If, instead of wishing for their daughters a questionable gentility, and instructing them in arts and accomplishments above their station, parents could but see the advantage of giving them betimes some useful work to do, the girls themselves would, I am sure, be incalculably the gainers.'

No doubt of it but as I said before, a silly ambition stands in the way of such a course being followed.'

'Still,' continued Mrs. Vaughan, for whom the subject had deep interest, still I think that if the true womanly incentive of laying by a little store of money for a dower were held out to them, some young girls might be induced to work; and thus they would not only have a better chance of tiding over the dangerous time of stormy youth, but they would also have (in the future exercise of their own trade) a something wherewith to eke out the earnings of their husbands.'

'And, I suppose' inquired the Doctor,

who did not quite follow Mrs. Vaughan in her scheme for female employment, 'I suppose that you would have young women take the place of men behind the counter; and urge their customers to the purchase of their goods with their best smiles and most winning glances?

As

'Indeed I would not,' replied Helen, ' for, on the contrary, I should desire all women's work to be done privately and quietly. apprentices, in the way that I should propose, they would not be brought prominently before the public, and over their welldoing, the careful eye of governing authority should ever be kept open.'

You

'And you propose that they should continue the exercise of their several trades after marriage?' remarked Doctor T. forget that they would probably then have other duties to perform, which might make the continuance of their industries impossible;' and he smiled professionally.

'I have not forgotten it,' said Helen, but

I believe that the hindrance those duties occasion to other work is greatly exaggerated. There are of course many cases when bodily weakness, or the sickness of children, may oblige a mother to devote her whole time to her offspring and to herself. But these are the exceptions; and whether you will allow them to be so or not, I, my dear Doctor, am convinced that the idea prevalent among women, that after marriage they need do nothing but bring children into the world, and take care they don't injure their little persons afterwards, is a pernicious mistake.'

'And mistakes that have grown into habits are among the most difficult to eradicate. There is much to be said in favour of your plan, my dear Mrs. Vaughan, but of one thing I am convinced; namely, that the mass of mankind prefer that a woman's career of action should not range beyond the performance of her domestic duties. But we are slightly diverging from our point, and for

getting that we are discussing some of the immediate causes of female degeneracy.'

'Pray, forgive me,' said Helen, 'for my discursiveness. I have some subjects so much at heart that I can hardly forbear to prose about them.'

The Doctor, after complimenting his hostess on her zeal in a good cause, continued to put forth his own views on the matter.

'One fruitful source of evil,' he said, lies, I believe, in the facility of bringing crowds of both sexes together. Excursion trains have other dangers besides those attendant on collisions-there are night returns, half-drunken men jostling giddy women— overcrowded carriages. All these causes bear their part in demoralizing the lower orders, while for those a shade above them there are other excitements which, when once tasted of and enjoyed, must be fed by increased doses, till the evil spirit becomes hard indeed to lay.'

'But,' said Helen, while you know so

well the symptoms, can you not suggest a possible remedy?'

'None in any sudden changes; which are as ineffectual to a wholesome cure as is the immediate stopping of his daily dram to the drunkard. If these poor creatures be worth the saving, they are worth being patient for. We must not expect sudden reforms; indeed my experience tells me that we should mistrust their existence, when they are pointed out to us. My object would be to give them healthful occupation; occupation which, being remunerative, would give them a hope of an independent future. I would not allow them to mix unreservedly with others in the same position as themselves, but they should not be kept in gloomy silence, for then the overstrained nerves and spirits would react fatally on the mind, and the last state of the woman might be worse than the first. In the kind of refuge I would advocate, I should endeavour to persuade the good to mingle occasionally and judiciously