Thus sang Palestrina. 

 "Ethically considered, my dear Palestrina," said Eliza, "that song is distinctly unmoral." 

 "Don't let us consider it ethically," said Palestrina tranquilly; and she went over and sat in the corner of the sofa with several pillows at her back. 

 "Ethically considered," repeated Eliza, "that song, if one pursues its teaching to a logical conclusion, can only mean that all female social development is impossible, and that the whole reason for a woman's existence is that she may gratify man." 

 "They are really not worth it," murmured Mrs. Fielden, who was in a frivolous mood. 

 "And mark you," said Eliza, in quite the best of the Reading Society manner: "it does not suggest that that gratification may be inspired either by our beauty or by our intellect; indeed, it proves that such powers are worthless to inspire it. It postulates the hypothesis"—Eliza is really splendid—"that man is a brute whose appreciation can only be secured by ministering to his desire for food and suitable clothing, and that woman's whole business is to render this creature complacent." 

 "Don't you think things are much pleasanter when people are complacent?" said my sister easily. 

 Eliza fixed her with strong, dark eyes.  "Were I describing you in a book," she said—one feels as though Eliza will write a book, probably a clever one, some day—"I should describe you as a typical woman, and therefore a pudding. A dear, tepid pudding, with a pink sauce over it. Very sweet, no doubt, but squashy—decidedly squashy. Some day," said Eliza triumphantly, "you will be squashed into mere pulp, and you will not like that." 

 This did not seem to be a likely end for Palestrina. Eliza continued: "Who will deny that men are selfish?" 

 "But they are also useful," said Mrs. Fielden in an ingenuous way. "They open doors for one, don't you know, and give one the front row when there is anything to be seen, even when one wears a big hat; and they see one into one's carriage—oh! and lots of other useful little things of that sort." 

 "Admitted," said Eliza, "that women have certain privileges—have they any Rights?" 

 Mrs. Fielden admitted that they had not.  "But," she said, "I don't really think that that is important. The men whom one knows are always 

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