matter how mean a home it may have been, every bit of it is
sacred and dear--from the box-room, where on wet days we played at
robbers, to the toolshed, where on fine days we played at everything
under the sun. To this day if I chance on a badly-cooked potato it
almost brings tears to my eyes, not because of its badness, but because
it recalls the potatoes that three small children used to cook with
gladness and eat with silent awe, in the ashes of a bonfire, in an old
garden, long, long ago--whilst the smell of a bonfire itself makes me
feel seven years old again!

But whether she has a home with her parents or not, every normal woman
longs for a home of her own, and a girl who resents even arranging the
flowers on her mother's dinner-table will after marriage cheerfully do
quite distasteful housework in the place she calls her own.

This passionate love of home is one of the most marked feminine
characteristics; I don't mean love of being _at_ home, as modern women's
tastes frequently lie elsewhere, but love of the place itself and the
desire to possess it. A great number of women marry solely to obtain
this coveted possession. As for those who don't, the advertisement
columns of the _Church Times_, the _Christian World_, and other papers
tell a pitiful story of their need. Ladies 'by birth' (pathetic and
foolish little phrase!) are willing to do almost anything in return for
just a modest corner, a very subordinate place even in someone else's
home. They will be housekeepers, servants, companions, secretaries,
helps for 'a small salary and a home,' and sometimes for no salary at
all. They will pack, sew, mend, teach, supervise; they offer their
knowledge of every kind, such as it is, their music, their languages,
their health and strength, their subservience and all their virtues,
real or acquired--all in return for a little food and fire, and the
sheltering of four walls, which constitute their extreme need, their
utmost desire--a home! Beautiful women, gifted and good women, sell
themselves daily just to gain a home. Even Hedda Gabler, most degenerate
of modern heroines, who shot herself rather than be a mother, sold
herself in a loveless marriage only for a home. And yet constantly we
read a list of trivial and fantastic reasons why women don't marry!

A girl-bachelor who was compelled to spend most of her time in that
uncomfortable place technically known as 'one's boxes,' once told me
that her greatest desire