It has turned very cold again after the thaw, and the frost made everything exceedingly slippery, the roads are like glass.
At dinner I said to Ross,—
'Aren't the paths slippery? Positively I could hardly get home this afternoon; I took one step forward and slid back two.'
'Do think, my dear,' said Ross, 'do try to use your brains, if you have any. If you had really taken one forward and two back you'd have found yourself back at the station.'
'I did, so took a taxi home, didn't you hear me drive up?'
'Humph,' said Ross. (I don't often get one in, do I?)
I am going to keep chickens and rabbits, as the meat question is difficult, and cockerels and young bunnies will help to feed the family. I suggested a goat, but Ross is dead off that. He thinks the Stench and a goat will be too much for the S.P. and Dulcie.
I intend the Gidger to know all about animals and flowers and how they breed and propagate. Nature is beautiful and ignorance unlovely. So I shall not tell my little girl lies or half truths about sex, but shall unfold the facts of life gradually as she is able to bear them, so that her heart and mind may become as beautiful as her face promises to be.
Then some day she may go to her husband, not in that awful state of ignorance, fright, and misery that some call 'innocence,' but with a wide, sweet, sane knowledge of the beautiful mysteries of life.
CHAPTER XIII