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"Are the graces forgotten by the modern woman? " was the subject of the debate that evening. The opener's speech was made by Miss Frere, who boldly threw down the gauntlet, reminded the girls assembled before her of some of the perils which lay across their paths, and assured them that the old graces of politeness, of gentleness, of loving service, of all that made woman noble and graceful ought to be part of the new life which was opening its doors wider and wider each day for the happy modern girl.
"If in grasping the new we let go of the old, we make a vast mistake," she continued, her eyes flashing with suppressed fire. "We leave out what has made woman noble and great in the past. We shut away deliberately a vast influence which would otherwise help to pervade the world, for a woman can be graceful, pleasant to look at, agreeable, and not silly. She may be sympathetic without being sentimental. She may be, in the best sense, womanly without sinking into a nonentity."