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 country, but they enthroned the mother in the atrium and surrounded her with honour and marks of affection, while keeping her still a slave beyond the boundaries of home. All the world knows how Roman matrons responded—how they furnished examples of extraordinary domestic virtue, so that if mere good home-keepers could continue long to save a nation Rome need never have fallen. But good home-keepers must make progress—they must extend as well as perfect their empire. Their motherhood cannot always lie "among the pots," though it may begin there. Sooner or later it must be a winged thing, that returns to its starting always after every flight, still a thing winged as well as gentle—a dove that bears the branch of peace over the dark, troubled waters of the outer world. The nation that clips its wings, and makes the ark of home a prison, always sees, sooner or later, the Avenger arise on the hearthstone. It is impossible to destroy the natural power of either sex. It is possible only to pervert it—and this has been done time and again in the case of women. It happens to-day just as it happened centuries ago. "Since we are not to expend our power in healing diseases," says little Lyndall in the "African Farm," "nor making laws, nor money, we will spend it on you"—that is to say not on helping and saving but on misleading and tempting men and in dissipating their higher powers. And as the lower forms of dissipation are accessory to the higher, there is a constant tendency to careless expenditure, a reckless desire for wealth. Shameless luxury in the matter