mina, sharply. "It was their own fault that they ever required
such trumpery, entailing upon their posterity a curse as bad as the
thorns and thistles. For I always consider it as such, when sweltering
under the weight of gowns and petticoats on a hot day; and I rate
Mother Eve roundly, and in no measured terms, for her folly in losing
the glorious privilege of walking in buff."

"You must have been thinking of that," said Flora, rather mischievously,
and glancing down at Miss Wilhelmina's legs, "when you cut your
petticoats so short."

"You are welcome to laugh at any short petticoats," said Wilhelmina, "as
long as I feel the comfort of wearing them. Now do tell me,
candidly,--what impropriety is there in a woman showing her leg and
foot, more than in another woman showing her hand and arm? The evil lies
in your own thoughts. You see the Bavarian buy-a-broom girls passing
before your windows every day, with petticoats cut three or four inches
shorter than mine. You perceive no harm in that. 'It is the fashion of
her country,' you cry. Custom banishes from our minds the idea of
impropriety; and the naked savage of the woods is as modest as the
closely covered civilian. Now, why am I compelled to wear long
petticoats drabbling in the mud, when a Bavarian may wear hers up to the
knees, and nobody think the worse of her? I am as much a free agent as
she is; have as much right to wear what I please. I like short
petticoats--I can walk better in them--they neither take up the dust or
the mud, and leave my motions free and untrammelled--and what's more, I
mean to wear them.

"I have tried trowsers; but they fettered me. It is difficult to stow a
large figure like mine away into trowsers. I felt as if my legs were in
the stocks, and kicked them off in disdain--simply remarking--'what
fools men are!' So, you don't like my short petticoats? and I hate your
long ones. First, because they are slatternly and inconvenient;
secondly, because they make your stockings dirty; and thirdly, because
they give you the idea that they are intended to conceal crooked legs.
So don't say one word in their favour."

"It is but a matter of taste and opinion," said Flora; "we will not
quarrel about it. I think it wiser, however, in order to avoid
singularity, to conform to existing fashions."

"Mrs. Lyndsay, I can prove to you in less than two minutes, that you
transgress daily your own rules." Flora looked incredulous.

"You do not wear a _