Elizabeth. [With a smile.] Dear Ellen Terry!
C.-C. That’s Bwabs. I never saw a smarter man in my life. And Oliver Montagu. Henry Manners with his eye-glass.
Elizabeth. Nice-looking, isn’t he? And this?
C.-C. That’s Mary Anderson. I wish you could have seen her in “A Winter’s Tale.” Her beauty just took your breath away. And look! There’s Lady Randolph. Bernal Osborne—the wittiest man I ever knew.
Elizabeth. I think it’s too sweet. I love their absurd bustles and those tight sleeves.
C.-C. What figures they had! In those days a woman wasn’t supposed to be as thin as a rail and as flat as a pancake.
Elizabeth. Oh, but aren’t they laced in? How could they bear it?
C.-C. They didn’t play golf then, and nonsense like that, you know. They hunted, in a tall hat and a long black habit, and they were very gracious and charitable to the poor in the village.
Elizabeth. Did the poor like it?
C.-C. They had a very thin time if they didn’t. When they were in London they drove in the Park every afternoon, and they went to ten-course dinners, where they never met anybody they didn’t know. And they had their box at the opera when Patti was singing or Madame Albani.