ny female
doctors, female lawyers, female journalists, female orators, female
preachers, and females in all classes and professions and trades, but
what we want is a good many more female women.'

The woman I love is the female woman that I would protect and cherish
in return for all the sweet attention she would pay me, and which would
enable me to cheerfully fight the battle of life. How to describe her I
hardly know.

Should she be beautiful? Not necessarily. Pretty? Yes, rather. Good
figure? Decidedly. Clever? H'm--yes. Cheerful? By all means. Punctual?
Like a military man. Serious? Not too much. Frivolous? Yes, just a
little. Of a scientific turn of mind? B-r-r-r! no; I should shudder at
the idea of it. Of an artistic nature, then, with literary tastes? Yes,
certainly. But, above all, a keen, sensible, tactful little woman who
would make it the business of her life to study me, as I would make it
the business of my life to study her; a woman who could be in turn,
according to circumstances, a housewife, a counsellor, a 'pal,' a wife,
a sweetheart, a nurse, a patient, the sunshine of my life, and always a
confidante, a friend, and a partner.

In a little Normandy town I have a dear lady friend, Parisienne to the
core, whom I have known and loved from childhood. She is not far from
sixty, but, upon my word, I think she is still very beautiful. She was
in succession a loving, devoted daughter, an excellent wife, and an
adorable mother. She has now lost all she loved in the world, and she
devotes her time cultivating a lovely garden of flowers and attending
all the church services of the parish. A beggar never passes her
without receiving a little contribution, and she helps many a poor
family. In a word, the gay life of Paris is all forgotten, and you
would imagine that my recluse friend was a hermit, a sort of lay nun,
as it were.

Well, yes, she is all that; but isn't she a woman still, though! 'Do
you see,' she was saying to me one day, 'I have renounced all my
worldly ideas? My flowers, my books, my poor friends, that's the only
thought of my life now. I am old; I don't care how I dress or how I
look. Anything does for me now. The Parisienne that you used to know,
my dear friend, is dead and buried.'

'What a charming dress you have on!' I remarked. 'I do admire the
material and the colour, and the cut, too. And how beautifully made and
finished! Did you have that made in this town?'

The expression of her