educate 'em then, if it's education they all
need," suggested the doctor, who had been auditing every clause of the
last remark with a thoughtful nod.

"No, wages aren't the question," Mrs. Burgoyne reiterated. "Why, I knew
a little Swedish woman once, who raised three children on three hundred
dollars a year."

"She COULDN'T!" ejaculated Mrs. Brown.

"Oh, but she did! She paid one dollar a week for rent, too. One son is
a civil engineer, now, and the daughter is a nurse. The youngest is
studying medicine."

"But what did they EAT, do you suppose?"

"Oh, I don't know. Potatoes, I suppose, and oatmeal and baked cabbage,
and soup. I know she got a quart of buttermilk every day, for three
cents. They were beautiful children. They went to free schools, and
lectures, and galleries, and park concerts, and free dispensaries, when
they needed them. Laws could do no more for her, she knew her business."

"Well, education WOULD solve it then," concluded Mrs. Brown.

"I don't know." Mrs. Burgoyne answered, reflectively, "Book education
won't certainly. But example might, I believe example would."

"You mean for people of a better class to go and live among them?"
suggested the doctor.

"No, but I mean for people of a better class to show them that what
they are striving for isn't vital, after all. I mean for us to so order
our lives that they will begin to value cleanliness, and simplicity,
and the comforts they can afford. You know, Mary Brown," said Mrs.
Burgoyne, turning suddenly to the doctor's wife, with her gay,
characteristic vehemence, "it's all our fault, all the misery and
suffering and sin of it, everywhere!"

"Our fault! You and me!" cried Mrs. Brown, aghast.

"No, all the fault of women, I mean!" Mrs. Burgoyne laughed too as Mrs.
Brown settled back in her chair with a relieved sigh. "We women," she
went on vigorously, "have mismanaged every separate work that was ever
put into our hands! We ought to be ashamed to live. We cumber--"

"Here!" said the doctor, smiling in lazy comfort over his pipe, "that's
heresy! I refuse to listen to it. My wife is a woman, my mother, unless
I am misinformed, was another--"

"Don't mind him!" said Mrs. Brown, "but go on! What have we all done?
We manage our houses, and dress our children, and feed our husbands, it
seems to me."

"Well, there's the big business of motherhood," began Mrs. Burgoyne,
"the holiest and highest thing God ever let a mortal do. We evade it
and