ersity, she took a full course in a commercial college, and then
taught school for some time at Denver. Later she studied and taught
music, for which she had a marked gift. The next important step
brought her to New York, where she gained in a competitive examination
the position of secretary in the office of the Street Cleaning
Department. Her linguistic accomplishments (for she had studied
several foreign languages) stood her in good stead, and during the
illness of her chief she practically managed the department and
"bossed" fifteen hundred Italian labourers in their own tongue. Miss
Undereast carried on her musical studies far enough to be offered a
position in an operatic company, while her linguistic studies
qualified her for the post of United States Custom House Inspectress.
Latterly she has devoted her time mainly to journalism and literature,
producing, _inter alia_, a guidebook to New York, a novel, and a
volume of essays on social topics. It is a little difficult to realise
when talking with the accomplished and womanly _litterateur_ that she
has been in her day a slayer of Indians and "a mighty huntress before
the Lord;" but both the facts and the opportunities underlying them
testify in the most striking manner to the largeness of the sphere of
action open to the _puella Americana_.

If American women have been well treated by their men-folk, they have
nobly discharged their debt. It is trite to refer to the numerous
schemes of philanthropy in which American women have played so
prominent a part, to allude to the fact that they have as a body used
their leisure to cultivate those arts and graces of life which the
preoccupation of man has led him too often to neglect. This chapter
may well close with the words of Professor Bryce: "No country seems to
owe more to its women than America does, nor to owe to them so much of
what is best in its social institutions and in the beliefs that govern
conduct."

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Since writing the above I have learned that Mr. W.D. Howells has
written of "Daisy Miller" in a similar vein, speaking of her
"indestructible innocence and her invulnerable new-worldliness." "It
was so plain that Mr. James disliked her vulgar conditions that the
very people to whom he revealed her essential sweetness and light were
furious that he should have seemed not to see what existed through
him."

V

The American Child

The United States has sometimes been called the "Pa