k. But on the other hand,
should she grow to womanhood with wings, she would be no true mate to a
wingless man unless she could also walk. No, we must see to it that she
both flies and walks. In that case, she will be a perfect mate to the
wingless man. Her strength will not be as great as his--but her facility
will be greater. She will walk well enough to keep by his side; and her
flying will supplement his powers."

"And then--oh, don't you see it--don't you see why we must
fight--fight--fight for Angela, don't you see why her wings are a sacred
trust with us? Sometime, there will be born here----Clara," she turned
her look on Clara's excited face, "it may be the baby that's coming to
you in the spring--sometime there will be born here a boy with wings.
Then more and more often they will come until there are as many winged
men as winged women. What will become of our girl-children then if their
mates fly as well as walk away from them. There is only one way out. And
there is only one duty before us--to learn to walk that we may teach our
daughters to walk--to preserve our daughter's wings that they may teach
their sons to fly."

"But, Julia," Peachy exclaimed, after an instant of dead silence.
There was a stir of wonder, flutelike in her voice, a ripple of wonder,
flamelike on her face. "Our feet are too fine, too soft. Ralph says
that mine are only toy feet, that no creature could really get along on
them."

She kicked the loose sandals off. Tiny, slim, delicately chiseled, her
feet were of a china whiteness, except where, at the tips, the toes
showed a rose-flush or where, over the instep, the veins meandered in a
blue network.

"Of course Peachy's feet are smaller than mine," Lulu said wistfully.
"But even my workaday little pads wouldn't carry me many steps." From
under her skirts appeared a pair of capable-looking, brown feet, square,
broad but little and satin-smooth.

"Mine are quite useless," Chiquita sighed. "Oh, why did I let myself
grow so big?" There was a note of despair in her velvet voice. "It's
almost as if there were no muscles in them." She pulled aside her
scarlet draperies. In spite of her increasing size, her dusky feet had
kept their aristocratic Andalusian lines.

"And I've always done just the things that would make it impossible for
me to walk," said Clara in a discouraged tone. "I've always taken as
much care of my feet as my hands--they're like glass." This was true. In
the pale-gold