am, in her dry, harsh voice, as I took a seat beside her and
opened my work-basket. "It is never advisable for any young lady to
affect singularity, and I have observed with some concern that your
demeanour on many occasions is very unlike that of the rest of your
sex."

I never give in to Aunt Horsingham--after all she's not _my own_
aunt--so I answered as pertly as ever I could:

"No: you mean I don't spend the morning in looking in the glass and
talking evil of my neighbours; I don't scream when I see a beetle, or
go into convulsions because there's a mouse in the room. I've got two
legs, very good legs, Aunt Horsingham--shall I show you them?--and I
like to use them, and to be out of doors amongst the trees and the
grass and the daisies, instead of counting stitches for work that
nobody wants or writing letters that nobody reads. I had rather give
Brilliant a good 'bucketing' (Aunt Horsingham shuddered; I knew she
would, and used the word on purpose) over an open heath or a line of
grass than go bodkin in a chariot, seven miles an hour, and both
windows up. Thank you, Aunt Horsingham; you would like to make a fine
lady of me--a useless, sickly, lackadaisical being instead of a
healthy, active, light-hearted woman. Much obliged to you; I had
rather stay as I am."

"Miss Coventry," said my aunt, who was completely posed by my
volubility, and apparently shocked beyond the power of expression at
my opinions--"Miss Coventry," she repeated, "if these are indeed your
sentiments, I must beg--nay, I must insist--on your keeping them to
yourself whilst under _this_ roof.--Amelia, my dear" (to my cousin,
who was gliding quietly into the room)--"Amelia, go back to your music
for ten minutes.--I must insist, Miss Coventry, that you do not
inoculate _my_ daughter with these pernicious doctrines--this mistaken
view of the whole duties and essentials of your sex. Do you think
_men_ appreciate a woman who, if she had but a beard, would be exactly
like one of themselves? Do you think they like to see their ideal hot
and dishevelled, plastered with mud, and draggled with wet? Do you
think they wish her to be strong and independent of them, and perhaps
their superior at those very sports and exercises on which they plume
themselves? Do you think they are to be taken by storm, and, so to
speak, bullied into admiration? You're wrong, Kate, you're wrong; and
I believe I am equally wrong to talk to you in this strain, inasmuch
as the a