of
ornamentation--the hanging on the outside of all odd bits of broken
finery. I have not found it always so. I have met many learned women
here, many women more cultivated than my own wife. But listen, Madame,
to the words of an old man. Culture is dust and ashes if the spiritual
foundations of life are not well laid; and, believe me, it takes two, a
man and a woman, to lay those foundations. It can not be done alone."

"But how, how--" began Lydia impatiently.

"In the only way that anything can be accomplished in this world, by
working! Your women have not worked patiently, resolutely, against the
desertion of their men. Worse--they have encouraged it! Have you never
heard an American, woman say: 'Oh, I can't bear a man around the house!
They are so in the way!' Or, 'I let my husband's business alone. I want
him to let--'"

He imitated an accent so familiar to Lydia that she winced. "Oh, don't!"
she said. "I see all that."

"You must find few to see with you."

"But how to change it?" She leaned toward him as though he could impart
some magic formula to her.

"With the men, work to have them share your problems--work to share
theirs. Do not be discouraged by repeated failure. Defeat should not
exist for the spirit. And, oh, the true way--you pointed it out in your
first words. You have the training of the children. Their ideals are
yours to make. A generation is a short--"

His face answered more and more the eager intentness of her own. He
raised his hand with a gesture that underlined his next words: "But
remember always, always, what Amiel says, that a child will divine what
we really worship, and that no teaching will avail with him if we
_teach_ in contradiction to what we _are_."

They were interrupted by a loud hail from the stairs. Madeleine Lowder's
handsome head showed through the balustrade, and back of her were other
amused faces.

"I started to look you up, Lydia," she said, advancing upon them
hilariously, "I thought maybe you weren't feeling well, and then I saw
you monopolizing the lion so that everybody was wondering where in the
world he was, and you were so wrapped up that you never even noticed me,
so I motioned the others to see what a demure little cat of a sister I
have."

She stood before them at the end of this facetious explanation,
laughing, frank, sure of herself, and as beautiful as a great rosy
flower.

"Your _sister_," said the lecturer incredulously to Lydia.

"My husb