“Quite a large membership now, have we not?” said Mrs. Flockson, sitting down in an attitude of faded gloom that infected us both like a disease. I began to be conscious of my back, and my legs, and petticoats and things that I was usually unaware of. “I shall be so interested to hear what Miss Jamieson has to say about children’s toys. It is so important, is it not?” “I don’t think so,” said Mrs. Figgins crisply. “I don’t think it is at all important, but they would have it. I had much rather they had spoken about children’s manners; they are dreadful in this neighbourhood.” “Yes, of course, some are very bad,” sighed Mrs. Flockson, “but it is so difficult, isn’t it, to know just where to draw the line without being too severe. They say now it is so important that the character should be developed along its natural lines. It is so difficult not to impose one’s own individuality too much, and yet to preserve the idea of everything that is sweet and gracious.” Now, if I had been alone I could have managed her perfectly. I could have kept Mrs. Flockson happy without doing her an atom of harm, but Mrs. Figgins is so abrupt. “I can’t stop to think about individuality when a child is gobbling and talking nonsense at the same time,” she said. “I tell it at once, ‘Don’t eat like a pig,’ and then it doesn’t. I don’t care whether I am imposing my individuality or that of any other self-respecting person who wishes to eat with Christians.” Several more people came in then. They were mostly badly dressed, and evidently put all their money on expression so far as charm was concerned; but then when people are very much in earnest about things that are of no consequence, and have as much consciousness as rabbits, and are not very healthy, it is difficult to make them look nice. Miss Jamieson, a capable pink lady in a well-made dress with irrelevant trimming, spoke for half an hour on the question of children’s toys. She told us what toys ought to mean, and the qualities they ought to foster in the child. How, if his taste were trained in this manner, he would more easily distinguish the good from the bad later on. I asked whether a good taste in dolls acquired in the nursery would help my son not to fall in love with the wrong kind of minx. I did not put it in just those words, but Miss Jamieson did not give me much comfort. She smiled kindly, and said my question hardly came within the scope of her paper, but she was sure a taste in dolls would help very much, only boys did not play much with dolls, did they?