Only once in a while she regards you out
of one eye in a companionable way, as who should say, "That's all
right. You know I _can_ climb a tree when occasion requires."
The dear new woman! I like her. Perhaps she is crude in her newness.
Give her time. Perhaps she makes a little too much of her freedom. How
do you know what she suffered before she became new? Perhaps she has
her faults. Are you perfect?
Of course there is the woman who shrieks on political platforms and
neglects her husband, and lets her children grow up like little
ruffians; the woman who wears bloomers and bends over her handle-bar
like a monkey on a stick; the woman who wants to hold office with men
and smoke and talk like men--alas, that there _is_ that variety of
woman--but she is not new. Pray did you never see her before she wore
bloomers? Bloomers are no worse than the sort of clothes she used to
wear. Her swagger is no more pronounced now than it used to be in
skirts. She has always had bloomer instincts. You don't pretend to
declare, do you, that there never were unconventional women,
ill-dressed and rowdy women, before the new woman was heard of? That
is the great mistake you make. These women are _not_ new women. We've
always had them. We never, unfortunately, have been without them.
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