rtless creature--"good, common-sense," Aunt Deborah calls
it--and so she threw over Harry Bloomfield and married the hump and
the legs that didn't match and the chance of the baronetcy forthwith;
and now they say he beats her, and I think it serves her right.

But we women--gracious! if we only take the trouble we can turn the
whole male sex round our little fingers. Who ever saw half a dozen of
us hovering and watching and fussing round a masculine biped, thankful
even to be _snubbed_ rather than not noticed at all. Who ever saw us
fetch and carry like so many retrievers, and "sit up," so to speak,
for a withered rose-bud at the fag end of an over-blown bouquet. Not
that we don't love flowers in their proper places, and _keep_ them
too, sometimes long after their colour has faded and their perfume
gone; but we don't make a parade of such things, and have the grace to
be ashamed of ourselves when we are so foolish.

But it's quite different with men. They give in to us about everything
if we only insist--and it's our own fault if we don't insist; for, of
course, if they find us complying and ready to oblige, why, there's no
end to their audacity. "Give 'em an inch, and they take an ell."
However, they do try to keep us down as much as they can. Now there's
that very exercise of riding that they are so proud of. They get us a
side-saddle, as they call it, of enormous weight and inconvenience, on
which they plant pommels enough to impale three women; they place us
in an attitude from which it is next to impossible to control a horse
should he be violent, and in a dress which ensures a horrible accident
should he fall; added to which, they constantly give us the worst
quadruped in the stable; and yet, with all these drawbacks, such is
our own innate talent and capacity, we ride many an impetuous steed in
safety and comfort that a man would find a dangerous and
incontrollable "mount." For my part, I only wish I had been born a
man--that's to say, if I could keep my own ideas and feelings. To be
sure, I should lose a good many personal adornments; not that I'm vain
enough to consider myself a beauty, but still one cannot help being
anxious about one's own appearance, particularly if one has a
full-length glass in one's bedroom. I need not be ashamed to own that
I know I've got bright eyes, and good teeth, and a fresh colour, and
loads of soft brown hair, and not a bad figure--so my dressmaker tells
me; though I think myself