OCEANA. And then the saloons! Rows and rows of them! It is ghastly!
LETITIA. My dear cousin, mother and I contribute regularly to a temperance society.
OCEANA. But that hasn't helped, has it? I'm almost wild about such things—they were the real reason I came home, you know.
MRS. MASTERSON. How do you mean?
OCEANA. They had got to my island! They are turning it into a hell!
DR. MASTERSON. In what way?
OCEANA. Why, it's a long story. I didn't write... it would have taken too long. Two years ago there was a ship laid up... and the crew found, quite by accident, that our island rock is all phosphate; something very valuable... for fertilizer, it seems. So they bought land from the natives, and now there's a company, and a trading-post, and all that. And oh, my people are going all to pieces!
MRS. MASTERSON. The natives, you mean?
OCEANA. Yes... the people I have loved all my life. And I've tried so hard... I've pleaded with them, I've wept and prayed with them! But they're lost!
LETITIA. You mean rum?