letters
she read in character one afternoon when Mary was changing her dress for
dinner.

"Oh, Helen, you shouldn't," said Mary, laughing in spite of herself and
feeling ashamed of it the same moment. "I think it's awful to make fun of
people who write you like that."

"Pooh!" laughed Helen. "They're all such fo-oo-ools!"

"You don't think that of all men, do you!"

"Why not?" laughed Helen again, and tucking the letters into her waist
she started humming. Unobserved Ma'm Maynard had entered to straighten
the room and, through the mirror, Mary saw her grimly nodding her head.

"Why, Ma'm Maynard," said Mary, "you don't think that all men are fools,
too, do you?"

"Eet is not halways safe to say what one believes," said Ma'm, pursing
her lips with mystery. "Eef mademoiselles, your aunts, should get to
hear--"

"Oh, I won't tell."

"Then, yes, ma cherie, I think at times all men are fools ... and I think
it is also good at times to make a fool of man. For why? Because it is
revenge.

"Ah, ma cherie, I who have been three times wed--I tell you I often think
the old-world view is right. Man is the natural enemy of a woman.

"He is not to be trus'.

"I have heard it discuss' by great minds--things I cannot tell you
yet--but you will learn them as you live. And halways the same conclusion
arrives: Man is the natural enemy of a woman, and the one best way to
keep him from making a fool of you, is to turn 'round queeck and make it
a fool of him!"

"Oh, Ma'm Maynard, no!" protested Mary, who had turned from the mirror
and was staring with wide eyes. "I can't believe it--never!"

"What is it, ma cherie, which you cannot believe?"

"That man is woman's natural enemy."

"But I tell you, yes, yes.... It has halways been so and it halways will.
Everything that lives has its own natural enemy--and a woman's natural
enemy--it is man!

"Think just for a moment, ma cherie," she continued. "Why are parents so
careful? Mon Dieu, you would think it at times that a tiger is out in the
streets at night--such precautions are made if the girl she is out after
dark. And yes, but the parents are right. There is truly a tiger who
roams in the black, but his name--eet is Man!

"Think just for a moment, ma cherie. Why are chaperons require'--even in
the highest, most culture' society? Why is marriage require'? Is it not
because all the world knows well that a man cannot be left to his own
promise, but has to be bound by the l