg
Woffington plan. What does she do?"

_Miss Garnett_: "Nothing you'd like to do."

_Miss Ramsey_: "I'd like to do something in such a cause. What does
she do?"

_Miss Garnett_: "Oh, when he is calling on her, Kentucky Summers
pretends to fly into a rage with her sister, and she pulls her hair
down, and slams everything round the room, and scolds, and drinks
champagne, and wants him to drink with her, and I don't know what all.
The upshot is that he is only too glad to get away."

_Miss Ramsey_: "It's rather loathsome, isn't it?"

_Miss Garnett_: "It _is_ rather loathsome. But it was in a good cause,
and I suppose it was what an actress would think of."

_Miss Ramsey_: "An actress?"

_Miss Garnett_: "I forgot. The heroine is a distinguished actress, you
know, and Kentucky could play that sort of part to perfection. But I
don't think a lady would like to cut up, much, in the _best_ cause."

_Miss Ramsey_: "Cut up?"

_Miss Garnett_: "She certainly frisks about the room a good deal. How
delicious these mallows are! Have you ever tried toasting them?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "At school. There seems an idea in it. And the hero
isn't married. I don't like the notion of a married man."

_Miss Garnett_: "Oh, I'm quite sure he isn't married. He's merely
engaged. That makes the whole difference from the Peg Woffington
story. And there's no portrait, I'm confident, so that you wouldn't
have to do that part."

_Miss Ramsey_, haughtily: "I don't propose to do _any_ part, if the
affair can't be arranged without some such mountebank business!"

_Miss Garnett_: "You can manage it, if anybody can. You have so much
dignity that you could awe