"Don't ring the bell, uncle; you will alarm my aunt."

"Your poor dear aunt, what a niece has she!"

"Once I loved Socrates."

"Pooh! no trifling, ma'am."

"I admired Themistocles, Leonidas, Epaminondas."

"Miss Keeldar——"

"To pass over a few centuries, Washington was a plain man, but I liked him; but to speak of the actual present——"

"Ah! the actual present."

"To quit crude schoolgirl fancies, and come to realities."

"Realities! That is the test to which you shall be brought, ma'am."