“With all his worldly goods her to endow,” completed for her the Minor Poet.  “In other words, he pays a price for her.  So far as love is concerned, they are quits.  In marriage, the man gives himself to the woman as the woman gives herself to the man.  Man has claimed, I am aware, greater liberty for himself; but the claim has always been vehemently repudiated by woman.  She has won her case.  Legally and morally now husband and wife are bound by the same laws.  This being so, her contention that she gives herself falls to the ground.  She exchanges herself.  Over and above, she alone of the twain claims a price.”

“Say a living wage,” corrected the Philosopher.  “Lazy rubbish lolls in petticoats, and idle stupidity struts in trousers.  But, class for class, woman does her share of the world’s work.  Among the poor, of the two it is she who labours the longer.  There is a many-versed ballad popular in country districts.  Often I have heard it sung in shrill, piping voice at harvest supper or barn dance.  The chorus runs —

A man’s work ’tis till set of sun,
But a woman’s work is never done!

“My housekeeper came to me a few months ago,” said the Woman of the World, “to tell me that my cook had given notice.  ’I am sorry to hear it,’ I answered; ‘has she found a better place?’ ’I am not so sure about that,’ answered Markham; ’she’s going as general servant.’  ‘As general servant!’ I exclaimed.  ’To old Hudson, at the coal wharf,’ answered Markham.  ’His wife died last year, if you remember.  He’s got seven children, poor man, and no one to look after them.’  ‘I suppose you mean,’ I said, ’that she’s marrying him.’  ‘Well, that’s the way she puts it,’ laughed Markham.  ’What I tell her is, she’s giving up a good home and fifty pounds a year, to be a general servant on nothing a week.  But they never see it.’”

“I recollect her,” answered the Minor Poet, “a somewhat depressing lady.  Let me take another case.  You possess a remarkably pretty housemaid—­Edith, if I have it rightly.”

“I have noticed her,” remarked the Philosopher.  “Her manners strike me as really quite exceptional.”

“I never could stand any one about me with carroty hair,” remarked the Girton Girl.

“I should hardly call it carroty,” contended the Philosopher.  “There is a golden tint of much richness underlying, when you look closely.”

“She is a very good girl,” agreed the Woman of the World; “but I am afraid I shall have to get rid of her.  The other woman servants don’t get on with her.”

“Do you know whether she is engaged or not?” demanded the Minor Poet.

“At the present moment,” answered the Woman of the World, “she is walking out, I believe, with the eldest son of the ‘Blue Lion.’  But she is never adverse to a change.  If you are really in earnest about the matter—­”

“I was not thinking of myself,” said the Minor Poet.  “But suppose some young gentleman of personal attractions equal to those of the ‘Blue Lion,’ or even not quite equal, possessed of two or three thousand a year, were to enter the lists, do you think the ’Blue Lion’ would stand much chance?”