"No doubt she is a little excessive in her views." said the Doctor, "but
in the main I think as she does."

"Bravo, Doctor!" cried the lady.

"What, turned traitor to your sex! We'll court-martial you as a
deserter."

"She is quite right. The professions are not sufficiently open to
women. They are still far too much circumscribed in their employments.
They are a feeble folk, the women who have to work for their bread--
poor, unorganized, timid, taking as a favor what they might demand as a
right. That is why their case is not more constantly before the public,
for if their cry for redress was as great as their grievance it would
fill the world to the exclusion of all others. It is all very well for
us to be courteous to the rich, the refined, those to whom life is
already made easy. It is a mere form, a trick of manner. If we are
truly courteous, we shall stoop to lift up struggling womanhood when she
really needs our help--when it is life and death to her whether she has
it or not. And then to cant about it being unwomanly to work in the
higher professions. It is womanly enough to starve, but unwomanly to
use the brains which God has given them. Is it not a monstrous
contention?"

The Admiral chuckled. "You are like one of these phonographs, Walker,"
said he; "you have had all this talked into you, and now you are reeling
it off again. It's rank mutiny, every word of it, for man has his duties
and woman has hers, but they are as separate as their natures are. I
suppose that we shall have a woman hoisting her pennant on the flagship
presently, and taking command of the Channel Squadron."