PROFESSIONS FOB Wo.MKX. (53 



if they have a right to interfere with the chosen vocation of a daughter, 

 n if it does seem to them to be eccentric ? We know a mother who 

 aimed at social distinction and a lich marriage for her daughter, who was 

 so disgusted with her for choosing to become a doctor that .>he fell ill and 

 would imt all<>\\- her to care for or nurse her. 



" Perhaps you had better try homoeopathy, and take the cause of your 

 as your cure," said her family physician. 



, never. I would rather die than be cured by Helen/' said the 

 offended mother. 



lived to forgive Helen, who now supports her, and she is in excel- 

 lent health and spirits at sixty-five. Probably Helen therefore knew best 

 what was good for her. 



But it is an unlucky thing for the amenities of home when the daughter-* 

 are so strongly disposed to leave the ordinary walks of every-day feminine 

 duty. The happiest women are those who can lead the ordinary life, be 

 amused by society, dress, and conventionalities, and who can be early 

 married to the man of their choice, and become in their turn domestic 

 women, good wives and mothers. There is no other work, no matter how 

 distinguished, which equals this. But, if this life does not come to a wo- 

 man, and certainly it does not to a very large number, there can be no 

 doubt of the propriety of a woman's finding her own sphere, her own work 

 and her happiest and most energetic usefulness. 



Anything can be forgiven of a woman except a career of vice or vanity, 

 or the wretched numbness of inaction. No woman should insult her Maker 

 bv >upp'>ing that He made a mistake in making her. A morbid or a 

 iHele^s woman was not contemplated in the great plan of the univ. 



has always a. sphere. If home is unhappy beyond her powei of endur- 



let her 



" Go teach the orphan 1y to i 

 ri>li;ui -,'irl to 



n to cook, bake, brew ; let her adopt a prof ession -mask 



v and work at it. Let her go into a lady's school and tcaeh. Let her 

 ke.-p a hoarding-house, paper walls, hand pict mvs, eml.n.Mer, du-i. 



me the manager of a busim-ss, do anything but sit d-wn and mop*-. 



something to turn up. Many a pair of unhappy old maids 



ii\v dragging out a miserable existence in a second-class boardii 



house, tu i-ii ing their poor little bits of tinery, who might it' they had 1 

 brave in their youth, have won a large r>'j i thought and a eoni- 



tl.le competency, Hut they pn-fenvd to keep alive one little c,.rn. 

 pride, and that 1, lutapo"rli: irm their thin hands 



