. I said their second virtue was
dressing.

MARY. Well! what did you mean by that?

L. What do _you_ mean by dressing?

MARY. Wearing fine clothes.

L. Ah! there's the mistake. _I_ mean wearing plain ones.

MARY. Yes, I daresay! but that's not what girls understand by dressing,
you know.

L. I can't help that. If they understand by dressing, buying dresses,
perhaps they also understand by drawing, buying pictures. But when I
hear them say they can draw, I understand that they can make a drawing;
and when I hear them say they can dress, I understand that they can make
a dress and--which is quite as difficult--wear one.

DORA. I'm not sure about the making; for the wearing, we can all wear
them--out, before anybody expects it.

EGYPT (_aside, to_ L., _piteously_). Indeed I have mended that torn
flounce quite neatly; look if I haven't!

L. (_aside, to_ EGYPT). All right; don't be afraid. (_Aloud to_ DORA.)
Yes, doubtless; but you know that is only a slow way of _un_dressing.

DORA. Then, we are all to learn dress-making, are we?

L. Yes; and always to dress yourselves beautifully--not finely, unless
on occasion; but then very finely and beautifully too. Also, you are to
dress as many other people as you can; and to teach them how to dress,
if they don't know; and to consider every ill-dressed woman or child
whom you see anywhere, as a personal disgrace; and to get at them,
somehow, until everybody is as beautifully dressed as birds.

(_Silence; the children drawing their breaths hard, as if
they had come from under a shower bath._)

L (_seeing objections begin to express themselves in the eyes_). Now you
needn't say you can't; for you can: and it's what you were meant to do,
always; and to dress your houses, and your gardens, too; and to do very
little else, I believe, except singing; and dancing, as we said, of
course; and--one thing more.

DORA. Our third and last virtue, I suppose?

L. Yes; on Violet's system of triplicities.

DORA. Well, we are prepared for anything now. What is it?

L. Cooking.

DORA. Cardinal, indeed! If only Beatrice were here with her seven
handmaids, that she might see what a fine eighth we had found for her!

MARY. And the interpretation? What does 'cooking' mean?

L. It means the knowledge of Medea, and of Circe, and of Calypso, and of
Helen, and of Rebekah, and of the Queen of Sheba. It means the knowledge
of all herbs, and fruits, and balms, and spices; and o