she has dropped her spectacles into the tea-cup. But to what end, Miss
"Bunce."
"To what end, Miss Bunce, are you preserving them?"
"Madam, when you entered the room I was of your way of thinking. Book after book that I read"—Miss Bunce blushed at this point—"has displayed before me the delights of that quick artistic life that you glory in following. I have eaten out my heart in longing. But now that I see how it coarsens a women—for it is coarse to sneer at age, in spite of all you may say about uselessness being no better for being protracted over much time"
"You are partly right," Joanna interrupted, "although you mistake the accident for the essence. I am only coarse when confronted by respectability. Nevertheless, I am glad if I reconcile you to your lot."
"But the point is," insisted Miss Bunce, "that a lady never forgets herself."
"And you would argue that the being liable to forget myself is only another development of
