Gynecocracy

We went into the drawing room; Elise helped Mademoiselle off with her travelling cloak and hat and gloves, and did the same kind office for me with less ceremony and more promptitude, and then Maud entered in her short frock with the tea-tray and cast a reproachful look at me. The proud beauty evidently felt very keenly the position to which she had been degraded, as, under Mary's superintendence and orders, she set out the tea things. Mademoiselle noticed both the look and Maud's manner and glanced at Mary who seemed to have been waiting for it.

"Yes, indeed, Miss," she instantly said, "we have had great trouble with her; she would not wash the vegetables or peel the potatoes and has been trying to get at her own dresses. She locked herself up in her own room yesterday afternoon and set me at defiance."

"It is a shame, a disgrace," burst out Maud, looking beautiful and flushing with rage, "to dress me like this, to treat me like a servant; I wonder what my uncle-"

Mademoiselle, seated in her chair quite at her ease, looked at her with that dangerous smile I had long ago learnt to dread.

"Take off your drawers," she ordered.

"No, I won't," said Maud, with a stamp, "here in the drawing room before him; or"-with hesitation, "anywhere else either."

"Him!" retorted Mademoiselle. "This is Julia, your cousin, a girl like yourself," and she got up there and then and gave Maud a ringing slap on each cheek.

"Take them off," Mademoiselle repeated.

Maud burst into tears and sobs.

The trimmed ends of her drawers were visible below her frock. At Mademoiselle's reiterated command she gathered it up about her waist, the sting of the slaps proving sufficient motive, and took off the clothing.

Maud was put across an ottoman, weeping. Her pretty bottom was exposed, her skirts turned over her head.

Mademoiselle then gave her two dozen lashes. The lovely pink and white skin quickly became scarlet, and in some places there were blue marks. She rolled and wriggled, displaying herself under the influence of the smart with absolute recklessness. Mademoiselle then gave her with deliberate severity which took my breath away, a third dozen. At its close Maud appeared to faint in an ecstasy of delight. Beatrice and Agnes could not sit still. Mademoiselle's eyes sparkled with a strange light.

"Will you obey-will you submit?" she asked, as the strokes fell between Maud's separated legs. "Are you sorry for your insubordination?"

"Yes, yes, yes," convulsively gasped the unfortunate girl, "I–I-I will-obey, I-will-will, oh, stop! Oh, I will-I will-obey."

Mademoiselle positively caressed the fragments of the rod as she finished the castigation and ordered Maud to lie as she was until she had permission to rise.

She kept her so during the whole time that we were at tea; and then Maud had to get up and take away the tea things, disturbed and trembling, covered with shame, flushed and disordered.

Maud was in penance until the end of the month.

The bedroom to which I was taken was that I originally occupied. It communicated with Mademoiselle's room by a door of the existence of which I had been unaware until this evening.

When the dressing bell rang, Elise shew me into it. She had unpacked my things and dressed me for dinner.

My dress was not that of a young lady, but of a mere chit of a girl, scarcely coming to my knees. It was of some white fluffy material and underneath it I was compelled to wear a stiffly starched petticoat which made it stick out and disclosed my limbs almost to my waist.

Mademoiselle without seeming to do so made me occupy positions which set off my costume to the fullest extent.

"Has it really been cut off?" whispered Beatrice to me in the course of the evening, all her inquisitive, prying looks failing to satisfy her. And Agnes, behind me at the door, slipped her hand under my skirts and felt my possessions.

"No," she said, "he is still a boy."

Agnes' own skirts did not reach her ankles and I longed for a revenge.

Beatrice in her quiet, matronly way rejoined: "You know, Julia, you are mine. I have a score to settle with you. You have broken your oath. Wait; an opportunity will soon come."

What infinite disdain she managed to throw into the tone in which she uttered the word "Julia!"

Three or four weeks passed in very monotonous routine by which time I had quite recovered from the operation I had undergone in London; and to my surprise I found myself more susceptible and longing in a more reckless way to put my instrument into the middle of my charming tyrants with whom I was so intimately and familiarly associated. I longed to see them blush and tremble under me as I probed with my most sensitive and shame-dealing organ the secret recesses of their beautiful bodies.

All this time Beatrice maintained, notwithstanding my numerous mute appeals, a distant and cold reserve towards me.