was being changed very fast.  Mrs Pipkin knew that as well as others.  And therefore when Ruby went to the theatre once and again,—­by herself as far as Mrs Pipkin knew, but probably in company with her lover,—­and did not get home till past midnight, Mrs Pipkin said very little about it, attributing such novel circumstances to the altered condition of her country.  She had not been allowed to go to the theatre with a young man when she had been a girl,—­but that had been in the earlier days of Queen Victoria, fifteen years ago, before the new dispensation had come.  Ruby had never yet told the name of her lover to Mrs Pipkin, having answered all inquiries by saying that she was right.  Sir Felix’s name had never even been...