k out of it on a clove and a lie;
carefully weigh the cost, and if you conclude to risk everything for
the gratification of an appetite drink at home and above board, and
don't attempt to deceive your wife with subterfuges and excuses. Don't
run after other women because your wife is not so young as she once
was, or because the bloom is faded a little from the face you once
thought so fair. It is the part of an Indian to retract a gift once
given, or to go back on a bargain. Don't live together if you can't
rise above the level of fighting cats, but be careful how you throw
aside the bonds that God has joined between you. Live the lot you have
chosen as bravely as you can, remembering that the thorn that you have
developed will never change into a rose by mere change of
circumstances. Divorce and the mere shifting of the stage setting will
never make your tragedy over into a vaudeville or a light opera.

XLIX.

GONE BACK TO FLIPPITY-FLOPPITY SKIRTS.

The rainy season is here again, and where is dress-reform? My soul
grew sick, the other morning as, with unfurled umbrella, lunch-basket,
bundle, and draperies, I beheld the working woman on her weary march.
Give a man a petticoat, a bundle and an umbrella, and the streets would
be full of capering lunatics whenever it rained. Stay at home, did you
say? That is good advice for the woman who has nothing else to do, but
in these latter days the right sort of husband don't go round. Either
he died in the war or the stock has run low, so that more than half the
well-meaning women have no homes to stay in. What Moses is going to
lead the poor creatures to the commonsense suit that shall protect them
from the inclement weather they are forced to meet as they go abroad to
earn their bread and salt? It must be a concerted movement, for there
is none among us who dares take the war path alone. The children of
Israel went in a crowd and so must we. For a principle there are those
among us who would die, perhaps, but there is no principle on the earth
below nor in the heaven above for which we would suffer ridicule. As
for me, I have furled my banner and laid aside my bugle. I am tired of
being a martyr to an unpopular cause. I am too big a coward to be
caught making an everlasting object of myself. I have gone back to
flippity-floppity skirts and long gowns and all the rest of the "flesh
pots." Browning says of a certain class of people: "The dread of shame