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Hunstanton, and the best of cigarettes.

LADY HUNSTANTON. I am so sorry I was not here to listen to you,
but I suppose I am too old now to learn. Except from you, dear
Archdeacon, when you are in your nice pulpit. But then I always
know what you are going to say, so I don't feel alarmed. [Sees
MRS. ARBUTHNOT.] Ah! dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, do come and join us.
Come, dear. [Enter MRS. ARBUTHNOT.] Gerald has been having such a
long talk with Lord Illingworth; I am sure you must feel very much
flattered at the pleasant way in which everything has turned out
for him. Let us sit down. [They sit down.] And how is your
beautiful embroidery going on?

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I am always at work, Lady Hunstanton.

LADY HUNSTANTON. Mrs. Daubeny embroiders a little, too, doesn't
she?

THE ARCHDEACON. She was very deft with her needle once, quite a
Dorcas. But the gout has crippled her fingers a good deal. She
has not touched the tambour frame for nine or ten years. But she
has many other amusements. She is very much interested in her own
health.

LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah! that is always a nice distraction, in it not?
Now, what are you talking about, Lord Illingworth? Do tell us.

LORD ILLINGWORTH. I was on the point of explaining to Gerald that
the world has always laughed at its own tragedies, that being the
only way in which it has been able to bear them. And that,
consequently, whatever the world has treated seriously belongs to
the comedy side of things.

LADY HUNSTANTON. Now I am quite out of my depth. I usually am
when Lord Illingworth says anything. And the Humane Society is
most careless. They never rescue me. I am left to sink. I have a
dim idea, dear Lord Illingworth, that you are always on the side of
the sinners, and I know I always try to be on the side of the
saints, but that is as far as I get. And after all, it may be
merely the fancy of a drowning person.

LORD ILLINGWORTH. The only difference between the saint and the
sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a
future.

LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah! that quite does for me. I haven't a word to
say. You and I, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, are behind the age. We can't
follow Lord Illingworth. Too much care was taken with our
education, I am afraid. To have been well brought up is a great
drawback nowadays. It shuts one out from so much.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I should be sorry to follow Lord Illingworth in
any of his opinions.

LADY HUNSTANTON. You are quite right, dear.

[GERALD shrugs his shoulders and looks irritably over at his
mother. Enter LADY CAROLINE.]

LADY CAROLINE. Jane, have you seen John anywhere?

LADY HUNSTANTON. You needn't be anxious about him, dear. He is
with Lady Stutfield; I saw them some time ago, in the Yellow
Drawing-room. They seem quite happy together. You are not going,
Caroline? Pray sit down.

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