if they like. But let me be a butterfly.

Women, at all events, ought to dress prettily. It is their duty. They
are the flowers of the earth and were meant to show it up. We abuse them
a good deal, we men; but, goodness knows, the old world would be dull
enough without their dresses and fair faces. How they brighten up
every place they come into! What a sunny commotion they--relations,
of course---make in our dingy bachelor chambers! and what a delightful
litter their ribbons and laces, and gloves and hats, and parasols and
'kerchiefs make! It is as if a wandering rainbow had dropped in to pay
us a visit.

It is one of the chief charms of the summer, to my mind, the way our
little maids come out in pretty colors. I like to see the pink and blue
and white glancing between the trees, dotting the green fields, and
flashing back the sunlight. You can see the bright colors such a long
way off. There are four white dresses climbing a hill in front of my
window now. I can see them distinctly, though it is three miles away. I
thought at first they were mile-stones out for a lark. It's so nice to
be able to see the darlings a long way off. Especially if they happen to
be your wife and your mother-in-law.

Talking of fields and mile-stones reminds me that I want to say, in all
seriousness, a few words about women's boots. The women of these islands
all wear boots too big for them. They can never get a boot to fit. The
bootmakers do not keep sizes small enough.

Over and over again have I known women sit down on the top rail of a
stile and declare they could not go a step further because their boots
hurt them so; and it has always been the same complaint--too big.

It is time this state of things was altered. In the name of the husbands
and fathers of England, I call upon the bootmakers to reform. Our wives,
our daughters, and our cousins are not to be lamed and tortured with
impunity. Why cannot "narrow twos" be kept more in stock? That is the
size I find most women take.

The waist-band is another item of feminine apparel that is always too
big. The dressmakers make these things so loose that the hooks and eyes
by which they are fastened burst off, every now and then, with a report
like thunder.

Why women suffer these wrongs--why they do not insist in having their
clothes made small enough for them I cannot conceive. It can hardly be
that they are disinclined to trouble themselves about matters of mere
dress, for dress