dealing so much more with his abstract thought of her, and his
notion of real womanhood.

But Marion Kent did stand there. She flushed up too, when he said,
"We are going to lose our wives by it." What did he mean? Would he
lose anything, if she took to this that she thought of, and went
abroad into the world, and before it? Why didn't he say so, then?
Why didn't he give her the choice?

But what difference need it make, in any such way? Why shouldn't a
girl be doing her part beforehand, as a man does? He was getting
ahead in his trade, and saving money. By and by, he would think he
had got enough, and then he would ask somebody to be his wife. What
should the wife have been doing in the mean time--before she was
sure that she should ever be a wife? Why shouldn't she look out for
herself?

She said so.

"I don't see exactly, Mr. Sunderline."

She called him "Mr. Sunderline," though she remembered very well
that in the earnestness of his talk he had called her "Marion." They
had grown to that time of life when a young man and a girl who have
known each other always, are apt to drop the familiar Christian
name, and not take up anything else if they can help it. The time
when they carefully secure attention before they speak, and then use
nothing but pronouns in addressing each other. A girl, however, says
"Mr." a little more easily than a man says "Miss." The girl has
always been "Miss" to the world in general; the boy grows up to his