y young
woman who, after several years of matrimony, was ambitious of pushing
her conquests beyond the matrimonial limits; and with this object in
view did her best to be visible driving about with a succession of
guiltlessly apathetic admirers. "Poor Mrs. P----," said Lady Roden. "She
takes far more trouble in attempting to ruin her reputation than most
women do to preserve it; but all her attempts are vain."

Lady Dorothy's charm in conversation was due to an adventurous
whimsicality, perfectly natural, which was absent from Lady Roden's. She
saw everything through a medium of unexpected analogies. She was one day
asked in my hearing whether she had enjoyed herself at a Marlborough
House garden party. "My dear," she said, "half of the people there I had
never seen before in my life, and of those whom I _had_ seen, I thought
that half had been safe in Kensal Green." On another occasion, having
been at a fancy ball--balls were a kind of entertainment which she very
rarely frequented--and having been asked by a friend for an account of
it, she replied: "By far away the most remarkable figure was ----. There
she was--I don't know what she called herself--Diana in front, and
George the Second behind."

But of the conversational art which flourishes in small societies only I
could find the best examples, not among women, but among the men of what
was then an expiring generation--men whose manners had been formed in a
society smaller still. Alfred Montgomery was a wit of this classical
type, and may be taken as representing others, all of whom, when I knew
them, were verging on old age. These men, though free from any trace of
pedantry, were never guilty of slang, unless slang was used
intentionally for the purpose of humorous emphasis. Their conversation,
if taken down verbatim, would have afforded perfect specimens of
polished yet easy English. A lady of great wealth (who has long since
been dead, but who shall nevertheless be nameless) had been for a time
under some sort of social cloud, many influential people having
virtuously refused to notice her. Toward the end of her life, however,
the most august of all possible influences had raised her to a position
of such fashionable brilliance that a great ball given by her had been
the chief event of a season. Lady Roden asked Alfred Montgomery some
question as to who had, and who had not, been there. "When a woman like
Mrs. ---- gives a ball of that kind, it is," he said, "