his mind. Someone else did likewise, also someone else, then the women
interposed, and jumped on the men, the men retaliated, a wordy war
ensued, and the whole matter ended by nothing being decided, pro or
con--generally the case in wordy discussions. _Moi?_ Well, I sawed wood
and said nothing, but all the while there was forming in my mind, no, I
won't say forming, it was there already. It was this, _Why should
well-salaried women marry?_ Take the average working-woman of to-day.
She works from five to ten hours a day, doing extra night work,
sometimes, of course. Her work over, she goes home or to her
boarding-house, as the case may be. Her meals are prepared for her, she
has no household cares upon her shoulders, no troublesome dinners to
prepare for a fault-finding husband, no fretful children to try her
patience, no petty bread and meat economies to adjust. She has her
cares, her money-troubles, her debts, and her scrimpings, it is true,
but they only make her independent, instead of reducing her to a dead
level of despair. Her day's work ends at the office, school, factory or
store; the rest of the time is hers, undisturbed by the restless going
to and fro of housewifely cares, and she can employ it in mental or
social diversions. She does not incessantly rely upon the whims of a
cross man to take her to such amusements as she desires. In this
nineteenth century she is free to go where she pleases--provided it be
in a moral atmosphere--without comment. Theatres, concerts, lectures,
and the lighter amusements of social affairs among her associates, are
open to her, and there she can go, see, and be seen, admire and be
admired, enjoy and be enjoyed, without a single harrowing thought of the
baby's milk or the husband's coffee.

Her earnings are her own, indisputably, unreservedly, undividedly. She
knows to a certainty just how much she can spend, how well she can
dress, how far her earnings will go. If there is a dress, a book, a bit