“One never knows what the future holds,” you say, “and it is the duty of every woman to make the most of herself.”  Both remarks are as true as they are trite.  An almost graduate of Vassar should be more original in expressing herself.

But there is another duty a woman should not forget—­the duty to stand by her marriage vows and to make her husband a good wife.  It seems the doctor did not eagerly approve your idea at the beginning.  I am glad he did not.  Unless a wife is in a precarious state of health or has an ailing child, I always suspect the honesty of a husband who cheerfully seconds her suggestion of a protracted absence from home.

When a man shows no regret at having his wife away for an entire season, there is something wrong with his heart.

Love does not find its home there, or he could not speed her going so far, and for so long a time, at the bidding of ambition or pleasure.  You evidently have won the doctor over by argument, and made him feel that he is selfish to tie you down or clip the wings of your ambition.  The American husband is so fearful of seeming a tyrant.  “He realizes now,” you say, “that a woman has the right to develop the talents God gave her just as a man does, and that it is a wrong against her ‘higher self’ to crush down these ambitions.  He realizes, too, that this separation means greater powers of usefulness for me in the future, and greater opportunities for pleasure.  It will be a long and lonely time for both of us, as I shall only come home once or twice and the doctor may not be able to go over at all, though I hope he will.  But the expense of my studies will of course be great, and we shall both need to economize.  It is my intention to start a little conservatory after I return and take a few high-priced pupils.  In that way I can reimburse our expenditure.”

But can you, my dear Winifred, reimburse your mutual losses in other ways?  You do not seem to realize what such a separation may mean.  You are both young and both attractive.  I know now that you are beginning to be angry at my suggestion, but, fortunately, you cannot interrupt me, and you must hear what I have to say.

Of course you are not a frivolous flirt, or a silly-headed creature with no ideals or principles.  You have nothing of the adventuress in your composition, but you are a young woman, with personal charms and talents, and life will be unutterably desolate for you if you make a recluse of yourself.  You will be surrounded by people of artistic temperaments and tastes, and I know, if you do not, that many of these people do lack ideals, and some of them lack principles and take pride in the fact.  “Art for art’s sake, life for pleasure’s sake,” is their motto.  The entire situation will be full of danger for you.  But far more danger will surround your husband.  A man’s temptations are always greater than a woman’s.  That is, there are more temptations in his pathway, from the fact