ll
our headaches, and we worked twice as well, both at midday work and at
getting lessons ready for next day after dinner. I know----"

"Tais-toi, Lucy!" hissed Peony through her teeth. "Madame!"

"Donnez-moi cette grammaire, Marguerite, s'il vous plait," said Lucy, as
Madame entered.

And I gave her the grammar, and we set to work again, full of envy for
the domestic arrangements of Miss Martin's establishment during the dog
days.

If there is a point on which Eleanor and I are quite agreed, among the
many points we discuss and do not always agree upon, it is that of the
need for a higher education for women. But ill as I think our sex
provided for in this respect, and highly as I value good teaching, I
would rather send a growing girl to a Miss Martin, even for fewer
"educational advantages," and let her start in life with a sound,
healthy constitution and a reasonable set of nerves, than have her head
crammed and her health neglected under "the first masters," and so good
an overseer as "Madame" to boot. For Madame certainly made us work, and
was herself indefatigable.

The reckless imprudence of most girls in matters of health is
proverbial, the wisdom of young matrons in this respect is not beyond
reproach, and the lore which long and painful experience has given to
older women is apt, like other lessons from that stern teacher, to come
too late. It should at least avail to benefit their daughters, were it
not that custom prescribes that they also should be kept in the dark
till instructed in turn by the lamentable results of their ignorance,
too often only when these are past repair.

Whether, though there are many things that women have no knowledge of,
and many more of which their knowledge is superficial, their lack of
learning on these points being erudition compared with their crass
ignorance of the laws of health, the matter is again one of education;
or whether it is an unfortunate development of a confusion between
ignorance and innocence, and of mistaken notions of delicacy, who shall
say? Unhappily, a studied ignorance of the ills that flesh is heir to is
apt to bring them in double force about one's ears, and this kind of
delicate-mindedness to bring delicacy of body in its train. Where it
guides the counsels of those in charge of numbers of young people (as in
Miss Mulberry's case), it is apt to result in the delicacy (more or
less permanent) of several bodies.

But I am forgetting that I am n