was sufficient,

All went well until another girl, as unattractive as Marie was
charming, decided that she would try to buy Fritz as a husband.
After four months of her acquaintance he found time at the end of a
day's drill to write a few lines informing the young lady, nine
years of whose life he had monopolised, of his intention to marry
the new rival. Life became black for Marie, the more as she
realised that she and Fritz had only to wait a little longer and
his pay would be sufficient.

How would Fritz be regarded in this country, and how was he
regarded according to German standards? That is what makes the
story worth telling. With us such a man as Fritz would have been
cut socially and there would have been great sympathy for the sweet
girl whose years had been wasted. But on the other side of the
Rhine women exist solely for the comfort of men. In militaristic
Germany Fritz lost not an iota of the esteem of his friends of
either sex; as for Marie, she had failed in a fair game, that was
all. The girl's mother even excused his conduct by saying that he
was ambitious to get ahead in the army. Like most of her sex in
Germany she has been reared to venerate the uniform so much that
anything done by the man who wears it is quite excusable. Indeed,
Marie's mother still listens with respectful approval at
_Kaffeeklatsch_ to Fritz's mother when she boasts of what her son
is doing as a major over Turkish troops.

German women have many estimable qualities, but a proper amount of
independence and pride is noticeably foreign to their natures. Is
it surprising that the American girl of German parents requires
only a very brief visit to the Fatherland to convince her that the
career of the _Hausfrau_ is not attractive.

On the whole, the efforts of the German woman have almost doubled
the national output of war energy. Except in Berlin few are idle,
and these only among the newly-rich class. The women of the upper
classes, both in Germany and Austria, are either in hospitals or
are making comforts for the troops. Women have always worked
harder in Germany and at more kinds of work than in Britain or the
States, and what, judging by London illustrated papers, seems to be
a novelty--the engagement of women in agricultural and other
pursuits--is just the natural way of things in Germany. It should
always be remembered, when estimating German man-power and German
ability to hold out, that the bulk of the wor