"There," said Eva, laughing, "blood will tell; there's the old Puritan broken loose in Ida. She don't believe any of their doctrines, but she goes on their track. She's just like a St. Bernard dog that she brought home once. As soon as snow came, he was wild to run out and search in it, and used to run off whole days in the woods, just because his ancestors were trained to hunt travelers. Ida is as bent on testifying and going against the world as any old Covenanter." "The world needs going against," said Ida. "By the by, Mr. Henderson, you must allow me to thank you for your article on the 'Woman of our Times,' in the _Milky Way_. It is bracing, and will do good." "And I," said Eva, kindling with a sort of flame-like vivacity, "have been perfectly dying to tell you that you don't _know_ us fashionable girls, and that we are not, after all, such poor trash as you seem to think. All the out-of-jointness of society is not our fault." "I protest, Miss Eva," said I, astonished at the eagerness of her manner. "I'm sure I don't know what I have said to give that impression." "Oh, I dare say not. You have only used the good stock phrases and said the usual things. You reformers and moralists, and all that have got a way of setting us girls down as sinners as a matter of course, so that you never think when you do it. The 'Dolls of fashion,' the 'Butterflies,' &c., &c., are used to point the moral and adorn the tale. The girl of the period is the scapegoat for all the naughty things going. Now, I say the girl of the period isn't a particle worse than the boy of the period; and I think reformers had better turn their attention to him." "But I don't remember," said I, astonished and confused at the sudden vivacity of this attack, "that I said anything." "Oh, yes, but I do. You see it's the party that's hit that knows when a blow is struck. You see, Mr. Henderson, it isn't merely you, but everybody, from the London _Spectator_ down, when they get on their preaching-caps, and come forth to right the wrongs of society, begin about _us_--our dressiness, our expensiveness, our idleness, our extravagance, our heartlessness. The men, poor, dear creatures, are led astray and ruined by _us_. It's the old story of Adam: 'The woman beguiled me.'" "You see," said Ida, laughing, "Eva's conscience troubles her; that's why she's so sensitive." "Well, that's the truth," said Eva. "I'm _in_ the world, and Ida has gone out of it; and so she can sit by, all serene, when hits are made at us, and say, 'I told you so.' But, you see, _I_ am _in_, and am all the while sure that about half what they say of us is true, and that makes me sensitive when they say too much. But, I insist upon it, it isn't _all_ true; and if it is, it isn't our fault. We are in the world just as we are in a railroad-car, and we can't help its carrying us on, even if we don't like the places it takes us through." "Unless you get out of it," said Ida.