‘Because I wanted to make sure that they had been omitted,’ said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer severely.
Mrs. Beecher stooped and picked an invisible hairpin out of the rug. Mrs. Hunt Mortimer continued.
‘There is Byron, of course. But he is so very suggestive. There are passages in his works—’
‘I could never see any harm in them,’ said Mrs. Beecher.
‘That is because you did not know where to look,’ said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer. ‘If you have a copy in the house, Mrs. Beecher, I will undertake to make it abundantly clear to you that he is to be eschewed by those who wish to keep their thoughts unsullied. Not? I fancy that even quoting from memory I could convince you that it is better to avoid him.’
‘Pass Byron,’ said Mrs. Beecher, who was a very pretty little kittenish person, with no apparent need of any cosmetics, literary or otherwise. ‘How about Shelley?’
‘Frank raves about Shelley,’ observed Maude.
Mrs. Hunt Mortimer shook her head.
‘His work has some dreadful tendencies. He was, I am informed, either a theist or an atheist, I cannot for the moment recall which—I think that we should make our little course as improving as possible.’
‘Tennyson,’ Maude suggested.