t vision that dazzled
your boyish eyes? Has she not rather been some gentle, quiet woman whom
you hardly noticed the first time your paths crossed, but who gradually
grew to be a part of your life--to whom you instinctively turned for
consolation in moments of discouragement, for counsel in your
difficulties, and whose welcome was the bright moment in your day, looked
forward to through long hours of toil and worry?

In the hurly-burly of life we lose sight of so many things our fathers
and mothers clung to, and have drifted so far away from their gentle
customs and simple, home-loving habits, that one wonders what impression
our society would make on a woman of a century ago, could she by some
spell be dropped into the swing of modern days. The good soul would be
apt to find it rather a far cry from the quiet pleasures of her youth, to
"a ladies' amateur bicycle race" that formed the attraction recently at a
summer resort.

That we should have come to think it natural and proper for a young wife
and mother to pass her mornings at golf, lunching at the club-house to
"save time," returning home only for a hurried change of toilet to start
again on a bicycle or for a round of calls, an occupation that will leave
her just the half-hour necessary to slip into a dinner gown, and then for
her to pass the evening in dancing or at the card-table, shows, when one
takes the time to think of it, how unconsciously we have changed, and
(with all apologies to the gay hostesses and graceful athletes of to-day)
not for the better.

It is just in the subtle quality of charm that the women of the last ten
years have fallen away from their elder sisters. They have been carried
along by a love of sport, and by the set of fashion's tide, not stopping
to ask themselves whither they are floating. They do not realize all the
importance of their acts nor the true meaning of their metamorphosis.

The dear creatures should be content, for they have at last escaped from
the bondage of ages, have broken their chains, and vaulted over their
prison walls. "Lords and masters" have gradually become very humble and
obedient servants, and the "love, honour, and obey" of the marriage
service might now more logically be spoken by the man; on the lips of the
women of to-day it is but a graceful "_facon de parler_," and holds only
those who choose to be bound.

It is not my intention to rail against the short-comings of the day. That
ungrateful ta