‘Oh, you are like Cassandra fair, Who won great Alexander’s heart; A bloomer, sweeter than the rose.’
I forget it, aunty, but it continued very learned—about
‘O’Donaghoo and the great O’Brien, That banged the strength out of Orion.’
It was all about her, and her bating Venus for beauty, and went to the tune of ‘Jackson’s Morning Brush.’
“Only think of our darling Miss Mildred being thought of in the same day with _these_ ‘bloomers,’ as if she wore a man’s hat and waistcoat—to say nothing of _the other things_—in the broad light of day; and if _that_ isn’t enough, strapped over the _boot_! Our own, born, bred, and reared Miss Mildred, with the blush of innocence on her cheek, a brow as fair as if it had been bathed in May-dew every morning of her life, with the freshness of youth on her rosy lips, cantering through the country on her snow-white pony, man-fashion, to say nothing of boots and spurs!
“Well, this band of Bloomers is quite different to what you would expect from the name. My mistress bought the picture of one, and that was pretty enough to look at. But think of the dress of a slim young lady of ten years old, on a grown-up woman, particularly if she is rather fallen into flesh, and you’ll see how I saw a stout Bloomer look—certainly, that was not blooming. Any thing looks well on youth and beauty; or rather, youth and beauty look well in any thing; but the deepness of the dress was that it was only a _cloak_, (though that’s not true, for _cloaks_ are not Bloomers,) only a sign, or an all-over sort of badge, for another thing—putting us all into counsellor’s wigs, and turning us into Parliament men and ministers, and police-inspectors and generals, and rifle-brigades. The upsettingest thing that ever crossed the wild waters of the Atlantic!
“My dear mistress shook her poor head, and said to me—for I was greatly troubled at the first going off to think if it was passed into a law here, what I should have to turn to myself, or whether it would not be more patriotic for me to go back to ould Ireland and be a White-Boy at once, because if the women were turned into men, surely we’d have the best of it then, any how. I _was_ troubled, for I hate the law, and as for Parliament, I never could stand the arguments there, as I’d like best to have my own way, without any contradiction, which a woman can do at home if she’s at all _cute_; so, seeing me bothered, (this as I say was at the first) my lady was quite amused, and ‘Ellen,’ she said, ‘do not trouble yourself about it, there is little doubt but that the more civilized we become, the more employment will be found for women, and the more highly will they be respected; but to be either happy or useful, a woman must be employed as a _Woman_, not as a man; she must be employed where her tenderness, her quick perceptions, her powers of endurance, her unselfishness, her devotion, are called into, and kept in, action. She who is the mother of heroes does not covet to enter the battle-field herself,’ said my mistress, all as one as if she was reading out of a printed book—(I never could handle any thing but a stone, and should dead faint at the sound of a pistol, but I was not going to _let on_ that to her)—so, ‘True for you, ma’am,’ I said, though I was fairly bothered, but made _bould_ to add, ‘Sure no lady could attend to the Parliament-house and the wants of a large small family.’