"
"Reform it," echoed Mrs. Staggchase, suavely; "we don't want to reform
it. Nothing would so surely ruin the actor's art as the reformation of
his morals."
"Oh, my dear!" remonstrated Mrs. Ranger.
"Really, Diana," Mrs. Frostwinch said, good-naturedly, "your sentiments
are too shocking for belief."
"But she doesn't mean them," added Mrs. Ranger.
"I am sorry to shock anybody," the hostess responded, "but I really do
mean what I say. Not that I can see," she added, "that society can
afford to be too squeamish on the question of morals."
A look of genuine distress began to shadow
Mrs. Ranger's face, and it deepened as Miss Merrivale said,
flippantly,--
"Is Boston such an abandoned place?"
"Really, Diana," the old gentlewoman remarked, with a manner in which
playfulness and earnestness were pretty equally mingled, "I don't think
you ought to talk so before these girls. When I was your age, half a
century ago, it wouldn't have been considered at all proper."
Mrs. Staggchase laughed softly.
"But, nowadays," she returned, "the girls are so sophisticated that
what we say makes no difference."
There was a moment of silence while the servant changed the plates, and
then Miss Dimmont broke out, saying, with unnecessary force,--
"I don't care who people are if they only amuse me, and I'll know
anybody I like, whether they had any grandfathers or not.
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