MR. R. No, Mrs. Miller. You may run the boat, but you cannot act as captain,—you have no license. The fact is, the law does not allow it. That is what the owners say; and we consulted a lawyer, and he gave it as his opinion, _after careful consideration_, that a woman cannot be master of a vessel legally. MARY. Then we must lose our chance of owning the boat; and I cannot raise the money needed for the support of my poor sick husband and my little baby,—just because I am a woman! Oh! Mr. Romberg! this is hard indeed! MR. R. I suppose it is rather hard; but that is the way of the law, in Louisiana, at least, and I think all over the United States. When our fathers framed the constitution, they thought it was better that woman should be confined to the domestic sphere. The home, the home is their place,—not the decks of vessels. They wanted to protect women in their proper sphere. MARY. Protect them! Hinder them, I should think! MR. R. (_approaching_ MARY). If Captain Miller, now, were not living, you might find some likely river-man to marry you, and be captain of the boat, in name; and then you could keep on acting as master,—your mate, perhaps,—then you’d be all right. MARY. Marry! The mate! Patsy! Oh, Mr. Romberg! Oh, sir! what do you mean? MR. R. (_aside_). Gad! the women are all alike. How they stick to one man! (_To her_) I don’t see what else you can do. MARY. There was Captain Tucker’s wife; after he died she took the boat. MR. R. Yes, but she did not run it long; all of us owners objected to a petticoat captain, and we discharged her. MARY (_severely_). Then what has become of her and all her six children? MR. R. Oh, she tends in a lager-beer saloon in Natchez. MARY (_indignantly_). Yes, and I suppose her children are given away or put out to service—all because she is a woman! She has to do this degrading work to get an honest living, and all because you wouldn’t allow her to do the only work she always had done and was best fitted to do. She run the boat three years before her husband died. MR. R. Well, she might have married and had some one to be her captain. The merchants sent one of their best river-men to marry her, but she ordered him off the boat. MARY. I don’t blame her! MR. R. There ain’t much a woman can do round here _but_ get married. There’s many a likely man that is _not_ a river-man who would like to get a good smart Yankee woman like you. MARY (_sharply_). Mr. Romberg! what do you mean? MR. R. I mean, of course, if your husband does not come back, which seems most likely— Mary (_turning away_). Oh! What shall I do? MR. R. My dear Mrs. Miller! you must be as wise as a serpent as well as harmless as a dove. MARY. Oh, sir! how can I be wise without money, without friends, with my hands tied by a little child, and my means of earning a living taken away?