tem, the leader of a sort of informal salon where girls congregate,
read papers, and daringly discuss metaphysical problems and candy--a
sloe-eyed, black-browed, imperious maiden she.

Item, a very small maiden, absolutely without reverence, who can in one
swift sentence trample upon and leave gasping half a dozen young men.

Item, a millionairess, burdened with her money, lonely, caustic, with
a tongue keen as a sword, yearning for a sphere, but chained up to the
rock of her vast possessions.

Item, a typewriter maiden earning her own bread in this big city,
because she doesn't think a girl ought to be a burden on her parents,
who quotes Theophile Gautier and moves through the world manfully, much
respected for all her twenty inexperienced summers.

Item, a woman from cloud-land who has no history in the past or future,
but is discreetly of the present, and strives for the confidences
of male humanity on the grounds of "sympathy" (methinks this is not
altogether a new type).

Item, a girl in a "dive," blessed with a Greek head and eyes, that seem
to speak all that is best and sweetest in the world. But woe is me! She
has no ideas in this world or the next beyond the consumption of beer
(a commission on each bottle), and protests that she sings the songs
allotted to her nightly without more than the vaguest notion of their
meaning.

Sweet and comely are the maidens of Devonshire; delicate and of gracious
seeming those who live in the pleasant places of London; fascinating for
all their demureness the damsels of France, clinging closely to their
mothers, with large eyes wondering at the wicked world; excellent in her
own place and to those who understand her is the Anglo-Indian "spin" in
her second season; but the girls of America are above and beyond them
all. They are clever, they can talk--yea, it is said that they think.
Certainly they have an appearance of so doing which is delightfully
deceptive.

They are original, and regard you between the brows with unabashed eyes
as a sister might look at her brother. They are instructed, too, in the
folly and vanity of the male mind, for they have associated with "the
boys" from babyhood, and can discerningly minister to both vices or
pleasantly snub the possessor. They possess, moreover, a life among
themselves, independent of any masculine associations. They have
societies and clubs and unlimited tea-fights where all the guests are
girls. They are self-possessed, wi