that two
lovers were doing the same on a seat, in the approved fashion prevalent
among us workmen, with the manly arm around the taper waist coram
publico. This arrangement is quite a necessity with us. We should often
like to forego it, especially when little boys make rude remarks about
us in the street; but it is expected of us, and we submit.

The sun was beginning to sink grandly over that magnificent panorama of
country visible from Old Oak Common as we passed down the hill and again
violated the bye-laws of the Great Western Railway Company. The spires
of the West End churches were bathed in the soft glow of departing day;
and in the distance the Crystal Palace glittered like a fairy bower. We
got back after making a little detour on account of some gentlemen who
were bathing in a very Paradisiacal way indeed--we actually got back in
time to go to church like good Christians; and I do not think either of
us felt much the worse for the hours we had spent in the People's
Garden--save and except the wicked Little Wee Dog!

CHAPTER XIV.

UTILIZING THE YOUNG LADIES.

Time was when it was accepted as an axiom that young ladies had no
object in life but to be ornamental--no mission but matrimony. The
"accomplishments" were the sum total of a genteel education, though
charged as "extras" on the half-yearly accounts; and all the finished
creature had to do, after once "coming out," was to sit down and
languidly wait for an eligible suitor.

Times changed. And, in England, when we make a change, we always rush
violently into an opposite extreme. Woman had a mission, and no mistake.
Now it was the franchise and Bloomer costume, just as aforetime it was
the pianoforte and general fascination. Blue spectacles rose in the
market. We had lady doctors and female lawyers. The only marvel is that
there was no agitation for feminine curates.

Then came reaction again. It was discovered that woman could be educated
without becoming a bluestocking, and practical without wearing bloomers
or going in for the suffrage. Still holding to the wholesome principle
that "woman is not undeveloped man, but diverse," the real friends of
the gentler sex discovered a hundred and one ways in which it could
employ itself usefully and remuneratively. It was no longer feared lest,
as Sydney Smith puts it, if a woman learnt algebra she would "desert her
infant for a quadratic equation;" and the University of Cambridge soon
fell in with t