pair of my gloves, and apologize to her for their being so _large_
that she can get both her hands into one.

Now the only thing we ever fall out about is what my aunt calls
_propriety_. I had a French governess once who left because I pinned
the tail of Cousin John's kite to her skirt, and put white mice in her
work-box; and she was always lecturing me about what she called "_les
convenances_." Aunt Deborah don't speak much French, though she says
she understands it perfectly, and she never lets me alone about
propriety. When I came home from church that rainy Sunday with Colonel
Bingham, under his umbrella (a cotton one), Aunt Deborah lectured me
on the impropriety of such a thing--though the Colonel is forty if he
is a day, and told me repeatedly he was a "safe old gentleman." I
didn't think him at all dangerous, I'm sure. I rode a race against Bob
Dashwood the other morning, once round the inner ring, down Rotten
Row, to finish in front of Apsley House, and beat him all to ribbons.
Wasn't it fun? And didn't I kick the dirt in his face? He looked like
a wall that's been fresh plastered when he pulled up. I don't know who
told Aunt Deborah. It wasn't the coachman, for he said he wouldn't;
but she heard of it somehow, and of course she said it was _improper_
and unladylike, and even _unfeminine_--as if anything a woman does can
be unfeminine. I know Bob didn't think so, though he got the worst of
it every way.

To be sure, we women are sadly kept down in this world, whatever we
shall be in the next. If they would only let us try, I think we could
beat the "lords of the creation," as they call themselves, at
everything they undertake. Dear me, they talk about our weakness and
vanity--why, they never know their own minds for two minutes together;
and as for vanity, only tell a man you think him good-looking, and he
falls in love with you directly; or if that is too great _a
bounce_--and indeed very few of them have the slightest pretensions to
beauty--you need only hint that he rides gallantly, or waltzes nicely,
or wears neat boots, and it will do quite as well. I recollect
perfectly that Cousin Emily made her great marriage--five thousand a
year and the chance of a baronetcy--by telling her partner in a
quadrille, quite innocently, that "she should know his figure
anywhere." The man had a hump, and one leg shorter than the other; but
he thought Emily was dying for him, and proposed within a fortnight.
Emily is an a