(Jessie not immediately answering, Dora comes to her assistance)

Dora.  Not above three-quarters of an hour, I think, Jess?

Jessie (putting her finger up).  Now, Dorothy, you needn’t talk, you know!

L. I know she needn’t, Jessie, I shall ask her about those dark plaits presently. (Dora looks round to see if there is any way open for retreat) But never mind, it was worth the time, whatever it was, and nobody will ever mistake that golden wreath for a chignon:  but if you don’t want it to be seen you had better wear a cap.

Jessie.  Ah, now, are you really going to do nothing but play?  And we all have been thinking, and thinking, all day, and hoping you would tell us things, and now—!

L. And now I am telling you things, and true things, and things good for you, and you won’t believe me.  You might as well have let me go to sleep at once, as I wanted to. (Endeavors again to make himself comfortable.)

Isabel.  Oh, no, no, you sha’n’t go to sleep, you naughty!—­ Kathleen, come here.

L. (knowing what he has to expect if Kathleen comes).  Get away, Isabel, you’re too heavy. (Sitting up.) What have I been saying?

Dora.  I do believe he has been asleep all the time!  You never heard anything like the things you’ve been saying.

L. Perhaps not.  If you have heard them, and anything like them, it is all I want.

Egypt.  Yes, but we don’t understand, and you know we don’t; and we want to.

L. What did I say first?

Dora.  That the first virtue of girls was wanting to go to balls.

L. I said nothing of the kind.

Jessie.  “Always wanting to dance,” you said.

L. Yes, and that’s true.  Their first virtue is to be intensely happy;—­so happy that they don’t know what to do with themselves for happiness,—­and dance, instead of walking.  Don’t you recollect “Louisa,”

    “No fountain from a rocky cave
    E’er tripped with foot so free;
    She seemed as happy as a wave
    That dances on the sea.”

A girl is always like that, when everything’s right with her.

Violet.  But, surely, one must be sad sometimes?

L. Yes, Violet and dull sometimes and stupid sometimes, and cross sometimes.  What must be, must; but it is always either our own fault, or somebody else’s.  The last and worst thing that can be said of a nation is, that it has made its young girls sad, and weary.

May.  But I am sure I have heard a great many good people speak against dancing?

L. Yes, May, but it does not follow they were wise as well as good.  I suppose they think Jeremiah liked better to have to write Lamentations for his people, than to have to write that promise for them, which everybody seems to hurry past, that they may get on quickly to the verse about Rachel weeping for her children, though the verse they pass is the counter blessing to that one:  “Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance; and both young men and old together, and I will turn their mourning into joy.”