“Gwen says they were supremely happy staying with two cottagers.”
“Labourers! The girl must be demented. I could pass over their evading the religious ceremony; I am not bigoted, and pride myself on being large-minded; but when the flower of our aristocracy behave like shoe-blacks, I do think it is time to cry out. I cannot forgive them their want of good taste, and am inclined to believe they do it for effect.”
“Oh, dear! no, mother. They believe intensely in the reform of Society.”
“Such strong opinions are unseemly; and it is hardly the thing to take such a serious step in life, without advising your friends and acquaintances.”
“I do not see what Society has to do with private life,” answered Eva, who was standing at the foot of her mother’s couch.
“My dear child, it is downright anarchism! Where is the moral restraint that keeps us all in order! We may frown at dull, old Mrs Grundy; but no well-organised Society can very well do without her, after all.”
“Oh! Mrs Grundy died from the shock of seeing herself in nature’s garb. She was only a soured old schoolmistress, who each morning glanced at the columns of her Court Journal with suspicious eyes. She ran down the names of births, marriages and deaths, chuckling inwardly at the comforting feeling that all her social infants were well under her thumb, and that none had escaped her lynx eye.”
“I hear a ring at the bell,” suddenly interrupted Lady Carey.
“Do you expect anyone, mother dear?”
“Not anyone, dear child. But it is Thursday, and that used to be my day at home.” The dainty woman sighed heavily.