Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/359

Rh out of their proper place—their home," he answered.

"I thought with years you would have grown less narrow-minded," she replied sharply.

"Is it a great injustice to your sex to wish them safe by their own fireside, with some one to protect them from the rough winds of the world?"

"But every one hasn't her own fireside, or the somebody," she answered, smiling. "And these are the women one wants to help."

"Yes, those are the women you want to help; and so wives neglect their husbands and children, and daughters their fathers and mothers to foster plans for those women who have no one belonging to them. I have often met such women in the world pushing into men's departments and getting hustled by men. Men can't help jostling them in the hurry of life, but it hurts me to see it."

"I think your argument very old-fashioned and stupid," Barbara said calmly. "There are so many women who have to work, widows, and girls with, perhaps, old people depending on them. But men are so selfish that they