Page:Our Girls.pdf/56

 and unselfishness when at work. It looks like a brave fellowship, a fine camaraderie, and one hopes that long after the war it may continue to be a living reality. And let nobody suppose that to these men these women will be less desirable as wives because they have worked by their sides in soiled overalls with oily hands and even blackened faces. In an immortal passage an old Roman writer tells of how the wives of the men who built up the Roman greatness ground the swords of their warrior husbands, accompanied them to war, and exhorted them to deeds of valour. What else are these daughters of Britain doing?

But here allow me to strike a note of warning. As in the march of humanity (or is it inhumanity?) the swords of modern warfare are generally shells, and shells are heavy bodies, it is impossible that women should make them without the help of men. Look, for example, at these two lathes standing back to back. A man and a woman work them in