MARY. Yes, I daresay I but that's not what girls understand by
dressing, you know.
L. I can't help that. If they understand by dressing, buying
dresses, perhaps they also understand by drawing, buying pictures.
But when I hear them say they can draw, I understand that they can
make a drawing; and when I hear them say they can dress, I
understand that they can make a dress and--which is quite as
difficult--wear one.
DORA. I'm not sure about the making; for the wearing, we can all
wear them--out, before anybody expects it.
EGYPT (aside to L., piteously). Indeed I have mended that torn
flounce quite neatly; look if I haven't!
L. (aside, to EGYPT). All right; don't be afraid. (Aloud to DORA.)
Yes, doubtless; but you know that is only a slow way of
UNdressing.
DORA. Then, we are all to learn dress-making, are we?
L. Yes; and always to dress yourselves beautifully--not finely,
unless on occasion; but then very finely and beautifully, too.
Also, you are to dress as many other people as you can; and to
teach them how to dress, if they don't know; and to consider every
ill-dressed woman or child whom you see anywhere, as a personal
disgrace; and to get at them, somehow, until everybody is as
beautifully dressed as birds.
(Silence; the children drawing their breaths hard, as if they had
come from under a shower bath.)
L. (seeing objections begin to express themselves in the eyes).
Now you needn't say you can't; for you can, and it's what you were
meant to do, always; and to dress your houses, and your gardens,
too; and to do very little else, I believe, except singing; and
dancing, as we said, of course and--one thing more.
DORA. Our third and last virtue, I suppose?