own wife, and so did John.
Cleanthe's a splendid housekeeper; but she doesn't have time to read a
newspaper. Dolly's well informed, and has something fresh to talk about.
But it seems to me Margaret is always caring about society and
etiquette, and who is in our set, and a hundred things that bore me.
Phil has all his life been used to style, so Margaret's just the one for
him. And why shouldn't I have just the one for me?"

Joe laughed heartily then.

"I'd wait a year or two," he answered drily. "You are not out of your
time; and it is an unwise thing to take the responsibilities of life too
early. Delia may fancy some one else."

"Oh, no, she won't," replied Ben, confidently. "We just suit. I can't
explain it to you, Joe; but it is one of the things that seem to come
about without any talking. Are some things ordained? I should be awful
sorry to have mother object to it; but I know Dolly would stand by us
when the time came."

"Well--don't hurry; and, Ben, take the little comments patiently. If
mother was convinced that it was for your happiness, she would consent.
We all know there are unwise marriages, unhappy ones, as well."

"Oh, we're not in any hurry! You see, Delia is really needed at home.
The old aunt is awfully fond of her. And she's so interested in her
stories. We have such fun planning them out; and she does some capital
little sketches."

Joe nodded in a friendly manner, as if he did not altogether disapprove.
But there was a belief that literary women could not make good wives.
People quoted Lady Bulwer and Lady Byron; and yet right in the city were
women of literary proclivities living happily with their husbands.

And Joe had found careless, fretful, indifferent wives and poor
housekeepers among women who could not even have written a coherent
account-book. Come to think, he liked Delia a good deal himself. And if
she wasn't such a great worker, she did have the art of making a
cheerful, attractive home, and putting everybody at ease.

The new woman and cooking-schools were in the far future. Every mother,
if she knew enough, trained her daughter to make a good wife, to buy
properly, to cook appetisingly if not always hygienically, to make her
husband's shirts, and do the general family sewing, to keep her house
orderly, to fight moths and mice, and to give company teas with the best
china and the finest tablecloth.

To be sure there was a little seething of unrest. Mrs. Bloomer had put
fo