"They do. Ten years ago the efforts of these noble women were frowned down as a violent impropriety. Now they are hailed as benefactors. The work is supported by voluntary contributions."

"I presume they take the girls as soon as free, and never acknowledge defeat?"

"Precisely. Those girls are made to realize that they have friends for life, and that the world has homes for them. Difficult cases are sent into the country. The success has been phenomenal."

"Did not these same women originate the 'Congrès des œuvres et des instructions féminines' which was one of the unique features of the last French Exposition?"

"Yes. Before going abroad I actually thought we were the first nation to give special recognition to woman at a national fair, but I soon discovered that in 1889 France invited all governments to be represented in sociology, and that we were actually disgraced by our indifference to and ignorance of this great subject."

"Is it true that Mesdames de Morcier and Bogelot were required to submit all the plans of the Women's Congress to the government and that Jules Simon presided at their meetings?"

"Yes, he was the only man present. On my arrival in Paris, these ladies called upon me and soon saw that they could have their Congress over again in 1893 on the shore of Lake Michigan. They take no interest in the industrial part of woman's work, but are devoted to sociology, a practical exhibit of which will be made by means of miniature models, charts, photographs, etc." "How, for example, will they indicate their night lodgings for girls?"

"By a map of Paris dotted with nail heads showing where medical and relief stations are located. The French have attained art even in their charity, and in this respect will greatly eclipse the United States."

"I'm delighted that you do justice to a great people, so often misjudged by Anglo-Saxons. Did you learn anything in England?"

"Much. Women are making great advances there. In certain respects they are ahead of us. For instance, a woman, Miss Scott, is on the London Sanitary Board, and, as an expert, lectures weekly to the people.'

"In private charities English women teach us many a lesson, it seems to me. Think of Lady Wolverton!" "You may well name that ideal woman, living in an ideal home six miles out of London. Though a confirmed invalid, who rarely comes up to town, Lady Wolverton has organized the House Boy Brigade made up of street arabs who are put under proper charge and trained for work, being sent out by the day as house servants of different degrees."

"How long are these boys kept at home?"

"Until they are about sixteen. Then they are found situations, many in railway offices, but never are they lost sight of. There is an annual meeting at which the boys report. Some of them have already attained positions of trust. With radiant face Lady Wolverton, who is a childless widow, lies on her bed of suffering and thinks out ways of helping the outcast poor.”

"Ah, if the rich and strong women of America followed her noble example, how little food there would be for anarchical harangues! Did Lady Wolverton originate the Needlework Guild also?"

"Yes, to supply her house-boys with clothing. Anybody can belong, high and low, the only condition being that a member must give five garments annually to the Guild. Every vice president has twenty members under her for whom she is held responsible. This is the larg

"The idea has already taken root in New York, and will soon materialize in Washington, I am told."

"So much the better. If women at the Capital did less senseless visiting and more useful work, they'd be infinitely better in body, mind and soul. We need a Lady Wolverton."

"Two afternoons a week Lady Wolverton's house and grounds are thrown open to different clubs of the people. Barmaids are brought out, the House Boy Brigade waits upon them, refreshments are served on the green or in-doors, according to weather and season, and Lady Wolverton is wheeled about among her grateful guests, smiling upon all and proving by her generous deeds that real nobility depends upon heart"

"And that true aristocracy means practical Christianity. There can be no gentlewoman without consideration for others, especially those beneath her." "You are right."

POETRY AND MELODY.

II.

OLDSMITH'S "Deserted Village" is a very good

very simple theme. Sympathy with the poor and oppressed was its key-note, and the style is as simple as the theme. For this the writer deserves much credit, since the prevailing fashion of his day was shown in Pope's stilted and tedious style and Johnson's wordy, unlovely effusions. His sweet note is as full of tender feeling as that of the mother thrush, when purpling bushes are in bud. So soft and smooth is each line that we find ourselves dreaming vaguely of rivers like the Thames, gliding between flower-decked banks, their waters lightly swaying fair lilies. And the homely scenes of the Deserted Village make

Was ever

The child's heart within the man's Begin to move and tremble. How delightful are its touches of humor! satire so tender before? How thoroughly they redeem the picture of the schoolmaster from the commonplace. So much their own have English-speaking people made this poem that there is, perhaps, no other so generally quoted; and the favor with which it is regarded speaks well for the poetic sense of the Anglo-Saxon, for it is not merely the touches of nature which inspire admiration, but the excellence of the poetry as poetry. There is not a line that does not reveal, while hiding it, the poet's honest toil, that there may be no misplaced words, that the deep vein of pathos may never merge into bathos.

I have frequently compared Wordsworth's "Excursion" with Goldsmith's shorter work, and cannot but think that the more modern poet bears the comparison but ill. Imagine the dear old clergyman of Auburn, who was "passing rich on forty pounds a year," addressing the Creator as follows:

Eternal Spirit! Universal God!

Power inaccessible to human thought,

Save by degrees and steps which Thou hast deigned
To furnish! For this effluence of thyself,
To the infirmity of mortal sense
Vouchsafed-this local, transitory type

Of thy paternal splendors, and the pomp
Of those who fill thy courts in highest heaven,
The radiant Cherubim-accept the thanks
Which we, thy humble creatures here convened,
Presume to offer, etc.

The local transitory type" is very objectionable; the "paternal splendors" more so; and the "pomp" of the "radiant Cherubim" is worst of all. It is not difficult to imagine human beings guilty of such a prayer as being "convened" for that purpose.

It offends us to find a man-who must have been conversant with "Greek literature"-sufficiently so, at least, to recognize the debt we owe the past-writing thus: Call Archimedes from his buried tomb Upon the grave of vanished Syracuse, And feelingly the sage shall make report How insecure, how baseless in itself,

Is the philosophy whose sway depends
On mere material instruments-how weak
Those arts, and high inventions, if unpropped
By virtue.

Shades of the Mighty Dead, defend us from calling on you to make "reports," or denying virtue to the past because the Church catechism was then non-existent ! There is to me no poet whose productions are so irreconcilable, one with the other, as those of Wordsworth. Compare the pompous, unloving and unlovely prayermanifestly addressed to the "very large man, sitting on a golden throne," of the old masters-with the beautiful spirituality of nature's message to the poet, telling:

Authentic tidings of invincible things;

Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power;
And central peace, subsisting at the heart
Of endless agitation.

The effect of the thought on the poet is the perfection of spiritual emotion.

Here you stand,

Adore, and worship, when you know it not; Pious beyond the intention of your thought; Devout above the meaning of your will.

There

No man who had not known more than glimpses of the "inward and spiritual grace "could have written thus, or have penned his masterpiece, "Intimations of Immortality," which Emerson has called "the high-water mark which the intellect has reached in this age.' are still other poems which make it almost sacrilege to criticise Wordsworth; such are those lines to Lucy, beginning "She dwelt in the untrodden ways"; "To the Cuckoo"; "I wandered lonely as a cloud"; and "She was a Phantom of Delight."

This is quite unforgivable! Even the scientist would praise his lady love in words more poetical than this-words that may be found in the dictionary of what Swift called the little language." "Machine," indeed! What woman would suffer a lover who talked of anything so well-regulated? In the "Ode to Immortality," the line:

In years that bring the philosophic mind,

is not happy. A poet has no business with a philosophic

mind. He may bow his head, submissive to the Divine will, in the spirit which called forth, "Lead, kindly light; ' " he may lose sight of human suffering in the holy trance of the mystic; he may defy powers that seemed omnipotent; but he must avoid a philosophic mind.

Much of the charm of Wordsworth's poetry is due to his appreciation of the more peaceful aspects of nature. It is an English scene that comes before us as we read, in which everything blends softly: dark green of grass; trees un scorched by fierce sun's ray, and which no sud

den frosts have caused to glow with gorgeous reds and yellows; English hills, heather-covered, the mingled hues of the tiny flowers shining purple in the distance, until the peaks blend with the tranquil hazy sky; above, no cloudless canopy, but an ever-varying surface of pale blue, and white, slow-floating clouds. It is a scene of changes so barely perceptible that all living things seem drowned in an ocean of dreams without a sound.” Nothing bursts on the view, or surprises. It is the landscape that age loves, unconsciously anticipating the long repose at hand. It palls on youth, and Wordsworth will never be popular with the young-he is too impersonal. It is said that he inspired Browning's "Lost Leader." Be this as it may, we can well understand the disappointment of those who looked to him to intensify, by purifying, the passion for liberty aroused by the French Revolution. His admirers forgot Wordsworth the man-it was Wordsworth the poet they called on.

'Shakspere was of us, Milton was for us, Burns, Shelley, were with us." Aye, and Wordsworth, who so well knew what man hath made of man," crept out of the strife. The poetical power would not have failed had he been capable of youth's noble enthusiasm, youth's heroic blunders. His is an admirable figure; testifying to the beauty of self-control and the blessings of a pure life; but no heart beats the quicker at the thought of him, no sudden tears fill loving eyes when men speak of his sojourn here on earth. Wordsworth did not feel with the ardent. The calm contemplation of nature may do much for a man, increase the spiritual beauty, of his character, banish the meaner aims of life; but when you would give great poems to the world you must be in sympathy with human passions, joys, griefs, desires and Priests should study passion, else how cure Those who come to them in passionate extreme. The teacher must be a leader, or, at least, willing to be a martyr. ELISSA M. MOORE.

tears:

IF BALAAM's historical educated animal could have been turned loose in Kansas among some of the amateur statesmen there, its conversational powers would not have collapsed for want of society.

LESS BREATH expended among professional sages in the lauding of silence would be conducive to a reputation for consistency.

BUT THEN, there are few things in life less interesting than a man who is consistent. He wastes too much time looking up precedents.

IT IS NOT unreasonable to suspect that in the popular idea of heaven, the consideration of golden streets vastly outweighs the inducements of free harps and a perpetual Sabbath.

IT IS IN MAN'S nature to be dissatisfied. If it were

physically possible, you would hear the young men talking of the "good times when I was old."

THERE IS A greater moral crime in depriving a life of all that makes it endurable than in taking the life itself, though the laws fail to point it out in most instances.

MANY A MAGNIFICENT church is nothing more than a millionaire's penance.

THE GREATEST MEN have often done no more than to make existence miserable for themselves in order that posterity might have occasional diversion in talking of their deeds. MILES RYAN.

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THE

KATE FIELD'S WASHINGTON, 39 Corcoran Building, Washington, D. C.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 1892.

HERE was one very notable feature connected with the holiday season just past. Hitherto those people afflicted with a divine discontent concerning our social system have felt- or at least have acted-as if for one week in the year they must hold their peace. The differences between rich and poor must not be accented more than was inevitable at the season when rich and poor come closest together. However advantageous an opportunity Christmas charities and New Year rejoicings offered for pointing a moral, the moral must yet be left unpointed. The old school of philanthropy and the new one of social science celebrated their Christmas holiday under a flag of truce, and whatever the latter contingent thought about it they at any rate left it unsaid.

This year witnessed the first break in the traditional peace and good-will. Of course, if it was an artificial peace and good-will it was not worth having; and the criticisms upon it must be rated as part of that cruel kindness which is continually undoing the old mistakes of the race. If great Christmas trees for poor children do the recipients more harm than good, if we have been giving them rather for the fun of preparation and the pleasure of the sight than for the benefit of the needy, if we have been offering a gift where we owed a debt, then, the sooner we are set right the better. If free dinners, free shows and clothing distributions excite the greed and lower the dignity of the masses, why, of course, they must be stopped-yet who will see the change without a sigh?

The old Christmas which has answered very well for so many hundred years brought no such thoughts. The very fact that it was kept in honor of One so poor that He had not where to lay His head was sufficient guarantee that His poor, committed perpetually to the care of His followers, were to be regarded only with love and respect. I believe that it is still in this spirit that many thousands of both rich and poor celebrate the feast of the Nativity. The gifts are offered in love and received in gratitude, unspoiled by any thought of patronage on one side or of obligation on the other. It is in this fashion we hope Christmas will continue to be celebrated until the social scientist shows us a more excellent way. It occurred to me the other day that one of the strongest forces at work in developing the antagonism of classes is the improvidence of the poor on one side and

class cordially despises the other for its treatment of pennies. Watch, if you please, the passengers on the horse car, and you will see that it is the poorly dressed ones who ride the short distances, while the apparently comfortable man makes sure that he is going far enough to get the worth of his five cents. You see this difference in the markets, in the restaurants, in the purchases of clothing-everywhere you go. The apparent impossibility of accumulation makes the penniless man careless of small sums, while the person with ever so little ahead weighs values with the accuracy of a chemical balance.

It is interesting in this connection to notice the difference in the manner of living between a family which has risen to a certain degree of financial prosperity, and one which has fallen to the same place from enjoyment of more liberal resources. One would think that the able them to procure greater comfort and more freedom training of the household of humbler origin would enfrom, say two thousand dollars per annum, than would be possible to people who have formerly had ten times as much. This, however, is not usually the case. The family bred in luxury will get three times as much good out of their limited income as the other, for the simple reason that they are not tempted by all the small opportunities for spending which give the simpler-minded folk such a sense of luxury.

That is a most amusing offer of a popular magazine of a prize of three hundred dollars for the best paper on "The Great Fortunes of the United States; How Made, How Invested, How Being Spent." The point of the joke lies in the fact that the people who have best access to the material for a lively and authoritative discussion of the subject are not the ones to be tempted by a problematic three hundred dollars, while the several hundred penniless aspirants who will compete, will write in much. the same spirit as a hungry street arab would read over the bill of fare at Delmonico's.

What could be more melancholy than the suicide of the wild ducks at Niagara? For the last few weeks several hundred of them have daily been going over the Falls, impelled to this rash act by some cause beyond the ken of the naturalist. To the epicure, however, the reason is clear enough; it is without doubt the treachery and bad faith of the caterer and the hotel-keeper which have driven these noble fowls to seek a watery grave. Divided by nature into distinct castes of canvas-backs, red-heads, mallards and teals, the wild duck has always preserved these distinctions by grading his gastronomic desirability accordingly. As long as he could do this he felt himself indeed fair game, whether for sportsman or pot-hunter. But the grasping restaurateur and the tricky chef have changed all that. The self-respecting duck can no longer be sure of even his family name; so, like the high spirited creature that he is, he seeks out a spot where he can end his days, unterrified by the post-mortem horrors of the menu card.

Not long ago a great and good man expressed grave doubts about the desirability of personal beauty. This is a form of pessimism which has usually been confined to those members of the gentler sex to whom nature has been sparing in the matter of good looks. Such a view is unworthy of a philosopher and a sociologist who knows that physical perfection is usually the result-in civilized countries, at least-of long generations of good behavior. Now, if careful living brings about something which is a curse and a cause of misery, what is to become of the "be good and you will be happy" argument, which no doubt the good bishop upholds as strenuously as any of us? WASHINGTON.

STRAINED RELATIONS.

A COMEDIETTA IN ONE ACT, BY KATE FIELD.

DRAMATIS PERSONE.

LADY LUCY FLEMING, a lovely widow in a ball dress, just returned from

India.

CENE.-A London salon.

SCENE.

MR. JOHN LAWRENCE, a bachelor cousin of LADY Lucy's, in irreproachable evening costume.

Table, C., with lookingglass; chairs, piano, a sofa; small table, on which is a photographic album. Enter LAWRENCE.

LAWRENCE. I am to wait in this room, am I? Well, that's the coolest thing this side of the North Pole! A woman and a cousin asks me to call upon her, naming day and hour, and, on presenting myself, I am told that her ladyship is engaged, and will I please wait! Jack Lawrence, it serves you right for breaking the rule you laid down five years ago-never again to call upon a woman. Woman! She's Heaven's last, worst gift to man, and why she ever was invented I don't know. Once upon a time an old French bishop wrote a book "On the Embarrassment of Nature as to the Necessity of Creating a Female." I'll get that book and see how the author accounts for the infliction. Nature ought to

have been clever enough to get along with one sex only -my sex, of course! Man is the superior animal-man is strong-man is logical-man is a harmonious combination of head and heart.

Who is it holds earth in his hands,
Proudly on right and reason stands,
Conquers the elements, commands?
Man, only man!

Who sets creation by the ears,

Sheds like the crocodile false tears,

Purrs like a cat to banish sneers,

Scratches when man has buried fears,
And never is what she appears?
Woman, false woman!

That isn't bad for an impromptu. But to what is not the masculine intellect equal? Man embraces all--even woman! [Walks up and down, hands in pocket.] Ever since Eve made a fool of herself in the Garden of Eden by eating what she ought not, it has been universally acknowledged that women have no brains. There's but one side to their heads, and that's outside! I experienced this fact when Julia Stanton kept me dangling, like a fish on a line, for one whole year, and then married Lord Noozle for his title. But they're all alike! [Sits on sofa; takes up photograph album impatiently.] By Jove, there she is, with her gorilla of a husband opposite, glaring as though-he saw me! [Turns page sav agely.] What a disgusting album! Here's Cousin Lucy standing opposite her husband-beauty and the beast! This album is gotten up on the principle of Noah's ark. The occupants enter in pairs. [Sighs.] Lord and Lady Fleming! Another case of marrying for position. [Looks intently at LADY LUCY's photograph.] How the old time comes o'er me! I used to love that girl when I was a boy, and didn't know any better. [LADY LUCY appears at door; is about to rush to greet LAWRENCE, when she is restrained by his soliloquy. Remains back of stage.] Now, I hate all women. They've no heart. Lucy and I always quarreled. One day, at croquet, we began fighting as usual-over a wicket, and she called me, among other pet names, a long-legged, tow-headed hyena! I threw down my mallet, walked away, and have never seen the vixen from that day to this. Since then she's become a woman, a wife and a widow! He has gone over to "the great majority," for which boon I dare say he is duly grateful. Died of clapper! That such a pretty woman should have such an ugly tongue! [Looks at photograph.]

LAWRENCE. I think he's to be envied.
LADY L. Why?

LAWRENCE. Because he's in heaven.

LADY L. Upon my word this is a nice welcome to give a cousin you've not seen for five years!

LAWRENCE. Didn't you begin it-just as you used to do? Didn't you call me a "long-legged, tow-headed hyena?"

LADY L. [laughing]. I was jesting.

LAWRENCE. [somewhat appeased]. Then so was I. LADY L. Oh! do you mean to say that my husband isn't in heaven?

LAWRENCE. Confound it, I don't care where he is!
LADY L. Jack, how can you?

LAWRENCE. That is to say, I mean-I mean-I don't know what I mean. [Embarrassed.]

LADY L. Evidently. Yet formerly you were very fluent in ventilating your ideas-particularly when they were disagreeable.

LAWRENCE. So were you! Pray let me ask why I was requested to call? Judging by the conversation, my presence must be eminently obnoxious.

LADY L. There you go, jumping at conclusions! It iseminently" nothing of the sort, for I'm told that you are a woman-hater. Is it true?

LAWRENCE. Yes.

LADY L. [clasps her hands with delight]. Capital! Nothing could be better, for I'm a man-hater; so we can rail together, and be the best of friends without the least danger, can't we?

LAWRENCE [not pleased at Lucy's being a man-hater, sits down gloomily]. Certainly.

LADY L. [goes to table, L. Sits before looking-glass]. As we are cousins and-haters, why are you afraid to look at me?

LAWRENCE. What makes you think I am?

LADY L. You've turned your back on me. It isn't polite-even in relations! [Laughing.]

LAWRENCE [book in hand]. I beg your pardon. I was thinking about something else.

LADY L. Of course. The weather, probably. There's so much of it to think about. But I want to entertain you, and I can't if you don't look at me. [LAWRENCE looks at LADY LUCY with surprise, and then drops his eyes on book.] May I arrange my hair? You were announced before I had quite finished my toilette, and as I am going to a late reception, I must look as well as the women who hate me. [Arranges curls. LAWRENCE watches her; first with astonishment, then interest.] LAWRENCE. If you hate men, what difference does it make how you look?

Do

LADY L. [laughing]. What a naïve question! you imagine, for one moment, that women dress to please men? Why, my dear Jack, we dress to torment one another! This gown will be the death of Julia Stanton. LAWRENCE [morosely]. So much the better. You will not have lived in vain.

LADY L. How dreadful! But let me see-to be sure! You were engaged to her once, were you not? [LAWRENCE turns over leaves savagely and says nothing.] It requires two persons to carry on a conversation, unless one is a ventriloquist, which I am not. Perhaps your savage breast is more easily soothed by music. [Goes to piano.] LAWRENCE [absent-mindedly. Perhaps.

LADY L. [playing]. I wish you'd look at me.
LAWRENCE [looks at LADY LUCY]. Do you?

LADY L. [playing]. Yes, because I'm a social animal, and I'd like your eyes to speak, if your tongue won't. [Their eyes meet. At this moment LADY LUCY knocks her finger against piano]. Oh! oh!! OH!!!

LAWRENCE [rises hastily]. What's the matter?

LADY L. I've hurt my finger. See! [Holds up finger to JACK, and blows on it.] I gave myself such a knock. LAWRENCE. I am very sorry.

LADY L. [pettishly.] I don't believe it.
LAWRENCE. Why not?

LADY L. [imitating]. "I am very sorry."

Do you

call that a sympathetic tone? But, then, if you hate women, it's quite excusable.

LAWRENCE. I don't positively hate all women.
LADY L. [playing]. Don't you really?

LAWRENCE. There was a time when I did'nt hate you very much-horrid as you were !

LADY L. [laughing]. Indeed? Well, go back to your beloved book, and I'll sing to you. [Song. LAWRENCE sits with book, which he first reads. As song proceeds, he becomes more and more interested, and finally expresses delight. LADY LUCY watches LAWRENCE, though she sees his profile only. Song ended] How do you like the song? LAWRENCE [with warmth]. It is beautiful. LADY L. Which is more than can be said of the singer. [LAWRENCE says nothing, but takes up book. LADY LUCY, exasperated, suppresses feeling.] Thank you! LAWRENCE [aside]. She sang that song as though she had a heart, but I suppose it was all acting. I'm not going to be fooled.

LADY L. [aside, watching LAWRENCE]. You are not such adamant as you would have me believe, my inexpressive he! [Goes up humming song. Takes several large sheets of white wrapping paper from a table, also pair of large scissors. Brings them down and sits opposite LAWRENCE on sofa. Begins cutting paper in long strips for spills. Sings: "Says the old Obadiah to the young Obadiah," etc. Repeats until LAWRENCE becomes irritated. Looks up from book.]

LAWRENCE. What on earth possesses you to sing that confounded bosh? Do you select your classics from the Music Hall of the period?

LADY L. That depends. I'm catholic in taste, and think there is a time for all things, even for the festive Obadiahs. You would'nt have me sing a De Profundis, when I am bored to death, and so make bad worse, would you?

LAWRENCE [turning around]. Bored to death? Well, you are civil! LADY L.

I'm glad to hear it. Were you more so, perhaps I'd be less bored.

LAWRENCE. Why, I'm not doing anything! LADY L. Precisely. If you were doing something besides glaring at a book, of which you've not once turned a leaf, [LAWRENCE turns leaf hastily] and had sat to me for a three-quarter face instead of the back of your head, which is imposing, I admit, but monotonous, you might be agreeable enough. I have often heard of capillary attraction, but beauty is not always led by a single hair, nor even by a whole head of it.

LAWRENCE [throws down book]. Hang it, Lucy, you are at your old tricks. You used to be a bully, and now you are old you've not departed from it.

LADY L. [cutting paper]. I am old, am I? It is edifying to see people who live in glass houses throw stones. When we were boys you were my senior, but perhaps by a special dispensation you began old and are gradually coming down to one-and twenty. In that case I'm your grandmother without knowing it.

LAWRENCE. Lucy, without exception, you are the most exasperating person I ever knew.

LADY L. Why? [Sings from Daughter of the Regiment :] "Sentiam! Vediam! Guidichiam! Ascoltiam !"

LAWRENCE [walks up and down]. There you go from Music Hall twaddle to Italian opera!

LADY L. Why should'nt I? It isn't everybody that can do Canterbury Hall and Covent Garden in ten minutes. Tell me why I'm exasperating. I'm all attention. LAWRENCE. Because-because you are

LADY L. Oh, fie! A woman's reason!

LAWRENCE [in a passion]. Wait until I've finished my sentence. Because you've got me here under false pretences-you wrote that you had just returned from India, and longed to renew our acquaintance-instead of which you've renewed our quarrels.

LADY L. Didn't one include the other? [Laughing.] I'm sure it did, when we were boys.

LAWRENCE [walking furiously]. This is unbearable ! LADY L. [laughing still more]. The animal is strirred up, isn't it? Its dear little fur shouldn't be rubbed the wrong way, no it shouldn't! LAWRENCE [seizing hat]. Good evening, madam. The next time you see me under your roof, you'll know it. LADY L. [laughing]. Of course I shall. I'm not an idiot, though I am your cousin. [LAWRENCE rushes to LADY LUCY rushes after him and brings him down front]. Jack, you shall not go. LAWRENCE. I will.

door.

LADY L. You shan't. LAWRENCE.

If you were a man, I'd give you a good thrashing. You take advantage of your sex.

LADY L. [takes LAWRENCE by collar with both hands, and looks him in the face]. Jack Lawrence, who began this sparring? Not I. I wrote truly. I wrote truly. I did long to see you. To you I penned the first letter on arriving in England after my long exile in the East. I wanted to see Cousin Jack, and I wanted him to see a better Cousin Lucy than the hoyden who never let her lips tell the story of her heart. But when I rushed in to grasp your hand, I heard you denounce me as a vixen! I thought it a pity to disappoint you, and so I have-been-a vixen !

LAWRENCE [takes both of LADY LUCY's hands]. Forgive me, and name my punishment.

LADY L. [sweetly]. Your punishment? Let me see. Ah, you shall hold this paper while I cut it for spills. [They sit on same sofa, LAWRENCE getting as near to LADY LUCY as possible.] No, no, that won't do. You must sit further off, otherwise I can't cut properly. LAWRENCE. Never mind the paper.