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Unless it is making one's self too agreeable, said Miss Griggs,
pointedly.
I asked her what she meant.
I have discovered, she replied, that Carlotta has been
carrying on a clandestine flirtation with the young man who calls
for orders from the grocer's.
I am glad it wasn't the butcher's boy, I murmured.
Miss Griggs giggled in a silly way, as if I were jesting. At my
stern request she recovered and unfolded the horrible tale. She
had caught Carlotta kissing her hand to him. She had also seen
him smuggle a threecornered note between Carlotta's fingers, and
Carlotta had definitely refused to surrender the billetdour.
What is the modern course of treatment, I asked, prescribed
for young ladies who flirt with grocers' assistants? In
Renaissance times she could be whipped. The wise Margaret of
Navarre used to beat her daughter, Jeanne d'Albrecht, soundly for
far less culpable lapses from duty. Or she could be sent to a
convent and put into a cell with rats, or she could be bidden to
attend at a merrymaking where the chief attraction was roast
grocer's assistant. But nowadayswhat do you suggest?
The unimaginative creature could suggest nothing. She thought
that I would know how to deal with the offence. Perhaps
preventive measures would be more efficacious than punishment.
But what do I know of the repressory methods employed in
seminaries for young ladies? Burton in his Anatomy speaks
cheerfully of bloodletting behind the ears. He also quotes, I
remember, Hippocrates or somebody, who narrates that a noble
maiden was cured of a flirtatious temperament by wearing down her
back for three weeks a leaden plate pierced with holes. This I
told Miss Griggs, who spoke contemptuously of the Father of
Medicine.
He also recommendswhether for this complaint, or for something
similar I forget for the moment said I, anointing the soles
of the feet with the fat of a dormouse, the teeth with the ear
wax of a dog; and speaks highly of a ram's lungs applied hot to
the fore part of the head. I am sorry these admirable remedies
are out of date. There is a rich Rabelaisianism about them.
Instead of the satisfying jorums of our forefathers we take
tasteless pellets, which procure us no sensation at the time, and
even the good old hot mustard poultice is a thing of the past.
But what about Carlotta? inquired Miss Griggs, anxiously.
That is just like a woman, to interrupt a man when he is
beginning to talk comfortably on a subject that interests him. I
sighed.
Send Carlotta up to me, I said, resignedly.
Another morning's work spoiled. I turned to my writingtable. I

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