just like you do; she sews, not well but enthusiastically; she is a good house wife and housemaid; she is an excellent French cook: but, even here in French Canada, she also reads of the bullfights and the soccer in the Europe she can never leave behind her for long, and has all of her brother's experience available to her when she does so. And why shouldn't she? Let's not try to be more exclusively feminine than the GG herself (who can also be interested in bulls and football, as fortunately mine is or perhaps that's why I picked her); and in saying that I am not condon- ing, nor slipping into, the WGF syndrome. But in femme dress, and read- ing the newspaper are your interests and responses so very different? Be honest, now. Of course they're not. Let's work on that self-deception again. The girl within, since I have used several political analogies in these paragraphs, is best defined in political terms: she can attain auto- nomy, but she can never, even in the permanent girl stage, achieve independence. A qualified self-rule is the best she can hope toi.

And Marie-Therese what of her? She is thirty-seven now, and has a good collection of scars to show. Some wounds heal well, some heal badly, and some never heal at all. She still, hopefully, has a long road ahead, but she is more a sceptic than an optimist. She is more concerned with holding on to what she has than with getting more. She wants femme friends, and that is her next step ahead; who can ever see beyond the next step? It is wonderful to see even that. With a loving and accepting wife, and strict but intermittently indulgent brother (whom only yesterday she conned into buying her a genuine boutique dress for which she had no need at all) she feels this is about as good as it is ever likely to be. She has plenty of advice for herself, and is more than generous in passing it on. Enjoy what you have, and don't waste time pining for what you can never have: we have all wasted too much time on that anyhow. We all have different ways of enjoying ourselves even as FPs. For the femme-self we will agree that only the best is good enough. But make sure it is the best, and be realistic about the price you pay. The brother-twin-sister relationship can have its ups and downs but it is a permanency: other relationships are not necessarily so. Help your brother to help himself, and don't come on too strong about liberty, equality, and sorority. And when she looks in the mirror, or gets her latest batch of pictures from the camera shop, what does Marie-Therese see? A beautiful woman of course, not perfect but at least acceptable. She has to believe that or FP wouldn't be fun any more. If we aim too high in the beauty stakes, we make ourselves miserable. Forget about the hormones, and don't lose too much beauty sleep over electrolysis. You can be decent and tidy without either. Progress, yes, but frenzy leads to despair. That is what Marie-Therese sees. What do you see?

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