A Social Departure

Ortiiodocia was a disappointment to my family circle. It was probably because I had always spoken of her as ‘Miss Love’ maintained a guarded silence as to her age and personal appearance, and discreetly allowed the fact to escape me that she had an ambition to become a Poor Law Guardian, that she was expected to arrive a mature person somewhat over thirty, with political opinions and views upon dress reform, and the habit of wearing black alpaca and unknown horrors which she would call ‘goloshes.’ Instead of which, as you know, she was only twenty-two, with a pinkness and healthiness which subtracted a year or two from that ; she hadn’t a theory about her except that one should say one’s prayers and look as well as possible under all circumstances, and her inexperience in the practical concerns of life seemed appalling. True, she could walk ten miles in her broad-toed boots, and slay any member of the family with- a tennis-ball at a hundred yards, but these qualifications, original and valuable as they seemed, hardly gave my friends the sense of security they expected to derive from Orthodocia’s chaper-onage. It is very ‘American’ for young ladies to travel alone, but not such a common thing in my part of the continent that it could be acceded to without a certain amount of objection on the part of their friends and relatives. All Orthodocia’s battles, therefore, in which she had the advantage of picturing me to Mr. and Mrs. Love with grey side-curls, I have no doubt, had to be fought over again for my benefit. It was Japan that gave rise to the most contumacy. Go. to Japan without any man whatever—absurd ! Answering which we brought down statistics relating to the surplus female population of the globe, which proved beyond doubt that to many ladies resident in Chuguibamba, Bin-Thuang-Din, and Massachusetts, the object under discussion was a luxury, and no necessity in any sense. But it was the height of impropriety. We argued that propriety was entirely relative, and that naturally impropriety in North America would be quite the correct thing in the antipodes. “Who would look after our luggage ? We suggested, with the gently disciplinary air of two who have their quarrel just, that there was only one change of cars, so to speak, between Montreal and Yokohama, and that the C.P.R. porters were reliable. It was unheard of -that two young women should go wandering aimlessly off to the other side of the globe ! Whereupon the intention of these present articles was disclosed with dignity, and the momentous mission involved in enlightening the home public as to the amount of truth in Gilbert and Sullivan’s assertion that flirting is prohibited by the Mikado. If we penetrated into tlie interior we would be chopped up to give a secular flavour to missionary croquettes ; if’ we ventured to stay in the capital it was quite likely that some fat Mandarin would take the advantage of a wife, or wives, conversant with European cookery, and entice us into his seraglio—those Japanese were known to be adopting foreign ways. People who are not going to Japan, and are unfamiliar with the encyclopaedia, can’t be expected to know that Mandarins grow in China and seraglios in Turkey, so we forgave this, and many other things which the Britannica would have enabled us to set at naught. We exercised forbearance, valour, and magnificent perseverance, and we prevailed.

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