"But don't you think," I rejoined, "that, if you gave them the money, they would find the wants, and that the scarcity of the former is the true reason for the limitation of the latter? Do not working-women live on the little they get only because they are compelled to?" "It may be so," he answered. "Our wants are born with us,--and as one set is supplied, another rises up to demand gratification. But they offer to work for these wages, and why should we give them more than they ask?" "But how is it with the women with families, the widows?" I suggested. "Have they no more wants than young girls? If the fewer necessities of the girls be a reason for giving them low wages, why should not the more numerous ones of the widows be as potent a reason for giving them better wages?" "Competition again, Miss," he responded. "The prices at which the girls work govern the market." There was no getting over facts like these. Let me look at the subject in whatever aspect I might, it seemed impossible that female labor should be adequately paid by any class of employers. But on the present occasion this was an incidental question. The primary one, why so much more sewing was required for the people now than formerly, was answered measurably to my satisfaction. I thought a great deal on this subject, because now, since the loss of our main family-dependence, I was more interested in its solution. I think I settled down into accepting the foregoing facts and opinions as embodying a satisfactory explanation; and although not exactly set at ease, yet the conclusion then embraced has not been changed by any subsequent discovery.