that half those who do marry have any real right to it, at least until people use common sense as much in that most important decision as in lesser ones.  Of course we can’t expect to bring about an ideal state of society all at once; but just because we don’t really believe in having the best possible conditions, we make no effort at all toward even better ones.  People ought to work with the great laws of nature and not against them.”

“You don’t know anything about it,” said Mrs. Fraley, who hardly knew what to think of this ready opposition.  “You don’t know what you are talking about, Anna.  You have neither age nor experience, and it is easy to see you have been associating with very foolish people.  I am the last person to say that every marriage is a lucky one; but if you were my daughter I should never consent to your injuring your chances for happiness in this way.”

Nan could not help stealing a glance at poor Miss Eunice, behind her fragile battlement of the tea-set, and was deeply touched at the glance of sympathy which dimly flickered in the lonely eyes.  “I do think, mother, that Anna is right about single women’s having some occupation,” was timidly suggested.  “Of course, I mean those who have no special home duties; I can see that life would not”—­

“Now Eunice,” interrupted the commander in chief, “I do wish you could keep an opinion of your own.  You are the last person to take up with such ideas.  I have no patience with people who don’t know their own minds half an hour together.”

“There are plenty of foolish women who marry, I’ll acknowledge,” said Miss Prince, for the sake of coming to the rescue.  “I was really angry yesterday, when Mrs. Gerry told me that everybody was so pleased to hear that Hattie Barlow was engaged, because she was incapable of doing anything to support herself.  I couldn’t help feeling that if there was so little power that it had never visibly turned itself in any practical direction, she wasn’t likely to be a good housekeeper.  I think that is a most responsible situation, myself.”

Nan looked up gratefully.  “It isn’t so much that people can’t do anything, as that they try to do the wrong things, Aunt Nancy.  We all are busy enough or ought to be; only the richest people have the most cares and have to work hardest.  I used to think that rich city people did nothing but amuse themselves, when I was a little girl; but I often wonder nowadays at the wisdom and talent that are needed to keep a high social position respected in the world’s eyes.  It must be an orderly and really strong-minded woman who can keep her business from getting into a most melancholy tangle.  Yet nobody is afraid when the most foolish girls take such duties upon themselves, and all the world cries out with fear of disaster, if once in a while one makes up her mind to some other plan of life.  Of course I know being married isn’t a trade:  it is a natural condition of life, which permits a man to follow certain public careers, and forbids them to a woman.  And since I have not wished to be married, and have wished to study medicine, I don’t see what act of Parliament can punish me.”