I looked through it carefully. They were not even girls, they were not handsome, they were not in process of being married—in fact, it was not once mentioned whether they were married or not, ever had been or ever wanted to be. Yet I had found it amusing!
I laid the magazine on my rug-bound knees and meditated. A queer sick feeling came over me—mental, not physical. I looked through the magazine again. It was not what I should have called "a woman's magazine," yet the editor was a woman, most of the contributors were women, and in all the subject matter I began to detect allusions and references of tremendous import.
Presently Nellie came to see how I was getting on. I saw her approaching, a firm, brisk figure, well and becomingly dressed, with a tailored trimness and convenience, far indeed from the slim, graceful, yielding girl I had once been so proud to protect and teach.
"How soon do we get in, Lady Manager?" I asked her.
"Day after to-morrow," she answered back promptly—not a word about going to see, or asking anyone!
"Well, ma'am, I want you to sit down here and tell me things—right now. What am I to expect? Are there no men left in America?"
She laughed gaily.
"No men! Why, bless you, there are as many men as there are women, and a few more, I believe. Not such an over-plus as there used to be, but some to spare still. We had a million and a half extra in your day, you know."
"I'm glad to learn we're allowed to live!" said I. "Now tell me the worst—are the men all doing the housework?"
"You call that 'the worst,' do you?" inquired Nellie, cocking her head to one side and looking at me affectionately, and yet quizzically. "Well, I guess it was—pretty near 'the worst!' No dear, men are doing just as many kinds of business as they ever were."