meet._

JEM (_rises_): No! I tell you I can't stand it!

KITTY: And why not? I always went out with the guns at home.

JEM: "At home" and your husband's house are two very different places.

KITTY: So I find!

JEM: And I have told you over and over again I detest to see any
woman--more especially a girl of eighteen, like yourself--tramping over
the moors in gaiters, and a skirt by a long way too short!

KITTY: Perhaps, with your old-maidish ideas, you would like to see me
taking my walks abroad with a train as long as my Court frock!

JEM: Perversity!

KITTY: I only know that papa, mamma, and grandmamma always said----

JEM: Ah! But your grandmother----

KITTY: How dare you speak in that way of dear grandmamma?

JEM: I never said a word against her----

KITTY: But you were going to!

JEM: Nothing of the sort.

KITTY (_repeats_): I only know that papa, mamma, and grandmamma always
said----

JEM: Oh, Heavens! (_He escapes._)

KITTY: Was ever anyone so wretched as I? Only three months married, and
to find my husband an obstinate, vindictive, strait-laced country
bumpkin! Well, not a bumpkin perhaps, after all, but almost as bad as
that! Why, oh! why did I leave my happy home, where I could do what I
liked from morning till night, and no one was ever disagreeable to me?
And yet during my engagement what a lovely time I had! Jem seemed so
kind and gentle, and promised me he would never say a cross word to me!
He declared our married life should be one long sunshiny summer day;
whilst I promised to be his little ministering angel! I reminded him of
that yesterday. And what did he say? That he had never thought a little
ministering angel could be such a little brute! I can hardly believe he
is the same man I used to love so dearly! (_Exit in tears._)

(_After a moment, PORTER, the lady's-maid, enters, ushering in LADY
FLORENCE BEAUCHAMP._)

LADY FLO: Your mistress is not here, after all, Porter?

PORTER: No, milady! Yet I heard her voice only a few moments ago.

LADY FLO: Well then, Porter, you must go and tell her a lady wishes to
speak with her in the boudoir, and be sure not to say who the "lady" is,
however much she may ask. I wish this visit to be a little surprise to
her. Nor must you mention that Sir William is here.

(_Enter KITTY, with traces of tears on her face._)

LADY FLO: Kitty, darling, Kitty!

KITTY: Aunty! Can it be you? This is delightful! (_They embrace._)

LADY FLO: I'm glad y