"Come to church, Gilbert?" she said, when breakfast was over; and he, having nothing better to do, consented. They walked leisurely along the sands, as did also a good many of the younger company, who objected to being mewed up in an omnibus. "Let us step out a little," said Gilbert, "and join those folks in front." "It is too warm for stepping out much," she answered. "We have a long walk before us. If we hurry we will be flushed and crumpled, and not fit to be seen, when we go into church. And it is a close little place at the best." "Never mind. We can stop outside when we get there; but let's be cheerful in the meantime. I see Miss Deane in that crowd on in front. Come, let's join them." "Oh yes! and that little Fanny Payson you were so set on dancing with last night," Maida answered, a little crossly. "You'll have to take to surf-bathing if you want to get in with that crowd. I think them real frivolous, myself, and mighty conceited and stuck-up. My father might have been a senator too, by now, if he had lived. He ran for Congress the year I was born; and if he did not get sent there, it was none of his fault." "Never mind, Maida; you may go to Congress yourself yet, when the woman's suffrage law passes. But you must take to wearing glasses"--she had dropped using her goggles, I must observe, since Gilbert's appearance--"to show that you have intellect. Intellect, short-sight, and high culture, all run together, like a three-abreast Russian team. If it wasn't for their short-sightedness they would drop the high culture altogether, for they would see it don't pay in this country. We have only a few professors and scientists all told, you see. Three or four dozen women could marry them all, and the rest of the men don't care to be kept humble all the time, by living with wives who know more than themselves. That's why so many spectacled women go lecturing. It's because nobody wants to marry them." "To hear you talk, Gilbert, one would say you were just dreadful. You do not really mean, I'm sure, that you believe a woman makes a better wife for being ignorant or a fool. What companionship can there be between an intelligent man and an empty-headed doll? And perhaps you are not aware, but it is a fact, that the most successful female lecturers are married women; and very poorly off their families and invalid husbands would be, if they could not earn money that way."