LADY CAROLINE. I am not sure, Miss Worsley, that foreigners like
yourself should cultivate likes or dislikes about the people they
are invited to meet. Mrs. Allonby is very well born. She is a
niece of Lord Brancaster's. It is said, of course, that she ran
away twice before she was married. But you know how unfair people
often are. I myself don't believe she ran away more than once.

HESTER. Mr. Arbuthnot is very charming.

LADY CAROLINE. Ah, yes! the young man who has a post in a bank.
Lady Hunstanton is most kind in asking him here, and Lord
Illingworth seems to have taken quite a fancy to him. I am not
sure, however, that Jane is right in taking him out of his
position. In my young days, Miss Worsley, one never met any one in
society who worked for their living. It was not considered the
thing.

HESTER. In America those are the people we respect most.

LADY CAROLINE. I have no doubt of it.

HESTER. Mr. Arbuthnot has a beautiful nature! He is so simple, so
sincere. He has one of the most beautiful natures I have ever come
across. It is a privilege to meet HIM.

LADY CAROLINE. It is not customary in England, Miss Worsley, for a
young lady to speak with such enthusiasm of any person of the
opposite sex. English women conceal their feelings till after they
are married. They show them then.