She is not subjected to the humiliation of asking a man for money to pay for his own food, his own service, and even his own laundry bill.  She can usually earn her own, if the gods have not awarded her sufficient gold, and there is no money which a woman spends so happily as that which she has earned herself.

The “career” lies before her, and she has only to choose the thing for which she is best fitted, and work her way upward from the lowest ranks to the position of a star of the first magnitude.  Opportunity is but another name for health, obstacles make firm stepping-stones, and that which is dearly bought is by far the sweetest in the end.  Of course there are “strings to pull,” but no one needs them.  Success is more lasting if it is won in an open field, without favour, and in spite of generous measures of it bestowed upon the opposition.

[Sidenote:  The Greatest Consolation]

But of all the consolations of spinsterhood, the greatest is this,—­that out of the dim and uncertain future, perchance in the guise of a divorced man or a widower with four children, The Prince may yet come.

“On his plain but trusty sword are these words only—­Love and Understand.”  Across the unsounded, estranging seas, with a whole world lying immutably between, he, too, may be waiting for the revelation.  He may come as a knight of old, with banners, jewels, and flashing steel, to the clarion ring of trumpet or cymbal, or softly, in the twilight, like one whose presence is felt before it is made known.

Out of the city streets The Prince may come, tired of the endless struggle, when the tide of the human has beaten heavily upon his jaded soul, or through the woods, with the silence of the forest still upon him.  His path may lie through an old garden, where marigold and larkspur are thickly interwoven, and shadowy spikes of mignonette make all the summer sweet, or through the frosty darkness, when the earth is dumb with snow and the midnight stars have set the heavens ablaze with spires of sapphire light.

[Sidenote:  At the First Meeting]

Sometimes, at the first meeting The Prince is known, by that mysterious alchemy which lies in the depths of the maiden soul and often, after long waiting, a friend throws off his disguise and royalty stands revealed.  Sometimes he is the comrade of the far-off childish years, the schoolmate of a later time, or someone whose hand has proved a strength and solace in times of deepest grief.

“To Love and Understand!” All else may be forgiven, if he has but these two gifts, for they are as the crest and royal robe.  Bare and empty his hands may be, but these are the kingly rights.

Slowly, and sometimes with a strange fear which makes her tremble, there steals into her heart a great peace.  With it comes infinite tenderness and an unspeakable compassion, not only for him, but for all the world.  Love’s laughter changes to questioning too deep for smiles or tears—­the boundless aspiration of the soul toward all things true.