seeing into how many different forms it can be twisted. It looks
clever; as a matter of fact, it is extremely easy.

Be virtuous and you will be happy.

She jots down all the possible variations: Be virtuous and you will
be unhappy.

"Too simple that one," she tells herself. Be virtuous and your
friends will be happy if you are not.

"Better, but not wicked enough. Let us think again. Be happy and
people will jump to the conclusion that you are virtuous.

"That's good, I'll try that one at to-morrow's party."

She is a painstaking lady. One feels that, better advised, she might
have been of use in the world.

There is likewise a disgraceful old Peer who tells naughty stories,
but who is good at heart; and one person so very rude that the wonder
is who invited him.

Occasionally a slangy girl is included, and a clergyman, who takes
the heroine aside and talks sense to her, flavoured with epigram.
All these people chatter a mixture of Lord Chesterfield and Oliver
Wendell Holmes, of Heine, Voltaire, Madame de Stael, and the late
lamented H. J. Byron. "How they do it beats me," as I once overheard
at a music hall a stout lady confess to her friend while witnessing
the performance of a clever troup, styling themselves "The Boneless