I sometimes wonder if there is anything left for the flapper to look forward to when she comes out, since this formality is still talked of. Possibly there are still some functions closed to her, but they can be few. She is to be found at dinner parties and dances, she has men friends to stand her theatres and chocolates, she can flirt to the utmost limit, and unless she habitually wears a pigtail it is ten to one that nobody will notice anything different in the dressing of her hair. She will be forced to assume, possibly, a greater responsibility, but that is a penalty rather than a pleasure. Let us at any rate give her the credit of reaching consciously a greater seriousness of outlook whether she has to fend for herself or not. Frivolity in its worst sense is not a fault of English girls. Fond as they are of enjoyment and unimaginative as they are in their pleasures, they all take life with a measure of earnestness. The war gave to them, or to many of them, an object for their earnestness of which they had hitherto felt the want. Their seizure of the opportunity does them infinite credit. It would be absurd to suppose that their motives were purely altruistic, for women as a whole are not moved to action by abstract ideas. They saw that there were things to be done and that it might be rather fun to do them. It would need an eloquent pen to tell adequately how well they did them, and the fact that they got some fun out of it, even perhaps more than they expected, can in no way diminish our approbation. I confess that the magnificent services of English girls during the war have moved me deeply, and I cannot find it in me to sympathise with those who are inclined to consider the whole thing rather regrettable, unsettling to the girls and likely to provoke antagonisms when, if ever, we return to peaceful conditions. Surely this is a petty point of view. As a matter of national pride their performance takes on quite another aspect. The women of England were the only ones in the world who served in thousands anywhere and everywhere. Other nations could not get over their prejudices so easily, or only in a few cases. Botchkareva, it is true, organised a Battalion of Death in which Russian women actually fought, but the serving Englishwomen were an army. Also, there was nothing strained about it, nothing unnatural, as it would have been in a Latin nation. Here was a vindication of that British prudery and hypocrisy which other nations like to mock at. Our freedom of intercourse, our comradeship of the sexes, which no other people understands, was triumphantly justified in the test of war. The triumph belongs chiefly to the women: it showed the sterling worth of their essential qualities, independence, fearless capability, untiring energy, cheerfulness under difficulty and coolness in danger. The best of them could lead as well as work, and where they led, as in those Serbian hospitals, men worshipped them, glorifying the country that