I should like to see her for a little while spend money like water, buy all manner of useless lovely things, and dine and dance and go to plays." Mrs.Hope put up her glasses to regard her daughter.
"Dear me, Augusta, am I hearing right?
Who is more severe than you on the mad women who dance, and sup, and frivol their money away?
But there's something in what you say.

The bairn needs a playtime....

To think that Jeannie Laidlaw's son should change the whole of Jean's life.
Preposterous!" * * * * * Mrs.Duff-Whalley was having tea with Mrs.Jowett when the news was broken to her.

It was a party, but only, as Mrs.Duff-Whalley herself would have put it, "a purely local affair," meaning some people on the Hill.
Mrs.Jowett sat in her soft-toned room, pouring out tea into fragile cups with hands that seemed to demand lace ruffles, so white were they and transparent.

The room was like herself, exquisitely fresh and dainty; white walls hung with pale water-colours in gilt frames, Indian rugs of soft pinks and blues and greys, plump cushions in worked muslin covers that looked as if they were put on fresh every morning.
Photographs stood about of women looking sweetly into vacancy over the heads of pretty children, and books of verses, bound daintily in white and gold, lay on carved tables.
Mrs.Duff-Whalley did not care for Mrs.Jowett's tea-parties, and she always felt irritated by her drawing-room.