Petticoat Philosophy

We dance with proud and smiling lips,
With frank, appealing eyes, with shy hands clinging;
We sing, and few will question if there slips
A sob into our singing.

Each has a certain step to learn;
Our prisoned feet move steadily in set places,
And to and fro we pass, since life is stern,
Patiently with masked faces.

(Dublin Evening Telegraph, Saturday 30 June 1906, p. 6).