as to his sincerity and simplicity, she could be so no longer. "Oh,
I forgot about the taboo," he said. "I'm so sorry I hurt you. I was
only thinking what a pity those two nice girls should be cheated
out of their expected pleasure by a silly question of pretended
mourning, where even you yourself, who have got to wear it, don't
assume that you feel the slightest tinge of sorrow. I remember now,
of course, what a lady told me in London the other day: your young
girls aren't even allowed to go out travelling alone without their
mother or brothers, in order to taboo them absolutely beforehand
for the possible husband who may some day marry them. It was a
pitiful tale. I thought it all most painful and shocking."

"But you don't mean to say," Frida cried, equally shocked and
astonished in her turn, "that you'd let young girls go out alone
anywhere with unmarried men? Goodness gracious, how dreadful!"

"Why not?" Bertram asked, with transparent simplicity.

"Why, just consider the consequences!" Frida exclaimed, with a
blush, after a moment's hesitation.

"There couldn't be ANY consequences, unless they both liked and
respected one another," Bertram answered in the most matter-of-
course voice in the world; "and if they do that, we think at home
it's nobody's business to interfere in any way with the free
expression of their individuality, in this the most sacred and
personal matter of human intercourse. It's the one point of private
conduct about which we're all at home most sensitively anxious not
to meddle, to interfere, or even to criticise. We think such
affairs should be left entirely to the hearts and consciences of