eposing on eider-down cushions, with the tiller
ropes in their hands, while men did the rowing. I was not going to admit,
Tabby, that the most of the girls we know never worked harder in their
lives than during that indefinite and mysterious period known as "making
up their minds." You see I uphold my own sex at all hazards--to men.

He was standing up to go when he said that, but there was something about
him which led me to suspect that he was in a condition when he needed some
woman to straighten out his affairs. I made no reply, which threw the
burden of continuing the conversation upon him. I was in that passive
state which made me perfectly willing to have him say good-night and go
home or stay and confess to me, just as he chose. I knew he needed me; a
good many men need their mothers once in a while as much as they ever did
when boys. There was something whimsically boyish about Charlie as he
leaned over the back of a tall chair and debated secretly whether or not
he should confide in me.

"Why don't you ask me why I said that?" he said.

"Because I know without asking. You were induced to say it by what you
have been thinking of all the evening. It sounded like a beginning, but
really it was an ending."

He looked as though he thought me a mind-reader, but I fancy the knack of
divining when people need a confidant is preternaturally developed in old
maids.

"How good you are, Ruth."

"You men always think women are good when they understand you. But it
isn't goodness."

"No, you're right. It's more comfortable than goodness. It's odd how you
do it. May I tell you about it? You won't think half as well of me as you
do now, but it needs just such women as you to keep men straight, and if
you will give me your opinion I vow I'll do as you say, even if it kills
me."

I was afraid from that desperate ending that it was something serious, and
it was. He made several attempts before he could begin. Finally he burst
out with,

"Although you are the easiest person in the world to talk to, and I've
known you always, it is pretty hard to lay this case before you so that
you won't think me a conceited prig. That is because you are a woman and
can't help looking at it from a woman's standpoint. For a good many
reasons it would be easier to tell it to some man, who would know how it
was himself; but you see I want a woman's conscience and a woman's
judgment, because you can put yourself in another woman's place."