every real woman's husband, and every real mother's son, will hear
her with his very heart. Or if even she has some sure wonderful
gift,--if she can sing, or read, or recite; if she can stir people
up to good and beautiful things as _one in a thousand_, that's her
errand; let her do it, and let the thousand come to hear. But she
ought to be certain sure, or else she's leaving her real errand
behind. Don't let everybody, just because the door is open, rush in
without any sort of a pass or countersign. That's what it's coming
to. A _sham trade_, like hundreds of other sham trades; and the
shammer and the shamefuller, because women demean themselves to it.
I can't bear to see women changing so, away from themselves. We
shan't get them back again, this generation. The _homes_ are going.
Young men of these days have got to lose their wives--that they
ought to have--and their homes that they looked forward to, such as
their mothers made. It's hard upon them; it takes away their hopes
and their motives; it's as bad for them as for the women. It's the
abomination of desolation standing in the holy place. There's no end
to the mischief; but it works first and worst with exactly girls of
your class--_our_ class, Marion. Girls that are all upset out of
their natural places, and not really fit for the new things they
undertake to do. As I said,--how long will it last? How long will
the Mr. Hamilton Leverings put you forward and find chances for you?
Just as long as you are young and pretty and new. And then, what
have you got left? What are you going to turn round to?"

Sunderline stopped. The color flushed up in his face. He had spoken
faster and freer and longer than he had thought of; the feeling that
he had in him about this thing, and the interest he had in Marion
Kent, all rushed to words together, so that he almost forgot that
Marion Kent in bodily presence stood listening before him, he was