upon their lovely
shoulders. The superiority was not of kind, for in this the North
steadily held its own, as was but natural; it was of numbers. For every
recognized ornament to society sent by the North to grace the circles of
Washington, the South sent two.

When the century passed its meridian and turned to the descending road
there had come about a practical division of the country into two
sections once more. Not only in feeling,--which, however, was subdued
and hardly expressed save by the more bitter partisans, at least among
the women,--but in nature. While the higher ideals of the woman of the
North and her of the South were the same, they differed in nearly
everything that made for progress toward the goal they sought. The
tendency toward aristocratic ideas had taken unwonted shape toward the
end of the first half of the nineteenth century. According to the false
ideal which had come to take the place of the higher one of earlier
days, the Southern woman was par _excellence_ the aristocrat of America.
She was lapped in luxury; she was surrounded by every refinement; she
was waited upon by hosts of servants; she was the representative in many
ways of the feudal chatelaine of olden times in England, with added
refinements of culture and luxury. But all this was bought, though she
did not then see the truth, at a terrible price. The Southern
conditions, brought about by the institution of slavery, bore most
heavily in effect upon the men of that section; but the women also were
in danger of forgetting the strength of their womanhood in the idleness
of untroubled days and in the lack of power that results from the
transfer of all burdens to the shoulders of others.

[Illustration 6: A SOUTHERN WEDDING.
After the painting by E. L. Henry.
Nor with all the social distinction of the southern household was there
a sacrifice of a single charm of home life. Every important domestic
event was attended with becoming ceremony. The arrival of the newborn,
the home gatherings of later years, and the wedding,--these were
occasions to be celebrated by all; occasions when the tenderest family
sentiment was manifested.]

The life of the typical Virginia lady of those luxurious days was an
unending round of social pleasures, and this life in its turn was
typical of that of the Southern woman of refinement in all sections,
though presenting that life in its most enlarged and broadened aspects.
She had her responsibilities, and