he hired a capable woman to look after the house, and joined
a ladies' orchestra as pianist at two pounds a week. She now earns four,
and works twelve hours a day. The husband of the second fell ill. She
set him to write letters and run errands, which was light work that he
could do, and started a dressmaker's business. The third was left a
widow without means. She sent her three children to boarding-school, and
opened a tea-room. I don't know how they talked before, but I know that
they do not talk now as though earning the income was a sort of round
game.

When they have tried it the other way round.

On the Continent they have gone deliberately to work, one would imagine,
to reverse matters. Abroad woman is always where man ought to be, and
man where most ladies would prefer to meet with women. The ladies _garde-
robe_ is superintended by a superannuated sergeant of artillery. When I
want to curl my moustache, say, I have to make application to a superb
golden-haired creature, who stands by and watches me with an interested
smile. I would be much happier waited on by the superannuated sergeant,
and my wife tells me she could very well spare him. But it is the law of
the land. I remember the first time I travelled with my daughter on the
Continent. In the morning I was awakened by a piercing scream from her
room. I struggled into my pyjamas, and rushed to her assistance. I
could not see her. I could see nothing but a muscular-looking man in a
blue blouse with a can of hot water in one hand and a pair of boots in
the other. He appeared to be equally bewildered with myself at the sight
of the empty bed. From a cupboard in the corner came a wail of distress:

"Oh, do send that horrid man away. What's he doing in my room?"

I explained to her afterwards that the chambermaid abroad is always an
active and willing young man. The foreign girl fills in her time
bricklaying and grooming down the horses. It is a young and charming
lady who serves you when you enter the tobacconist's. She doesn't
understand tobacco, is unsympathetic; with Mr. Frederic Harrison, regards
smoking as a degrading and unclean habit; cannot see, herself, any
difference between shag and Mayblossom, seeing that they are both the
same price; thinks you fussy. The corset shop is run by a most
presentable young man in a Vandyck beard. The wife runs the restaurant;
the man does the cooking, and yet the woman has not reached fr