“They are your duty,” argued Ethel. “Duty brings peace.”
“They were not,” said Flora.
“They are now,” said Ethel.
“Dinners and parties, empty talk and vain show,” said Flora languidly. “Are you come to their defence, Ethel? If you could guess how sick one gets of them, and how much worse it is for them not to be hateful! And to think of bringing my poor little girl up to the like, if she is spared!”
“If they are not duties, I would not do them,” said Ethel.
“Ethel,” cried her sister, raising herself from her couch eagerly, “I will say it to you! What should you think of George resigning his seat, and living in peace here?”
“Would he?” said Ethel.
“If I wished it.”
“But what would he do with himself?” said Ethel, not in too complimentary a strain.
“Yachting, farming, Cochin-Chinese—or something,” said Flora. “Anything not so wearing as this!”