If anyone objects that women who are intensely interested in work which also enables them to be self-supporting are less attractive than they would otherwise be, I can make no reply except that to expect a hundred women to devote their energies to attracting fifty men seems slightly ridiculous. If the counter-argument be put forward that women, able to support themselves in comfort, and happy in their work, will disdain marriage, then those who take this view are maintaining, not only that it is not true that Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart; ’Tis woman’s whole existence. but also that marriage has naturally very much less attraction for women than for men. THE EXPENDITURE OF MIDDLE CLASS WORKING WOMEN. _December, 1898._ In making an appeal to middle class working women to keep and utilise their accounts of expenditure, some little explanation is necessary of the ends to be furthered by such tedious labour. For the keeping of such accounts is to most people a weariness and a vexation. One friend of mine declines to make the attempt because it makes her miserable to have the smallness of her income and the gloominess of the future brought before her mind with such regularity. Another after six months’ trial has suffered a relapse because keeping the account spoilt all the pleasure of spending. Many are afraid that moralists will denounce their expenditure as misdirected and extravagant, and, although living within their income, prefer to remain uncertain as to the amount they spend on what others may regard as mere vanities. There are two questions which every woman who may have to be self-supporting should ask herself:-- (1) Is the salary which I am efficient enough to earn sufficient to maintain that efficiency for a considerable number of years? (2) In middle age, when I may be entirely dependent on my own exertions, shall I be more, or shall I be less, competent to earn a salary sufficient to maintain the standard of living to which I have been accustomed? The cost of efficiency is higher than the cost of living, a fact which is not sufficiently recognised by the middle class working woman or by her employers. The habits of domestic life which make it incumbent on women to make the best of a fixed income cling to them as wage-earners. They do not sufficiently realise that the drain on their vitality, effected by their daily routine of continuous and often monotonous exertion, must be met by fresh streams of energy which can only be produced under present conditions by deliberate search for recreation and by a greater expenditure of money than a purely domestic life demands.