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 was a spot just big enough for a wardrobe in which to keep her spare clothes and little possessions. She did without a home, but she longed intensely for that wardrobe. ‘I shall have to marry Tony soon,’ she said, ‘just for the convenience of having room for my clothes. I don’t like him, and I want to wait till someone I do like comes, but if ever I take him, it will be for wardrobe room, you just see.’ I must add that ‘someone’ _did_ come, and she now possesses several wardrobes and three bouncing babies, and Tony cuts her when he meets her in the Park! This home passion is even more noticeable in that class of society usually referred to as the lower. I have occasionally employed a poor woman who has been in service as cook since her husband died nineteen years ago. All that time, she has ‘kept on the home,’ _i.e._ a single room which contains her furniture. She has scarcely ever had to use the room, except for an odd day or two, and has had to spend much of her scanty leisure in cleaning it. For nineteen years she has paid three-and-six a week for the room sooner than sell her furniture. The £172 thus expended would have paid for the furniture over and over again. The woman quite realises the absurdity of it, but ‘I simply couldn’t part with the ’ome,’ is her explanation.