References given—and required.

Maybe the average man will not be her ideal husband.  Each Michaelmas at a little town in the Thames Valley with which I am acquainted there is held a hiring fair.  A farmer one year laid his hand on a lively-looking lad, and asked him if he wanted a job.  It was what the boy was looking for.

“Got a character?” asked the farmer.  The boy replied that he had for the last two years been working for Mr. Muggs, the ironmonger—felt sure that Mr. Muggs would give him a good character.

“Well, go and ask Mr. Muggs to come across and speak to me, I will wait here,” directed the would-be employer.  Five minutes went by—ten minutes.  No Mr. Muggs appeared.  Later in the afternoon the farmer met the boy again.

“Mr. Muggs never came near me with that character of yours,” said the farmer.

“No, sir,” answered the boy, “I didn’t ask him to.”

“Why not?” inquired the farmer.

“Well, I told him who it was that wanted it”—the boy hesitated.

“Well?” demanded the farmer, impatiently.

“Well, then, he told me yours,” explained the boy.

Maybe the working woman, looking for a husband, and not merely a livelihood, may end by formulating standards of her own.  She may end by demanding the manly man and moving about the world, knowing something of life, may arrive at the conclusion that something more is needed than the smoking of pipes and the drinking of whiskies and sodas.  We must be prepared for this.  The sheltered woman who learnt her life from fairy stories is a dream of the past.  Woman has escaped from her “shelter”—she is on the loose.  For the future we men have got to accept the emancipated woman as an accomplished fact.