m told that the small-footed
woman of China is of the past, along with the long finger-nails of our
gentlemen and scholars; and I am asked why I do not unbind my feet.
I say, "I am too old; I have suffered in the binding, why suffer in the
unbinding?" I have conceded to the new order by allowing unbound
feet to all my girls, and everywhere my family is held up as an
example of the new Chinese. They do not know of the many bitter
tears I have shed over the thought that my daughters would look like
women of the servant class and perhaps not make a good marriage;
but I was forced to yield to their father, whose foreign travel had taught
him to see beauty in ugly, natural feet. Even now, when I see Wan-li
striding across the grass, I blush for her and wish she could walk
more gracefully. My feet caused me many moons of pain, but they
are one of the great marks of my lady-hood, and I yet feel proud as I
come into a room with the gentle swaying motions of the bamboo in a
breeze; although my daughter who supports me takes one great step
to five of mine.

The curse of foot binding does not fall so heavily upon women like
myself, who may sit and broider the whole day through, or, if needs
must travel, can be borne upon the shoulders of their chair bearers,
but it is a bane to the poor girl whose parents hope to have one in the
family who may marry above their station, and hoping thus, bind her
feet. If this marriage fails and she is forced to work within her
household, or, even worse, if she is forced to toil within the fields or
add her mite gained by most heavy labour to help fill the many eager
mouths at home, then she should have our pity. We have all seen the
small-footed woman pulling heavy boats along the tow-path, or leaning
on their hoes to rest their tired feet while working in the fields of
cotton. To her each day is a day of pain; and this new law forbidding
the binding of the feet of children will come as Heaven's blessing. But
it will not cease at once, as so many loudly now proclaim. It will take
at least three generations; her children's children will all quite likely
have natural feet. The people far in the country, far from the noise of
change and progress, will not feel immediately that they can wander
so far afield from the old ideas of what is beautiful in their womanhood.

I notice, as I open wide my casement, that the rain has come, and
across the distant fields it is falling upon the new-sown rice and
s