MISS REED: "Receive him in the parlor! Why, Nettie, dear, you're
crazy! I'm going to ACCEPT him: and how can I accept him--with all
the consequences--in a public parlor? No, indeed! If you won't meet
him here for a moment, just to oblige me, you can go into the other
room. Or, no--you'd be listening to every word through the key-hole,
you're so demoralized!"

MISS SPAULDING: "Yes, yes, I deserve your contempt, Ethel."

MISS REED, laughing: "You will have to go out for a walk, you poor
thing; and I'm not going to have you coming back in five or ten
minutes. You have got to stay out a good hour."

MISS SPAULDING, running to get her things from the next room: "Oh,
I'll stay out till midnight!"

MISS REED, responding to a tap at the door: "Ye-e-s! Come in!--
You're caught, Nettie."

A MAID-SERVANT, appearing with a card: "This gentleman is asking for
you in the parlor, Miss Reed."

MISS REED: "Oh! Ask him to come up here, please.--Nettie! Nettie!"
She calls to her friend in the next room. "He's coming right up, and
if you don't run you're trapped."

MISS SPAULDING, re-appearing, cloaked and bonneted: "I don't blame
YOU, Ethel, comparatively speaking. You can say that everything is
fair in love. He will like it, and laugh at it in you, because he'll
like everything you've done. Besides, you've no principles, and I