Women seldom idle well; they do not understand the art. They make it too much of a business, and so miss the spirit of true idling. Now I reckon myself something of a _connoisseur_ in this matter, for if there be one art with which I am familiar in all its branches, and on terms of perfect understanding, it is this art of idling. A fine art, look you, that must be studied with the same assiduity and sympathy as painting, poetry, music, love-making, lying, or any other of those accomplishments that have been reckoned among the fine arts. Your true idler is born, not made, but in the easy and happy evasion of work and its responsibilities he proves himself the artist. The obligation to effort is a necessity to him, but his art teaches him how to make a virtue of necessity by shunting the obligation on to pleasanter lines, while the effort fails naturally upon other shoulders which perhaps ought to bear it for some penance they have no doubt deserved. At least, your idler consoles himself so, if he concern himself at all about the matter. Thus, to idle artistically is not to vulgarly waste time, but to adorn it as with May-day garlands. And every one who cultivates this most delightful of arts may build himself a Castle of Pleasaunce in the midst of this workaday world, wherein he may joyously live at ease, and listen to the hearty songs of the toilers, who have never dreamed of Arcady, and who know nought but that each hour must produce its full profit of work. But to return to Mrs. Restless. She is the busy-idle woman _par excellence_. To idle simply is impossible to her; she must always be indefinitely busy with definite results. There is seldom any uncertainty about the results, generally they are practically valueless, or not worth the trouble they have cost, but they occupy a great deal of time in achieving for all that. She will take up some charitable object, and go from place to place and worry all her friends and acquaintances in the cause, and at the end of her efforts she will find that, had she at first given a certain reasonable sum from her own pocket, she would not only have come off cheaper than she has by frittering out small payments, but she would have saved much trouble and time, which might have been more advantageously employed. If she plans any pleasure, she will, instead of enjoying it in the right, rational manner of the true idler, make so much fuss about it, and expend so much argument upon it, that it becomes a business and loses all semblance of pleasure.