you have made all the sacrifice, and I am to get all the benefit.
A man like me has no right to bring such a woman as you under his
burden."

"But you couldn't help yourself. It was because you were out of
sorts with the world, smarting with the wrongs you saw on every
side, struggling after something better and higher, and siding
and sympathizing with the poor and weak, that I loved you. We
should never have been here, dear, if you had been a young
gentleman satisfied with himself and the world, and likely to get
on well in society."

"Ah, Mary, it is all very well for a man. It is a man's business.
But why is a woman's life to be made wretched? Why should you be
dragged into all my perplexities, and doubts, and dreams, and
struggles?"

"And why should I not?"

"Life should be all bright and beautiful to a woman. It is every
man's duty to shield her from all that can vex, or pain, or
soil."

"But have women different souls from men?"

"God forbid!"

"Then are we not fit to share your highest hopes?"

"To share our highest hopes! Yes, when we have any. But the mire
and clay where one sticks fast over and over again, with no high
hopes or high anything else in sight--a man must be a selfish
brute to bring any one he pretends to love into all that."

"Now, Tom," she said almost solemnly, "you are not true to
yourself. Would you part with your own deepest convictions? Would
you, if you could, go back to the time when you cared for and
thought about none of these things?"

He thought a minute, and then, pressing her hand, said--

"No, dearest, I would not. The consciousness of the darkness in
one and around one brings the longing for light. And then the
light dawns, through mist and fog, perhaps, but enough to pick
ones way by." He stopped a moment, and then added, "and shines
ever brighter unto the perfect day. Yes, I begin to know it."

"Then, why not put me on your own level? Why not let me pick my
way by your side? Cannot a woman feel the wrongs that are going
on in the world? Cannot she long to see them set right, and pray
that they may be set right? We are not meant to sit in fine silks
and look pretty, and spend money, any more than you are meant to
make it, and cry peace where there is no peace. If a woman cannot
do much herself, she can honor and love a man who can."

He turned to her, and bent over her, and kissed her forehead, and
kissed her lips. She looked up with sparkling eyes and said--