But withal Dorothy was a practical common-sense young woman, and as little likely as any of her very practical sex to forget the stern necessities of work-a-day life, in a momentary abandon to the transcendental schemes of an enthusiast. "Don't you think we had better know more about your Co-op?" she said. "These grand ideas may be all very well as abstract theories. I want to know how you propose to put them into practice and live. I seem to remember that St. John not only permits dreams and visions to you men; he also allows us daughters to prophesy." "Well?" "Now I venture to prophesy that if you and Ben set about your new venture in the manner you seem to have contemplated, it is not only good-bye to your small fortune, which, perhaps wouldn't matter very much--but it would be to handicap you at the very threshold of your life with the deadening sense of failure, and perhaps fill your whole future with the bitterness of blighted hopes and unrealized aspirations. Now I think I can suggest to you an attainable Utopia. It would not, perhaps, be such a neck-or-nothing affair as yours, but it should have enough of other-worldliness in it for a sane man." Tom sat down again by Dorothy's side, but this time he did not take the edge of the seat. His nervous shyness had vanished in the abandonment of his speech. "Ben says women can neither see nor feel an inch outside their own doorsteps," he said with a smile. "And a good thing for men, whose wives at all events are centred in their homes and families. But I am not Ben's wife, nor--nor anyone else's," concluded Dorothy lamely, flushing slightly at some unspoken thought. "And what is your attainable Utopia, Miss Dorothy?" asked Tom, very quietly. "Well, you must let me think, and, as it were, feel my way to a conclusion; for to tell the truth I have not read or thought much on such difficult problems as the subject seems to bristle with. Tell me, at our village Co-op doesn't a member's dividend depend on the amount of his purchases?" "I believe so." "And, roughly speaking, doesn't a man's spending power bear a sort of proportion to his earning power?" "Practically, no doubt." "Then you see that practical co-operation benefits a man according to his ability and application." "Clearly." "Well, I think that is right. Now if I understand _your_ principle of Socialism it makes no distinction between the skilled and incapable. Granting only equality of industry you reward all alike. Now that is not common justice." "I think it is," said Tom, stoutly, "a man can but do his best."