per was unbearable till she
had it knocked out of her at school."

"Matilda's temper was good enough till lately," growled the Major.

"She says Dr. O'Connor's brother, who is the medical officer of a
lunatic asylum somewhere in Tipperary," continued Aunt Theresa,
"declares all mad women go out of their minds through ill-temper. He's
written a book about it."

"Heaven defend me, mind and body, from the theories of that astute
practitioner!" said Uncle Buller piously.

"It's all very well making fun of it, but everybody tells one that girls
are more trouble than any number of boys. I'm sure I don't remember
giving my mother any particular trouble when I was Matilda's age, but
the stories I've heard to-day are enough to make one's hair stand on
end. Mrs. Minchin knew another girl, who lost all her appetite just like
Matilda, and she had a very sulky temper too, and at last they found out
she used to eat black-beetles. She was a Creole, or something of that
sort, I believe, but they couldn't stop her. The Minchins knew her when
they were in the West Indies, when he was in the 209th; or, at least, it
was there they heard about her. The houses swarmed with black-beetles."

"A most useful young lady," said Uncle Buller. "Does Matilda dine on our
native beetles, my dear? She hasn't touched my humble collection."

"Oh, if you make fun of everything----" Aunt Theresa began; but at this
moment Mrs. St. John was announced.

After the customary civilities, Aunt Theresa soon began to talk of poor
Matilda, and Mrs. St. John entered warmly into the subject.

To do the ladies of the regiment justice, they sympathized freely with
each other's domestic troubles; and indeed it was not for lack of taking
counsel that any of them had any domestic troubles at all.

"Girls are a good deal more difficult to manage than boys, I'm afraid,"
sighed Aunt Theresa, repeating Mrs. O'Connor's _dictum_.

"Women are _dreadful_ creatures at any age," said Mrs. St. John to the
Major, opening her brown eyes in the way she always does when she is
talking to a gentleman. "I always _longed_ to have been a man."

[Eleanor says she hates to hear girls say they wish they were boys. If
they do wish it, I do not myself see why they should not say so. But one
thing has always struck me as very odd. If you meet a woman who is
incomparably silly, who does not know an art or a trade by which she
could keep herself from starvation, who could not manage the
a