"For my part," the lady replied, "I don't think that you can too early inculcate a proper care of the person into little girls. My own child, who was ten last week, is as particular about the fit and style of her clothes as I am about mine. If you bring girls up, dear lady, to run quite wild, do you not think that you do away with their domesticity, that most precious quality of all women?" "I am only too anxious to do away with their domesticity," said Mrs. Whittaker, quietly but very firmly. "You see, Mrs. M'Quade, I am no ordinary woman myself. I have had the education of a man. I have a man's brain. I believe that in the near future the position of women will be entirely altered." "Then you are going to bring your girls up to professions?" "I am going to bring my girls up to follow the natural bent of their minds. If they show any aptitude for and desire to follow one of the learned professions, neither their father nor I will put any stumbling-block in their way." "I see. Have you pushed them on already?" "No, that is altogether against my principles. I never do anything against my principles. I think that all children should reach the age of seven years before they imbibe any learning, except such as comes through the eye and in a perfectly natural and simple manner. After the age of seven, until ten years old, I believe that lessons should be of the simplest and most harmless description. After that, the brain is strong and is better able to bear forcing." "I see. Well, your plan may be a good one; my plan may be a good one. I sent my little girl to a kindergarten when she was four years old, because she was lonely; she was not happy, she was always bored, always wanting somebody to play with her, and she yearned for playmates and little occupations. When she went to the kindergarten, she took to it like a duck to water. She loved her school then, and now that she is in a more advanced class, she is well on with her studies." "I see. And you dress her very elaborately?" "Oh no, not elaborately," said Mrs. M'Quade. "I always try to dress her daintily and smartly, but never elaborately." "It is not in accordance with my principles," said Regina, loftily. "I have a set fashion for my children, and I intend to keep them to it until they are old enough to choose for themselves. Then they will take to the task of dressing themselves with minds untrammeled by the opinions of other people, even of their own mother. I have always tried so to bring up my girls as to make them thoroughly original in every possible way. They are not quite like other children. They are children as much out of the ordinary as their mother was before them; convention has no part, and shall have no part in their lives whatsoever. Indeed, I may say that conventions is one of the greatest bugbears of my existence." "But we must have conventions," said the doctor's wife.