st, who was intended for the American marriage market, has
developed political tendencies, and writes pamphlets about the housing of
the poor. Of course it's a most important question, and I devote a good
deal of time to it myself in the mornings; but, as Laura Whimple says,
it's as well to have an establishment of one's own before agitating about
other people's. She feels it very keenly, but she always maintains a
cheerful appetite, which I think is so unselfish of her."

"There are different ways of taking disappointment. There was a girl I
knew who nursed a wealthy uncle through a long illness, borne by her with
Christian fortitude, and then he died and left his money to a swine-fever
hospital. She found she'd about cleared stock in fortitude by that time,
and now she gives drawing-room recitations. That's what I call being
vindictive."

"Life is full of its disappointments," observed the Duchess, "and I
suppose the art of being happy is to disguise them as illusions. But
that, my dear Reginald, becomes more difficult as one grows older."

"I think it's more generally practised than you imagine. The young have
aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what
never happened. It's only the middle-aged who are really conscious of
their limitations--that is why one should be so patient with them. But
one never is."

"After all," said the Duchess, "the disillusions of life may depend on
our way of assessing it. In the minds of those who come after us we may
be remembered for qualities and successes which we quite left out of the
reckoning."

"It's not always safe to depend on the commemorative tendencies of those
who come after us. There may have been disillusionments in the lives of
the mediaeval saints, but they would scarcely have been better pleased if
they could have foreseen that their names would be associated nowadays
chiefly with racehorses and the cheaper clarets. And now, if you can
tear yourself away from the salted almonds, we'll go and have coffee
under the palms that are so necessary for our discomfort."

REGINALD ON BESETTING SINS: THE WOMAN WHO TOLD THE TRUTH

There was once (said Reginald) a woman who told the truth. Not all at
once, of course, but the habit grew upon her gradually, like lichen on an
apparently healthy tree. She had no children--otherwise it might have
been different. It began with little things, for no particular reason
except that he