Personal independence: that is the keynote of the situation. Mothers no longer attempt the old control over their daughters: they would find it impossible. The girls go off by themselves on their bicycles; they go about as they please; they neither compromise themselves nor get talked about. For the first time in man’s history it is regarded as a right and proper thing to trust a girl as a boy insists upon being trusted. Out of this personal freedom will come, I daresay, a change in the old feelings of young man to maiden. He will not see in her a frail, tender plant which must be protected from cold winds; she can protect herself perfectly well. He will not see in her any longer a creature of sweet emotions and pure aspirations, coupled with a complete ignorance of the world, because she already knows all that she wants to know. Nor will he see in her a companion whose mind is a blank, and whose conversation is insipid, because she already knows as much as he knows himself. Nor, again, will he see in her a housewife whose whole time will be occupied in superintending servants or in making, brewing, confecting things with her own hand. For the young woman of the present day can make nothing: she cannot make her own dresses, she cannot trim her hat, she cannot cook, she cannot compound things delectable; the rolling-pin she knows nothing about, or the pastry-board. Love will be changed indeed. Man and woman will be of the same stature and of the same strength! I think not; there will always be the same differences in kind, but not so great in degree. The man will always look upon the world from his own point of view, the woman from hers; and these are never the same. Perhaps the greatest change is that woman now does thoroughly what before she only did as an amateur. I have said that she cannot make her own dresses. That is true, as a general rule; but the woman who can, does so professionally and thoroughly: and the woman who sews now, sews more beautifully, turning out work equal to that of her ancestress, the Anglo-Saxon lady. So, also, if a girl takes up painting, she “goes through the mill”; she studies it in earnest, she studies it as a man would. And so with everything; the shallow amateurish pretences are gone; women are thorough, women are professional. I have spoken above of certain little affectations of sixty years ago. These have vanished. The Englishwoman of to-day enjoys an excellent appetite, and tackles her dinner valiantly; she has not yet learned to be critical over the dishes or over the wine, that will doubtless arrive. As for pretending to be hectic or consumptive she would scorn such a shallow mockery; her desire, on the other hand, is to appear strong and healthy.