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For Woman’s Work.
FRDEITOSMW O
THOU ART the better part of me, which makes
This poorer part to greater fullness grow; —
Thine understanding heart, which meets and wakes
And doth revive mine own, doth feel and know
Mv smallest thought, nor deem it aught too light
To rest in thy warm love. My greater needs
Thou dost perceive, and follow to such height
As I attain, and urge to nobler deeds
And greater heights, if such there be above
My hope and purpose; I may never see
Aught beautiful not lovelier for thy love,
Nor be aught good that is not part of thee.
Bertha H. Stewart.
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For Woman's Work.
MEIK RE¥EMOEo
By Laura J. Rittenhouse.
HOLLISTER reclined in a luxurious chair in her
'X?' “den”—a room half boudoir, half conservatory —her soft cling
ing dress displaying a girlish figure, her slippered feet thrust from
beneath the dainty lace of her white petticoat, her hands lying list
lessly in her lap.
The temperature was like summer, and clambering vines and fra
grant flowers made the air heavy with sweetness. But Christine was
not in a mood to appreciate either beauty or fragrance. She had
dropped upon the divan beside her, the book she had been reading,
and her fan lay upon the open pages as if to shut them from her
sight.
Not even the big, feathery chrysanthemum, nor the Marshal Neil
roses that she loved so well, could win a passing glance from herdark,
thoughtful eyes, and the white glare of the sunshine had irritated her
until, with a gorgeous screen, her maid shut out the displeasing rays.
She was wrestling with an attack of the blues, and when Estelle
announced her friend Edith Meredith, she looked up with a wan and
dejected smile.
“Estelle tells me you are not well, Christine. What is the mat
ter, dearest?” Miss Meredith asked, sitting down by Christine’s side,
and holding her hand with grave tenderness.
“Oh, I don’t know, Edith; I wish I were dead! I’m more miserable
than ill, I guess. Life does seem so unsatisfactory. There isn’t any
thing new or worth while, and I’m tired of it all,” she said wearily/
“Oh, stuff and nonsense, Christine. What you need is a good
shaking up; some sort of moral upheaval to bring you to your
senses and show you how much you have for which to be thankful,”
Edith said cheerfully. “Put on a street dress and take a long walk.
The frosty air is like a tonic, and sends one’s blood tingling and
bounding as if touched by an electric current.”
Christine raised her voice in protest. “Even you do not under
stand me, Edith. It is the flatness and insipidity of life that wearies
me, and frosty air cannot change that. I believe lam really ill, too.
My heart flutters and palpitates, at times, till it alarms me. Heart
trouble runs in Mamma’s family, you know, dind very likely I shall
be found dead in my bed, some morning. Ido hope I’ll have on a
becoming night gown. Dead people are sort of gruesome, anyhow,
and I don’t want folks to look at me with cold chills creeping up’
their spines.’’
Edith laughed, in spite of the pathetic quaver in her friend’s
voice.
“You’re a victim of indigestion, Christine. I don’t believe there’s
a thing else the matter with you. But, to ease your mind, why don’t
you send for a doctor and get his learned opinion?”
“I’ve been thinking of it; but if I send for old Doctor Gordon he
will make light of my trouble and say all sorts of preachy, disagree
able things; and you know we’ve never had anyone else to attend our
family. ’’
“Then send for Doctor Van Cleave. He is young, but he is re-
WOMAN’S WORK.
markably successful with his patients,” Edith remarked.
Christine colored slightly. She had long admired the handsome
young doctor, and one of her secret grievances had been that he never
seemed to admire her, or to feel any interest in the brilliant and witty
sallies that made her always the center of attraction wherever she
went.
She thought bitterly that the homeliest or dullest girl he met in
society was much more apt to attract his attention than herself. In
fact, he always devoted himself to the girls who were overlooked and
slighted by others, and as Christine was very popular and much
sought for, she had no claims upon his sympathy and received no
attentions from him. Yet, much as she resented this, Christine prom
ised Edith to send for Doctor Van Cleave next day, unless she felt
better. And she kept her promise.
Mrs. Hollister fluttered into the room a moment, and spoke to the
young man.
“Good morning, Doctor Van Cleave. Find out if there’s any
thing really the matter with this girl of mine, please, though I don’t
believe there is. She needs excitement, instead of moping around
home. I’ve tried to get her to go shopping with me this morning, or
to go to the grand opera to-night, but she is obdurate. I’m sorry I
haven’t time to stay and hear your diagnosis, but it will keep till I
come home, I guess. Good-by,” and she swept airily from the room.
Doctor Van Cleave sat down by Christine, with professional gravi
ty, and began asking her questions as he held his finger on her pulse.
With her dark, dreamy eyes fixed upon his face, she rehearsed her
troubles to him as she had to Edith the day before. He listened at
tentively—successfully concealing his amusement as he heard her sen
timental complaints—thinking what a pretty girl she was, and how
spoiled and idle.
She concluded with a plaintive: “And now, Doctor Van Cleave, do
you think my heart is really affected? I almost hope it is; it would
be so beautiful to die young.”
The doctor got up, took his stethoscope from his case, and exam
ined her heart before he replied.
“Your heart is as sound as mine, Miss Hollister. There is abso
lutely nothing wrong with it, excepting a slight irregularity, caused, I
have no doubt, from indigestion. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but
there seems no prospect of a beautiful death—not soon,” he said
smilingly.
“You are laughing at me, now, and I hate to be laughed at. I
wish you’d tell me what to do to keep from being so miserable, Doc
tor.”
“Do you really want to know, Miss Hollister?” he asked, half
hesitatingly—anxious to help the girl, yet not wishing to offend
her.
“Yes, I do. I think it must be my mind instead of my body, that
is out of sorts, but what am I to do for it?” she asked, her eyes moist
with self-pitying tears.
“Then I’ll be frank with you. The most important thing is to quit
thinking of your imaginary ills and your own selfish pleasures. Go
to work and do something useful, something to make other people
happy,” he said, looking down at her gravely.
“What am Ito do, Doctor? I can’t go out and be a shop-keeper
or a typewriter or a governess; Papa wouldn’t allow me to, and it
would be unfair to the great army of wage-earning women who have
to work for a living. I’d like to go on the stage and sing, but Mam
ma would not survive the disgrace of my first appearance, even if I
lived through the sharp criticisms of a music-loving public. Don’t
you see that I am hedged in by wealth and fashion till there seems
nothing for me to do?”
“Yes, it does seem so; but, after all, woman’s most natural and
safest place is in the home. There surely must be a great deal you
can do here, to make your home people happy.”
She smiled sadly.
“You d«i’t know anything about it, Doctor Van Cleave. Mamma
would never allow me to so much as put my unskilled fingers on
the domestic machinery. She thinks housekeeping and home-mak
ing the exclusive business of the servants, and that any girl should
find supreme happiness in the allurements of fashionable so
ciety.”
“There are other homes, then: sad,miserable, poverty-stricken homes
that your sympathy and your voice and your money might brighten ”
“But I do not know where they are, and I can’t go out into the
slums to find them. I don’t want to, anyhow. I hate to see suffering
and degradation, and the little I could do wouldn’t be any percepti
ble help. Can’t you think of something else?” she asked plead
ingly.
“Yes; you can marry some good man and make a home center of
your own from which may radiate comfort and help that shall reach
even to the depths of the slums.”
He spoke with deep feeling, and, forgetting her role of invalid
Christine sprang from her chair with wide-awake energy
“It is easy enough to advise such a step, but where is the ‘good
man to come from?” she asked, sarcastically 6
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“You don’t know. He may care more than you think. But in
»uch matter, you must dec.de for yourself. I can only suggest I can
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for/.. “dr k uX hiß A P 7b Cr ‘ l ' ti 'i" b T. k r and . began writin « * for ®“ la
+ i k i thousand wild fancies and vagaries flitted
t rough her brain as she watched him, suddenly shaping themselves
into a strange and daring purpose. * P g themselves
“Doctor Van Cleave!”
MARCH, 1902.