r.

"Don't trouble about me," he says, simply. "I shan't marry anyone
else--I couldn't do that--but--but I didn't suspect until to-night,
y'know, that there was another man, and a chap must ride straight,
you know."

H. S. M.

WOMEN AND WORK.

BY ALFRED H. MILES.

"Always a hindrance, are we? You didn't think that of old;
With never a han' to help a man, and only a tongue to scold?
Timid as hares in danger--weak as a lamb in strife,
With never a heart to bear a part in the rattle and battle of life!
Just fit to see to the children and manage the home affairs,
With only a head for butter and bread, a soul for tables and chairs?
Where would you be to-morrow if half of the lie were true?
It's well some women are weak at heart, if only for saving you.

"We haven't much time to be merry who marry a struggling man,
Making and mending and saving and spending, and doing the best we
can.
Skimming and scamming and plotting and planning, and making the done
for do,
Grinding the mill with the old grist still and turning the old into
new;
Picking and paring and shaving and sharing, and when not enough for
us all,
Giving up tea that whatever may be the 'bacca sha'n't go to the wall;
With never a rest from the riot and zest, the hustle and bustle and
noise
Of the boys who all try to be men like you, and the girls who all try
to be boys.

"You know the tale of the eagle that carried the child away
To its eyrie high in the mountain sky, grim and rugged and gray;
Of the sailor who climbed to save it, who, ere he had half-way sped
Up the mountain wild, _met_ mother and child returning as from the
dead
There's many a bearded giant had never have grown a span,
If in peril's power in childhood's hour he'd had to wait for a man.
And who is the one among you but is living and hale to-day,
Because he was tied to a woman's side in the old home far away?

"You have heard the tale of the lifeboat, and the women of Mumbles
Head,
Who, when the men stood shivering by, or out from the danger fled,
Tore their shawls into striplets and knotted them end to end,
And then went down to the gates of death for father and brother and
friend.
Deeper and deeper into the sea, ready of heart and head,
Hauling them home through the blinding foam, and raising them from
the dead.
The