eneral in the field: perhaps neither she nor the general would be
as skillful, always, with the maps and compasses, and time to plan
beforehand. I do not think Marion _was_ ever very wise in her
fore-thoughts.

Beyond Pomantic, the next one or two stations took off a good many
passengers, so that they had their part of the car almost to
themselves. Frank Sunderline had come in and taken a place upon the
other side; now he moved over into the seat behind them, accosting
them pleasantly, but not interrupting the conversation which had
been busily going on between them all the way. Ray was really
interested in some things Marion had brought up to notice; her face
was intent and thoughtful; perhaps she was not quite so pretty when
she was set thinking; her dimples were hidden; but Marion was
beaming, exhilarated partly by her own talk, somewhat by an honest,
if half mischievous earnestness in her subject, and very much also
by the consciousness of the young mechanic opposite, within
observing and listening distance. Marion could not help talking over
her shoulders, more or less, always.

"Men take the world in the rough, and do the work; women help, and
come in for the finishing off," said Rachel, just as Frank
Sunderline changed his place and joined them. "_We_ could not handle
those, for instance," she said, with a shy, quiet sign toward the
carpenter's tools, and lowering her already gentle voice.

"Men break in the fields, and plough, and sow, and mow; and women
ride home on the loads,--is that it?" said Marion, laughing, and
snatching her simile from a hay-field with toppling wagons, that the
train was at that moment skimming by. "Well, may be! All is, I shall
look out for my ride. After things _are_ broken in, I don't see why
we shouldn't get the good of it."

"Value is what things stand for, or might procure, isn't it?" said
Ray, turning to Sunderline, and taking him frankly and friendlily
into the conversation.

"No fair!" cried Marion. "He doesn't understand the drift of it. Do
you, see, Mr. Sunderline, why a man should be paid any more than a
woman, for standing behind a counter and measuring off the same
goods, or at a desk and keeping the same accounts? I don't! That's
what I'm complaining of."

"That's the complaint of the day, I know," said Sunderline. "And no
doubt there's a good deal of special unfairness that needs righting,
and will get it. But things don't come to be as they are quite
without a r