I'll drag him to theirs. We'll show him an Ophelia! that Mary Conners is
a little genius."

"She is wonderful," agreed Miss Masters. "The grace of her! The dignity!
What she herself would call the culture-an'-refinement!"

"All my discovery. That tyrant of a Rosie Rosenbaum had cast her as a
quick change, general utility woman. And in the day-time you tell me
she's a miserable little shop-girl in a Grand Street rookery!"

"That is what she used to be. But I went to the shop a day or two ago
to ask her to come up to my house to rehearse with the new Hamlet. I
watched her for a few moments before she noticed me. She was Ophelia to
the life. She conversed in blank verse. She walked about with that
little queenly air you have taught her. She was delicious, adorable. At
first she said that she could not rehearse that night, but I told her
you wished it and she came like a lamb. I often wonder if I did a wise
thing in introducing them to you. Your sort of culture-an'-refinement'
may rather upset them when the play is over and we all settle back to
the humdrum."

"You did a great kindness to me," said he, "and the best stroke of
missionary work you'll do in a dog's age. I'm going to work."

"You are not," she laughed.

"I am. Shamed into it by the Lady Hyacinths."

"Then perhaps the balance will be maintained. If you turn them against
labor they will have turned you toward it."