rather have been the mother of boys, but as I have proved to be only the mother of girls, I will try to make those girls what I have missed being myself. They shall be out of the common; they shall belong to the New Womanhood; they shall be brought up at least to be the equals of men." Now by this time the "something in the city" on which Regina and Alfred had started housekeeping had resolved itself into a very solid and prosperous position, though Alfred Whittaker--make no mistake about it--was not, and was never likely to be, a millionaire, or even a very wealthy man. But he was prosperous in a comfortable, assured, middle-class way. He was ambitious too--I mean socially ambitious--and he liked to feel that his wife was in a good set in the suburb in which they lived. He liked to go to church occasionally, and to have his own seat when he did so. He liked his rector to come to him as an open-handed, clean-living man on whom he could depend for contributions suitable to his style of living. He liked to be able to take his wife to a theatre, and to dine her beforehand, and to give her a bit of supper afterwards. He liked to go to the seaside for August, and to take a trip to Paris at Easter if he was so inclined. And, above all things, Alfred Whittaker liked a good dinner, a pretty, tasteful table, and a neat handmaiden to wait upon him. To do him justice, he never lost his early admiration for Regina. It was wonderful that he had not done so, for with her improved circumstances and her improved position, Regina's taste in dress had not advanced. Sometimes, on a birthday, or some anniversary kept religiously by them, such as their day of engagement, their wedding day, the day on which they first met, the day on which they moved into the house they occupied--such domestic altars as most of us erect during the course of our lives--he would bring her home a present of a bonnet. He called it a bonnet, but it was generally a hat. Alfred always called it a bonnet nevertheless, and Regina invariably accepted it with blushes of admiration, and wore it with what, in another woman, would have been the courage of a martyr. It was no martyrdom to Regina. I have seen her with all her fair hair turned back from her large face, crowned with a _modiste's_ edifice which would have proved trying to a lovely girl of eighteen. "You like my hat?" said Regina, one day to a friend. "Isn't it lovely? Dear Alfie brought it for me from town. I believe he sent to Paris for it. It has a French name in the crown. Much more extravagant than I should have got for myself--these white feathers won't wear, and all this lovely sky-blue velvet and these delicate pearl ornaments are far beyond what I should have chosen on my own responsibility. But I can't help seeing how it becomes me." "Why don't you have a waistcoat of the same color--a front, you know--this part?" asked her friend, making a line from her throat to her belt buckle.