lace,
and number in our family, and, having also a chronological head, she
knows the day of the month, and therefore gently reminded me that by
inevitable dates the time drew near for preparing my--which is it,
now, May or June number?

"Well, my dear, you are right," I said, as by an exertion I came
head-uppermost, and laid down the fascinating volume. "Let me see,
what was I to write about?"

"Why, you remember you were to answer that letter from the lady who
does her own work."

"Enough!" said I, seizing the pen with alacrity; "you have hit the
exact phrase:--

"'The _lady_ who _does her own work_.'"

* * * * *

America is the only country where such a title is possible,--the only
country where there is a class of women who may be described as
_ladies_ who do their own work. By a lady we mean a woman of
education, cultivation, and refinement, of liberal tastes and ideas,
who, without any very material additions or changes, would be
recognized as a lady in any circle of the Old World or the New.

What I have said is, that the existence of such a class is a fact
peculiar to American society, a clear, plain result of the new
principles involved in the doctrine of universal equality.

When the colonists first came to this country, of however mixed
ingredients their ranks might have been composed, and however imbued
with the spirit of feudal and aristocratic ideas, the discipline of
the wilderness soon brought them to a democratic level; the
gentleman felled the wood for his log-cabin side by side with the
ploughman, and thews and sinews rose in the market. "A man was
deemed honorable in proportion as he lifted his hand upon the high
trees of the forest." So in the interior domestic circle. Mistress
and maid, living in a log-cabin together, became companions, and
sometimes the maid, as the more accomplished and stronger, took
precedence of the mistress. It became natural and unavoidable that
children should begin to work as early as they were capable of it. The
result was a generation of intelligent people brought up to labor
from necessity, but turning on the problem of labor the acuteness of
a disciplined brain. The mistress, outdone in sinews and muscles by
her maid, kept her superiority by skill and contrivance. If she
could not lift a pail of water she could invent methods which made
lifting the pail unnecessary; if she could not take a hundred steps
without weariness, she c