The danger of such training is well illustrated in the sad end of Ettie Berton. When the trials and temptations of life come, then each one must decide for herself, and hold in her own hands the reins of action. Educated women of the passing generation chafe under the old order of things, but, like Mrs. Foster in the present volume, are not strong enough to swim up stream. But girls like Gertrude, who in the college curriculum have measured their powers and capacities with strong young men and found themselves their equals, have outgrown this superstition of divinely ordained sex domination. The divine rights of kings, nobles, popes, and bishops have long been questioned, and now that of sex is under consideration and from the signs of the times, with all other forms of class and caste, it is destined soon to pass away. Elizabeth Cady Stanton PRAY YOU, SIR, WHOSE DAUGHTER? I To say that Mrs. Foster was cruel, that she lacked sympathy with the unfortunate, or that she was selfish, would be to state only the dark half of a truism that has a wider application than class or sex could give it; a truism whose boundary lines, indeed, are set by nothing short of the ignorance of human beings hedged in by prejudice and handicapped by lack of imagination. So when she sat, with dainty folded hands whose jeweled softness found fitting background on the crimson velvet of her trailing gown, and announced that she could endure everything associated with, and felt deep sympathy for, the poor if it were not for the besetting sin of uncleanliness that found its home almost invariably where poverty dwelt, it would be unjust to pronounce her hard-hearted or base. "It is all nonsense to say that the poor need be so dirty," she announced, as she held her splendid feather fan in one hand and caressed the dainty tips of the white plumes with the tips of fingers only less dainty and white. "I have rarely ever seen a really poor man, woman, or child who was at the same time really clean looking in person, and as to clothes--" She broke off with an impatient and disgusted little shrug, as if to say--what was quite true--that even the touch of properly descriptive words held for her more soilure than she cared to bear contact with. John Martin laughed. Then he essayed to banter his hostess, addressing his remarks meanwhile to her daughter. "One could not imagine your mamma a victim of poverty and hunger, much less of dirt, Miss Gertrude," he began slowly; "but even that sumptuous velvet gown of hers would grow to look more or less--let us say--rusty, in time, I fear, if it were the only costume she possessed, and she were obliged to eat, cook, wash, iron, sew, and market in it." The two ladies laughed merrily at the droll suggestion, and Miss Gertrude pursed up her lips and developed a decided squint in her eyes as she turned them upon the folds of her mother's robe. Then she took up Mr. Martin's description where the laugh had broken in upon it.