ining his attentions and the material comforts he might be able to
give, and he would quite willingly think himself free to follow his
fancy without censure. In this way has grown up the double moral
standard, the pure woman holding herself to the strictest morality, and
men imagining themselves not so sternly held to the narrow path of
absolute purity.

"Women are not now slaves, bought as wives and valued for their personal
charms alone. They have intellectual power and moral force and social
influence, and they can, if they will, create the single moral
standard,--that is, the one high ideal for both men and women."

"O, father, do you think girls have as much power as that? It always
seems to me as if girls might be of value when they are grown up, but
that while we are girls we can't do much to make the world better."

"That is the mistake girls generally make, when in fact the most
important time of life is youth. It is while you are girls that you are
forming your own character, and at the same time you are helping to form
the character of the generations to come. You are of far more value to
the nation now, while you are young and can make of yourselves almost
anything you please, than you will be when you are old and your habits
are fixed. If girls all lived nobly and exacted noble conduct of all
their associates, boys as well as girls, it would not take long to
settle all questions of reform. Young men will be what young women ask
them to be, and that, you see, makes girls of great importance. Do you
remember what we were reading in Sesame and Lilies the other day about
woman's queenly power? Get the book and let us read it again."

Helen brought the book, and, finding the place, read:

"Woman's power is for rule, not for battle, and her intellect is not for
invention or creation, but for sweet ordering, arrangement and decision.
Her great function is Praise.

"There is not a war in the world, no, nor an injustice, but you women
are answerable for it, not in that you have provoked, but in that you
have not hindered. Men, by their nature, are prone to fight. They will
fight for any cause or none. It is for you to choose their cause for
them, and to forbid when there is no cause. There is no suffering, no
injustice, no misery in the earth, but the guilt of it lies with you.

"Queens you must always be: queens to your lovers: queens to your
husbands and sons: queens of higher mystery to the world beyond, wh