ee that if young Mr. Devans could have seen me alone but
one little minute that day, he wouldn't have planned a clandestine
meeting, and so make me do a very naughty thing, by walking alone with
him, after having been charged never to walk alone with any gentleman?"

"Yes, Miss."

"Well, Minny, I don't often reflect, you know--but the other day, after
I had received a note from Bernard, I sat down and reflected a long
time. And it was on this subject. And I came to the conclusion, that all
this watching--just raise that bandeau a trifle higher--and spying, for
it is nothing else, on the part of mammas and governesses, has a very
bad tendency, indeed. Don't you see that it throws a kind of mystery
about the men, and, right away, young girls--and it's natural for young
girls to be curious--want to find out what there is so very awful about
them, and go to work to do it?"

Minny looked up surprised; she had never heard her mistress talk so fast
and so long before.

"And then, Minny, see how many very young girls get married to men
almost old enough to be their grandfathers, here. Can't you see the
reason? It's so that they can be their own mistresses, and say and do
what they like. I've had them tell me so after marriage; and then
they're almost always sure to begin to flirt a little, and enjoy
themselves in this happy way they ought to have been left to do when
single; and then their old curmudgeons of husbands get jealous, and
angry, and then there are dreadful times! Oh, dear! I think it is a
terrible state of society!

"Now, Minny, I'll tell you just how I feel when a gentleman calls here.
There's mamma, and maybe the governess, in the parlor (now I would
rather have them there than not, if I didn't know just what they were
there for;) well, the governess fixes her eyes on me when I go in, and
seems to say, 'Don't forget your Grecian bend;' and mamma looks down at
my feet, and seems to say, 'Be sure and turn out your toes'--and the
consequence is, I forget both, and feel red all over, and know that I'm
acting like a very silly little fool. I sit down, and both pairs of
those eyes are on me; and both pairs of those ears are wide open, and
I'm as ungraceful as a giraffe; when I know, if left to act naturally,
and wasn't watched all the time, I could appear very well. Then a young
man here, no matter of how high family he is, or how good or how
worthy, if he happens to be ever so poor, and feels as if he'd like to
t