war or not, the dear souls must have twenty
yards of silk in a dress,--it's the fashion, you know."

"Now, isn't he too bad?" said Marianne. "As if we'd ever been asked to
make these sacrifices and refused! I think I have seen women ready to
give up dress and fashion and everything else for a good cause."

"For that matter," said I, "the history of all wars has shown women
ready to sacrifice what is most intimately feminine in times of peril
to their country. The women of Carthage not only gave up their jewels
in the siege of their city, but, in the last extremity, cut off their
hair for bowstrings. The women of Hungary and Poland, in their
country's need, sold their jewels and plate and wore ornaments of iron
and lead. In the time of our own Revolution, our women dressed in
plain homespun and drank herb-tea,--and certainly nothing is more
feminine than a cup of tea. And in this very struggle, the women of
the Southern States have cut up their carpets for blankets, have borne
the most humiliating retrenchments and privations of all kinds without
a murmur. So let us exonerate the female sex of want of patriotism, at
any rate."

"Certainly," said my wife; "and if our Northern women have not
retrenched and made sacrifices, it has been because it has not been
impressed on them that there is any particular call for it. Everything
has seemed to be so prosperous and plentiful in the Northern States,
money has been so abundant and easy to come by, that it has really
been difficult to realize that a dreadful and destructive war was
raging. Only occasionally, after a great battle, when the lists of the
killed and wounded have been sent through the country, have we felt
that we were making a sacrifice. The women who have spent such sums
for laces and jewels and silks have not had it set clearly before them
why they should not do so. The money has been placed freely in their
hands, and the temptation before their eyes."

"Yes," said Jenny, "I am quite sure that there are hundreds who have
been buying foreign goods who would not do it if they could see any
connection between their not doing it and the salvation of the
country; but when I go to buy a pair of gloves, I naturally want the
best pair I can find, the pair that will last the longest and look the
best, and these always happen to be French gloves."

"Then," said Miss Featherstone, "I never could clearly see why people
should confine their patronage and encouragement to