e he has his own work to do--we know his
work, the man's work, at its hardest full of satisfactions and
pleasures, and hopes and ambitions, besides coming to an end every day
at a certain hour, while she grows old in hopeless, hideous,
never-ending drudgery. There is a difference between the two that makes
my blood boil.'

'Oh don't let it boil,' I cried, alarmed. 'We're so hot as it is.'

'I tell you I think that woman over there as tragic a spectacle as it
would be possible to find. I could cry over her--poor dumb,
half-conscious remnant of what was meant to be the image of God.'

'My dear Charlotte,' I murmured uneasily. There were actual tears in
Charlotte's eyes. Where I saw only an ample lady serenely cracking
almonds in a way condemned by the polite, Charlotte's earnest glance
pierced the veil of flesh to the withered, stunted soul of her. And
Charlotte was so sincere, was so honestly grieved by the hopeless
dulness of the fulfilment of what had once been the blithe promise of
young girlhood, that I began to feel distressed too, and cast glances of
respectful sympathy at the poor lady. Very little more would have made
me cry, but I was saved by something unexpected; for the waiter came
round with newly-arrived letters for the visitors, and laying two by the
almond-eating lady's plate he said quite distinctly, and we both heard
him distinctly, _Zwei fuer Fraeulein Schmidt_; and the eldest of the four
children, a pert little girl with a pig-tail, cried out, _Ei, ei, hast
Du heute Glueck, Tante Marie_; and having finished our dinner we got up
and went on our way in silence; and when we were at the door, I said
with a suavity of voice and manner meant to be healing, 'Shall we go
into the woods, Charlotte? There are a few remarks I should like to
offer you on the Souls of Maiden Aunts;' and Charlotte said, with some
petulance, that the principle was the same, and that her head ached, and
would I mind being quiet.

THE FIFTH DAY--_Continued_

FROM SELLIN TO BINZ

Suppose a being who should be neither man nor woman, a creature wholly
removed from the temptations that beset either sex, a person who could
look on with absolute indifference at all our various ways of wasting
life, untouched by the ambitions of man, and unstirred by the longings
of woman, what would such a being think of the popular notion against
which other uneasy women besides Charlotte raise their voices, that the
man should never be bother