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