of truth-speaking to her moral sense, and asked how she reconciled the
sin with her knowledge of what was right.

Her answer was ready: "Oh, there's no sin in a lie that doesn't hurt
yer neighbor!"

Judged even by this easygoing principle, I should sin in penning the
reference without which Katy intimates that she will not withdraw her
foot from my house. She looms before me,--vulgar, determined,
irrational and ignorant,--the impersonation of the System under which
we cringe and groan.

"What would you do?" I ask a friend, who is a successful housewife.

She shrugs her shoulders.

"Oh, swim with the tide! Not to give the certificate will be
equivalent to boycotting yourself. The news of your contumacy will
spread like prairie fires. You will be baited and banned beyond
endurance."

"But--my duty to my neighbor?"

"Thanks to the prevailing rule in these affairs, your neighbor knows
how little a written reference is worth. She will satisfy the
proprieties by reading it, and form her own opinion of the girl. When
Katy has worn out her saucepans and patience, your successor in
misfortune will give her clean papers to the next place. It is a sort
of endless chain of suffering. Then, there is the humane side of the
question. A recommendation of some sort is a form most housewives