Is this how man-haters are reformed?

[ddnoe]

I have a collection of stories from a National Storytelling Festival
on cassette. I recently heard one called "Edith and Bessie." The
woman
who told the story said she knew Edith and Bessie years ago. The
narrator worked at the same school at which Edith and Bessie taught.
Edith and Bessie were sisters. One taught 4th grade and the other
2nd.
They had been teaching in the school system for 40 years. They were
both man-haters and had an extreme fear of men. Neither of them would
leave the home they shared after dark and they kept it secured with
several locks.
The sisters had a cat that they kept in the pantry. They never
let
the cat out of the house.
One night, the principal of the school at which the sisters
taught
came to call. The would not let him in -- it was after dark and he
was
a man. He insisted he had to come in and would only stay for 5
minutes. The pair allowed him in. He told them that the school was
having a dinner to raise funds for a special project and it was
absolutely necessary for all of the faculty to show up. He knew Edith
and Bessie didn't like to be out after dark but they simply had to be
at the dinner. "You don't have to stay more than two minutes if you
don't want to but I've got to have you show your faces there," he
told
them.
Edith and Bessie were concerned because they thought they should have
new clothes. So they decided to take the trim from the dress of one
sister and sew it onto the other. They spent the week before the
dinner hard at work at their sewing machines taking the lace from one
dress off and sewing it onto the neckline and cuffs of the other.
The sisters attended the dinner in their freshly trimmed but very old
dresses. They looked "right sharp." Bessie sat by a man. The two
of them
began chatting amiably and Bessie was smiling. Edith was aghast.
Edith was even more aghast when the man later came to call on
Bessie.
The two of them made a date and Edith was disgusted that her sister
was out "catting around." That morning Edith was schocked to find
Bessie not even in her bed.
Bessie had eloped with the man.
The sisters didn't see each other again but Bessie sent a
postcard
with a note on it that read as follows.
"Dear Edith,
let the cat out.
Love,
Bessie