“I don’t think, Mrs. Blodgett,” you corrected, “it is so much a feeling of superiority as it is a change in the aims of marriage. Formerly, woman married to gain a protector, and man to gain a housewife. Now, matrimony is sought far less for service, and far more for companionship.” “But, Miss Walton,” questioned Mr. Whitely, “does not the woman ask too much nowadays? She has the leisure to read and study, but a business man cannot spare the time. Is it fair, then, to expect that he shall be as cultivated as she can make herself?” “That is, I think, the real cause for complaint,” you answered. “The business man is so absorbed in money-making that he sacrifices his whole time to it. I can understand a woman falling in love with a lance or a sword, dull companions though they must have been, but it seems to me impossible for any woman to love a minting-machine, even though she might be driven to marry it for its product.” “That’s rough on us, Whitely,” laughed Mr. Blodgett good-naturedly; but Mr. Whitely reddened, and you, as if to divert the subject from this personal tendency, turned and surmised to me:— “I suppose that as a German, Dr. Hartzmann, you think a woman should be nothing more than a housekeeper?” “Why not suggest, Miss Walton,” I replied, smiling, “that as an Orientalist I must think the seraglio woman’s proper sphere?” “But, Miss Walton,” persisted Mr. Whitely, not accepting your diversion, “a man, to be successful nowadays, must give all his attention to his business. “I presume that is so,” you acceded; “but could he not be content with a little less success in money-making, and strive to acquire a few more amenities?” “Maizie wants us all to be painters and poets and musicians,” asserted Mr. Blodgett. “Not at all,” you denied. “Oh, Maizie!” cried Agnes. “You know you said the other day that you hoped I wouldn’t marry a business man.” “I said ‘_only_ a business man,’ Agnes,” you replied, without a trace of the embarrassment so many women would have shown. “Because men cannot all be clergymen is no reason for their knowing nothing of religion. There would be no painters, poets, or musicians if there were no dilettanti.” “Yet I think,” argued Mr. Whitely, still as if he were trying to convince you of something, “that the successful business man has as much brain as most writers or artists.” “I have no doubt that is true,” you assented. “So, too, a day laborer may have a good mind. But of what avail is a brain if it has never been trained, or has been trained to know only one thing?” “But authors and painters are only specialists,” urged Mr. Whitely. “They are specialists of a very different type,” you responded, “from the man whose daily thoughts are engrossed with the prices of pig-iron or cotton sheetings. I think one reason why American girls frequently marry Europeans is that the foreign man is so apt to be more broadly cultivated.”