fair means or
unfair, it was necessary to obtain information on matters of sex; for
girls most of whom were well across the threshold of womanhood the
subject had an invincible fascination.

Such knowledge as they possessed was a strange jumble, picked up at
random: in one direction they were well primed; in another, supremely
ignorant. Thus, though they received lectures on what was called
"Physiology", and for these were required to commit to memory the name
of every bone and artery in the body, yet all that related to a woman's
special organs and chief natural function was studiously ignored. The
subject being thus chastely shrouded in mystery, they were thrown back
on guesswork and speculation--with the quaintest results. The fancies
woven by quite big girls, for instance, round the physical feat of
bringing a child into the world, would have supplied material for a
volume of fairytales. On many a summer evening at this time, in a nook
of the garden, heads of all shades might have been seen pressed as
close together as a cluster of settled bees; and like the humming of
bees, too, were the busy whisperings and subdued buzzes of laughter
that accompanied this hot discussion of the "how"--as a living answer
to which, each of them would probably some day walk the world.
Innumerable theories were afloat, one more fantastic than another; and
the wilder the conjecture, the greater was the respect and applause it
gained.

On the other hand, of less profitable information they had amassed a
goodly store. Girls who came from up-country could tell a lively tale
of the artless habits of the blacks; others, who were at home in mining
towns, described the doings in Chinese camps--those unavoidable
concomitants of gold-grubbing settlements; rhymes circulated that would
have staggered a back-blocker; while the governesses were without
exception, young and old, kindly and unkindly, laid under such
flamboyant suspicions as the poor ladies had, for certain, never heard
breathed--since their own impudent schooldays.

This dabbling in the illicit--it had little in common with the opener
grime of the ordinary schoolboy--did not even widen the outlook of
these girls. For it was something to hush up and keep hidden away, to
have qualms, even among themselves, about knowing; and, like all
knowledge that fungus-like shrinks from the sun, it was stunted and
unlovely. Their minds were warped by it, their vision was distorted:
viewed throug