I have every sympathy with the women who wish to postpone taking up the heavy responsibilities of matrimony till they have had what in the opposite sex is termed ‘a fling,’ that is until they have enjoyed a period of freedom wherein to study, to travel, to enjoy their youth fully, to meet many men, to look life in the eyes and learn something of its meaning. But there comes a period in the life of almost every woman--except the aforesaid degenerate--when she feels it is time to ‘put away childish things,’ and into her heart there steals a longing for the real things of life--the things that matter, the things that last--wedded love and little children, and that priceless possession, a home of one’s own. It is the fashion nowadays to discredit the home, and it has been jestingly alluded to by Mr Bernard Shaw as ‘the girl’s prison and the woman’s workhouse;’ but what a wonderful sanctuary it really is!--and exactly how much it means to a woman, only those who have felt the need of it can tell. In our youth, home is the place where hampers come from, where string and stamps and magazines grow on the premises, a place generally where love is, but nevertheless essentially a place we take for granted and for which we never dream of being grateful. Later on it is sometimes associated with irksome duties; to some it even becomes a place to get away from; but when we have lost it, how we long for it! How reverently we think of each room and the things that happened there; how we yearn in thought over the old garden and dream about the beloved trees. No 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.