"It isn't just the fault of the girls that they do this, is it? Near my school-house there are girls who stay at home with their mothers, and many of them are without any ambition of any kind. I'm a good deal for the girl who wants to strike out for herself. The household arts as you knew them in your youth can't be practised in the home any more on the income of the average man. Most women of the kind we're talking about wear ready-made clothes--not because they're lazy, but because the tailor-made suits which life in a city demands can't be made by any amateur sempstress. They're turned out by the carload in great factories from designs of experts. There's no bread to bake in the modern mechanic's home, for better bread and cake are made more cheaply in the modern bakeshop. Wasn't there really a good deal of nonsense about the pies that mother used to make--I wonder? There were perhaps in every community women who were natural cooks, but our Mary used to drive grandfather crazy with her saleratus biscuits and greasy doughnuts. A good cook in the old times was famous all over the community because the general level of cooking was so low. Women used to take great pride in their preservings and jellyings, but at the present prices of fruit and sugar a city woman would lose money making such things. It's largely because this work can't be done at home that girls such as we have at Elizabeth House have no sort of manual dexterity and have to earn a poor living doing something badly that they're not interested in or fitted for. Women have one terrible handicap in going out into the world to earn their living; it's the eternal romance that's in all of us," said Sylvia a little dreamily. "I don't believe any woman ever gets beyond that." It was a note she rarely struck and Mrs. Owen looked at her quickly. "I mean, the man who may be always waiting just around the corner." "You mean every girl has that chance before her? Well, a happy marriage is a great thing--the greatest thing that can happen to a woman. My married life was a happy one--very happy; but it didn't last long. It was my misfortune to lose my husband and the little girl when I was still young. They think I'm hard--yes, a good many people do--because I've been making money. But I had to do something; I couldn't sit with my hands folded; and what I've done I've tried to do right. I hope you won't leave love and marriage out of your life, Sylvia. In this new condition of things that we've talked about there's no reason why a woman shouldn't work--do things, climb up high, and be a woman, too. He'll be a lucky man who gets you to stand by him and work for him and with him." "Oh," sighed Sylvia, "there are so many things to do! I want to know so much and do so much!" "You'll know them and do them; but I don't want you to have a one-sided life. Dear Sylvia," and Mrs. Owen bent toward the girl and touched her hand gently, "I don't want you to leave love out of your life."