embarrassing than if she took once for all the
position of a servant. We could not control the feelings of our friends;
we could not always insure that they would be free from aristocratic
prejudice, even were we so ourselves. We could not force her upon their
acquaintance, and she might feel far more slighted than she would in a
position where no attentions of any kind were to be expected. Besides
which, I have always noticed that persons standing in this uncertain
position are objects of peculiar antipathy to the servants in full; that
they are the cause of constant and secret cabals and discontents; and
that a family where the two orders exist has always raked up in it the
smouldering embers of a quarrel ready at any time to burst out into open
feud."

"Well," said I, "here lies the problem of American life. Half our women,
like Marianne, are being faded and made old before their time by
exhausting endeavors to lead a life of high civilization and refinement
with only such untrained help as is washed up on our shores by the tide
of emigration. Our houses are built upon a plan that precludes the
necessity of much hard labor, but requires rather careful and nice
handling. A well-trained, intelligent woman, who had vitalized her
finger-ends by means of a well-developed brain, could do all the work of
such a house with comparatively little physical fatigue. So stands the
case as regards our houses. Now over against the women that are
perishing in them from too much care, there is another class of American
women that are wandering up and down, perishing for lack of some
remunerative employment. That class of women, whose developed brains and
less developed muscles mark them as peculiarly fitted for the
performance of the labors of a high civilization, stand utterly aloof
from paid domestic service. Sooner beg, sooner starve, sooner marry for
money, sooner hang on as dependents in families where they know they are
not wanted, than accept of a quiet home, easy, healthful work, and
certain wages, in these refined and pleasant modern dwellings of ours."

"What is the reason of this?" said Bob.

"The reason is, that we have not yet come to the full development of
Christian democracy. The taint of old aristocracies is yet pervading all
parts of our society. We have not yet realized fully the true dignity of
labor, and the surpassing dignity of domestic labor. And I must say that
the valuable and courageous women who have agit