so."

"If it did, it would defeat its own purposes," said Eleanor. "What we
want to do--and it's for Guardians, if they're youngsters like you and
me, as well as for the girls--is to train ourselves to attend to our
jobs properly."

"Why, what jobs do you mean?"

"The job every girl ought to get sooner or later--running a home. It's
a lot more of a job, and a lot more difficult, and important, too, than
waiting on people in a shop, or being a stenographer, and yet no one
ever thinks an awful lot about it before it comes along."

"That's so, Nell. I never thought of it just that way. But you're
right. We get married, and a whole lot of us don't have any idea at
all of how to look after a house."

"It isn't fair to the men who marry us. Marriage is supposed to be a
partnership--husband and wife as partners. But if the man knew as
little about his part of the job as the woman generally does about hers
when she gets married, most married couples would be in the poorhouse
in a year."

"That sounds old-fashioned, but I don't believe it is, somehow."

"It certainly is not. It's what I try to keep in mind. That's why we
don't go in much for talking about votes for women. I'm not saying we
ought not to vote, or that we ought to. But I do think there are a lot
of things we ought to think about first. Times have changed a lot, but
after all women and men don't change so very much. Or, at least, they
ought not to change."

"I think I see what you're driving at. You mean that your great
grandmother and mine probably spun cloth and made clothes for
themselves and most of the family, and did all sorts of other things
that we never think of doing?"

"Yes. And I don't mean that we ought to go back to that. A man can
buy a better shirt in a shop now for less money than you or I would
have to spend in making him one. But there are plenty of other things
we could do in a house that we never seem to think of, somehow."

"I don't see how you think of all that! I thought I'd spent a lot of
time studying the Camp Fire, but I never got hold of those ideas."

"Oh, they're not all mine--not a bit of it! You ought to talk to Mrs.
Chester, our Chief Guardian. She'd make you think, and she'd make you
believe you were doing it all by yourself, too."

"Yes, she's wonderful. I don't know her very well, but I hope to see
more of her this winter. I want to be Guardian of a Camp Fire of my
own. I've had just enough o