flavor that is from heaven.

It is a trite saying that many a girl of sixteen, these days, knows
more of life than her grandmother knew at sixty. It remains to be
proven that, because of this knowledge, the young woman of to-day is a
better woman than her grandmother was. But, as the only positive proof
would be her children, the case is very likely to be thrown out of
court for lack of evidence for it seems, somehow, that, when women
gain Knowledge from that world into which they go alone, leaving their
womanhood behind, they acquire also a strange pride in being too wise
to mate for love or to bear children. And yet, it is true, that the
knowledge that enables a woman to live happy and contented without
children is a damnable knowledge and a menace to the race.

Poor old world, you are so "grown up" these days and your palate is so
educated to the artificial flavor that you have forgotten, seemingly,
how peaches taste when ripened on the trees. God pity you, old world,
if you do not soon get back into the orchard before you lose your
taste for fruit altogether.

The knowledge that the woman gained from her Occupation made her
question, more and more, if that one with whom she could cross the
threshold of the door that led to the life of her dreams, would ever
come. The knowledge she gained made her doubt her courage to enter
that door with him if he should come. In the knowledge she gained of
the world into which she had gone alone, her womanhood's only
salvation was this: that she gained also the knowledge that the world
of men, even as the world of women, is a world of hungry hearts. It
was this that kept her--that made her strong--that saved her. It was
this knowledge that saved her womanhood for herself and for the race.