induce you to stop midway to straighten it before you have finished
the one upon which your energies should now be bent. Too many women
are mere potterers, not earnest laborers. They begin to make a bed,
and stop to brush up some dust that has collected under the bureau.
Before the dust-pan is emptied, the thought occurs of a tear in one of
the children's aprons, and by the time that is mended, something else
appears that needs attention, and all day long tasks are half
completed and nothing is entirely finished, until at night the poor
toiler is weary and discouraged, with nothing to show for her pains,
except an anxious face and a semi-straight household.

Woman's work is quite as dignified as man's, and why should it not be
arranged as carefully and systematically? If some thing must be
crowded out, let it be, with forethought and reason, set to one
side,--not shoved or huddled amid mess and confusion.




CHAPTER VIII.

WHAT GOOD WILL IT DO?


Thus I translate the Latin _cui bono_. In whatever language the query
is put, it is the most valuable balance-wheel ever attached to human
action and speech.

The principle is old. The pithy phrase in the shrewd Roman's mouth was
two-edged, and had a sharp point. The enterprise that led to no good