asy life of it, if all we hear of them
is true. To defend the farm and the homestead during their husbands'
absence, and to keep themselves intact against all bold rovers to whom
the Tenth Commandment was an unknown law; to dazzle and bewilder by
magic arts when they could not conquer by open strength; to unite craft
and courage, deception and daring, loyalty and independence, demanded
no small amount of opposing qualities. But the Steingerdas and Gudrunas
were generally equal to any emergency of fate or fortune, and slashed
their way through the history of their time more after the manner of men
than women; supplementing their downright blows by side thrusts of
craftier cleverness when they had to meet power with skill, and were
fain to overthrow brutality by fraud. The Norse women were certainly as
largely framed as they were mentally energetic, and as crafty as either;
but we know of no other women who unite the same characteristics, and
are at once cunning, strong, brave and true.

On the whole, then, the little women have the best of it. More petted
than their bigger sisters, and infinitely more powerful, they have their
own way in part because it really does not seem worth while to contest a
point with such little creatures. There is nothing that wounds a man's
self-respect in any victory they may get or claim. Where there is
absolute inequality of strength, there can be no humiliation in the
self-imposed defeat of the stronger; and as it is always more pleasant
to have peace than war, and as big men for the most part rather like
than not to put their necks under the tread of tiny feet, the little
woman goes on her way triumphant to the end, breaking all the laws she
does not like, and throwing down all the barriers that impede her
progress, perfectly irresistible and irrepressible in all circumstances
and under any condition.

PINCHBECK.

Not many years ago no really refined gentlewoman would have worn
pinchbeck. False jewelry and imitation lace were touchstones with the
sex, and the woman who would condescend to either was assumed, perhaps
not quite without reason, to have lost something more than the mere
perception of technical taste. This feeling ran through the whole of
society, and pinchbeck was considered as at once despicable and
disreputable. The successful speculator, sprung from nothing, who had
made his fortune during the war, might buy land, build himself a
mansion, and set up a magnificen