val.

"The average parent says," she pursued, "that his or her daughter must
be kept pure-minded, and therefore must grow up in a fool's paradise. I
have no less liking for purity, but I understand it in rather a
different sense; certain examples of the common purity that I have met
with didn't entirely recommend themselves to me. Then again, the
average parent says that the daughter's lot in life is marriage, and
that after marriage is time enough for her to throw away the patent
rose-coloured spectacles. I, on the other hand, should be very sorry
indeed to think that Cecily has no lot in life besides marriage; to me
she seemed a human being to be instructed and developed, not a pretty
girl to be made ready for the market. The rose coloured spectacles had
no part whatever in my system. I have known some who threw them aside
at marriage, in the ordinary way, with the result that they thenceforth
looked on everything very obliquely indeed. I'm sorry to say that it
was my own fate to wear those spectacles, and I know only too well how
hard a struggle it cost me to recover healthy eyesight."

"Mine fell off and got broken long before I was married," said Eleanor,
"and my parents didn't think it worth while to buy new ones."

"Wise parents! No, I have steadily resisted the theory that a girl must
know nothing, think nothing, but what is likely to meet the approval of
the average husband--that is to say, the foolish, and worse than
foolish, husband. I see no such difference between girl and boy as
demands a difference in moral training; we know what comes of the
prevalent contrary views. And in Cecily's case, I believe I have
vindicated my theory. She respects herself; she knows all that lack of
self-respect involves. She has been fed on wholesome victuals, not on
adulterated milk. She is not haunted with that vulgar shame which
passes for maiden modesty. Do you find fault with her, as a girl?"

"I should have to ponder long for an objection."

"And what is the practical result? In whatever society she is, I am
quite easy in mind about her. Cecily will never do anything foolish.
It's only the rose-coloured spectacles that cause stumbling. And I mean
by 'stumbling' all the silliness to which girls are subject. Ah! if I
could live _my_ girlhood over again, and with some sensible woman to
guide me! If I could have been put on my guard against idiotic
illusions, as Cecily is!"

"We mustn't expect too much of education," El