to get the
machines set up when you once get them here--"

At such moments there was something great in Mary. To conceive a plan and
put it through to an irresistible conclusion: there was nothing in which
she took a deeper delight.

That night, at home, she told them of her new plan.

"Just think," she said, "if a woman lives seventy years, and the washing
is done once a week, you might say she spent one-seventh of her life--or
ten whole years--at the meanest hardest work that was ever invented--"

"They don't do the washing when they're children," said Helen.

"No, but they hate it just as much. I used to see them on wash days when
Aunt Patty took me around, and I always felt sorry for the children."

Wally came in later and listened sadly to the news of the day.

"You're only using yourself up," he said, "for a lot of people who don't
care a snap of the finger for you. It seems to me," he added, "that you'd
be doing better to make one man happy who loves you, than try to please a
thousand women who never, never will."

She thought that over, for this was an angle which hadn't occurred to her
before.

"No," she said, "I'm not doing it to gain anything for myself, but to
lift the poor women up--to give them something to hope for, something to
live for, something to make them happier than they are now. Yes, and from
everybody's point of view, I think I'm doing something good. Because when
the woman is miserable, she can generally make her man miserable. But
when the woman is happy, she can nearly always make the man happy, too."

"I wish you'd make me happy," sighed poor Wally.

"Here comes Helen," said Mary with just the least trace of wickedness in
her voice. "She'll do her best, I'm sure."

Helen was dressed for the evening, her arms and shoulders gleaming, her
coiffure like a golden turban.

"Mary hardly ever dresses any more," she said as she came down the
stairs, "so I feel I have to do double duty."

On the bottom landing she stopped and with extravagant motions of her
body sang the opening lines of the Bedouin's Love Song, Wally joining in
at last with his plaintive, passionate tenor.

"If you ever lose your money, Wally," she said, coming down the remaining
stairs, "we'll take up comic opera." Curtseying low she simpered, "My
lord!" and gave him her hand to kiss.

"She knows how to handle men," thought Mary watching, "just as the women
at the factory know how to handle metal. I wonder if it c