arning money in the least tedious way. Una was facing the
feminist problem, without knowing what the word "feminist" meant.

This was her list of fair fields of fruitful labor:

She could--and probably would--teach in some hen-coop of pedagogy.

She could marry, but no one seemed to want her, except old Henry
Carson, the widower, with catarrh and three children, who called on her
and her mother once in two weeks, and would propose whenever she
encouraged him to. This she knew scientifically. She had only to sit
beside him on the sofa, let her hand drop down beside his. But she
positively and ungratefully didn't want to marry Henry and listen to his
hawking and his grumbling for the rest of her life. Sooner or later one
of The Boys might propose. But in a small town it was all a gamble.
There weren't so very many desirable young men--most of the energetic
ones went off to Philadelphia and New York. True that Jennie McTevish
had been married at thirty-one, when everybody had thought she was
hopelessly an old maid. Yet here was Birdie Mayberry unmarried at
thirty-four, no one could ever understand why, for she had been the
prettiest and jolliest girl in town. Una crossed blessed matrimony off
the list as a commercial prospect.

She could go off and study music, law, medicine, elocution, or any of
that amazing hodge-podge of pursuits which are permitted to small-town
women. But she really couldn't afford to do any of these; and, besides,
she had no talent for music of a higher grade than Sousa and Victor
Herbert; she was afraid of lawyers; blood made her sick; and her voice
was too quiet for the noble art of elocution as practised by several
satin-waisted, semi-artistic ladies who "gave readings" of _Enoch Arden_
and _Evangeline_ before the Panama Study Circle and the Panama Annual
Chautauqua.

She could have a job selling dry-goods behind the counter in the Hub
Store, but that meant loss of caste.

She could teach dancing--but she couldn't dance particularly well. And
that was all that she could do.

She had tried to find work as office-woman for Dr. Mayberry, the
dentist; in the office of the Panama Wood-Turning Company; in the
post-office; as lofty enthroned cashier for the Hub Store; painting
place-cards and making "fancy-work" for the Art Needlework Exchange.

The job behind the counter in the Hub Store was the only one offered
her.

"If I were only a boy," sighed Una, "I could go to work in the
hardware-sto