39.

Underthings absurdly feminine for a girl my age, little black suede slippers and white socks. My dress-plaid wool, mostly grey was brand new for the occasion--had a high neck, circular skirt and long sleeves. I wore my best fur trimmed hat and coat I knew I looked nice but Mrs. E...and Patsy raved over me, even Mr. E. grudgingly admitted I looked nice. The evening was very pleasant and a change from my shut-in existance. My name, Char- lotte was so firmly fixed that there was no slip all evening After breakfast next morning I dressed again in the frilly underthin s of the night before, then a new sweater and skirt. I stood in front of the full-length mirror arranging my hair. For the first time I really saw myself as a complete girl, not as a hairdo, a dress or a skirt the way it had always been pre- viously. As I gazed at the girl in the mirror I could both feel and see a flush stealing over me--one of pleasure at the attractive girl I appeared. I had known many times before that I looked well in this dress or that, but my attention had al- ways been to the detail. Though I had been from time to time proud of the attractiveness displayed, I still, until that morn ing, hadn't grasped the idea that I was for appearances sake, actually a girl and not a boy dressed as a girl. The new real- ization hit me like a flash and I was so surprised that I had to sit down and collect myself before I could analyse my reac- tions to the discovery. Put the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was a girl and that as such I was far better than average . Try as I might I could not thereafter return to my old way of self-analysis-there, at that time, I became a girl for the rest of my life.

Such sudden changes in one's outlook are surprising, though I don't suppose it is really sudden--rather an atti- tude that has been building up in one's subconscious mind all unknown until it pops out in full Bloom. I still have a cry- stal clear membry of that morning---just as if it happened yesterday. Quite naturally I didn't tell Mother of this change but tried to hide it. I did succeed fairly well except that she was quick to note my increased interest in things feminine

(Toobe Concluded in Issue # 9)