“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,” Eleanor ventured to remark.  “There is no way of putting experience into a young girl’s head.  It would say little for her qualities if a girl could not make a generous mistake.”

“Such mistakes are not worthy of being called generous, as a rule.  They are too imbecile.  That state of illusion is too contemptible.  There is very little danger of Cecily’s seeing any one in a grossly false light.”

Eleanor did not at once assent.

“You seem to doubt that?” added the other, with a searching look.