pation was the next upward step for woman. Here woman, not man, struck the blow to social prejudice and achieved the greatest victory the sex has as yet won. The bluestocking, homely, severe, devoid of sentiment and tenderness, waged her grim fight against a time-hardened idea, in order that the women who came after her might enjoy an intellectual freedom such as was impossible for those that preceded her. The society woman of to-day does not have to be entertained with light gossip and bonbons. She has gone through college shoulder to shoulder with the men who seek her companionship. Her ready wit and ingenious philosophy can interest the profoundest among them.

The severely intellectual woman, who made it possible for her modern sister to become what she is, was neither loved nor admired. She sacrificed herself for the good of her sex. Perhaps the bachelor girl is following in her footsteps, an unconscious martyr to the cause of female emancipation. The world must admit that she is playing her part, not always well perhaps, in the social drama of to-day, and when the throes of the birth of a new century are past, though she may be forgotten, her influence will be indelibly stamped on the women of the next generation.

Marriage is not so nearly universal as it was a score of years ago. Nor does the term "old maid" retain its erewhile stigma. Our bachelor girl celebrates without a blush her thirtieth birthday. She might have married any one of a dozen men; but she is doing the kind of work they used to do. Her labor brings her a cash return, and she likes her liberty. The simple delights of a home-ministering to the wants of an often ungrateful, always self-centered husband; enduring periodically that experience which Hypatia said is fit only for slavespossess no charm for her. Yet her sensitive nature cannot yield to boarding-house luck such as is taken quite as a matter of course by the men she strives to emulate. Her fertile genius has devised a way of escape both from the limitations of the home and the barrenness of the boarding-house, and Bohemianism, as we now have it, has come into being.

We are not now concerned with the familiar type of Bohemianism that has long existed in the Quartier Latin of

Paris, but rather with that phase of it that is affecting our own land-nay, the women of our land.

The average man is by nature a Bohemian until his deeper being is awakened by the touch of a woman's hand. The loose, irresponsible life of the college chapter-house or the club-room possesses a fascination for him that is irresistible until he becomes satiated with its shams and its follies. Sometimes it leaves scars that he carries deep in his heart, and memories that he would fain destroy. But the man who has drunk the last dregs of Bohemianism is the man who will select the purest woman for his wife and the most sequestered nook for his home. What is to become of his Bohemian sister when she is "sick unto death" of struggling alone with this awful problem of living? She would scorn the advances of an unsophisticated man, and for the man of the world she has been divested of her charm.

The great outside world sees only the jolly, chafing-dish side of female Bohemianism. Girls of refinement and ability, who earn their own living, comprise the majority of the Bohemians of our great cities. Their apartments are tastefully, often elegantly furnished. No chaperon is present to see that the arbitrary laws of social form are strictly observed. The men who frequent these cosy dens find in them a combination of royal entertainment and untrammeled freedom such as they can find nowhere else.

Painters, poets with more soul than business ability, musicians whose reputation is yet to be made, take to the Bohemian life. When genius has been put into harness and compelled to drag the plow through productive soil, the taste for this unconventional life will doubtless be lost. Financial success usually sounds the death-knell to sentiment and independence. But female Bohemianism has not lived long enough to reveal what will be its effect on the women who really succeed. As yet it is only an experiment.

We have spoken of the free, delightful side of Bohemianism. The man who has participated in the creating of a Welsh rarebit and has tossed his cigarette-stumps into the grate while he told ludicrous stories, sometimes with a bit of ginger in them, needs no exposition of this side of the ques

tion. He perhaps never dreams that those same girls who know how to entertain so royally and laugh so merrily, know, too, how to conceal an aching heart beneath a mask of smiles. A single day from my own experience will illustrate this point.

My companion in tribulation is an artist whose genius is inversely commensurate with the appalling parvity of her purse. I had been doing space work for a daily newspaper at four dollars a column and getting my novel ready for publication. We discovered one morning that we were approaching the line where the two sides of the bank account balance, and, in a frenzy of apprehension, I staked everything on a political paper that I thought decidedly clever. An Eastern journal that was using a variety of political stuff seemed to be the proper place for my little satire.

"Agnes, if this doesn't go," I remarked grimly as I folded the typewritten sheets, "and if Mr. Brown doesn't pay you for that portrait, we are going to starve."

Three days passed and that never-to-be-forgotten day dawned. The postman's ring awakened us. Three letters he thrust under the door, two for Agnes and one for me. As she tore open the first she remarked:

"I hope the old chump is satisfied with his wife's portrait and has sent me a cheque."

In a moment she lay back on her pillow with a groan disgust.

of

"Something wrong with the left eye; must have another sitting," she remarked dismally.

The other envelope contained a bill for her art lessons.

At the sight of my own letter my heart had sunk so low that I had not yet summoned sufficient courage to tear open the envelope. I had grown accustomed to welcoming home the adventurous children of my fancy-the "reader" somehow knows why two red stamps are enclosed-but this time I had hoped my manuscript would not be returned. There was a polite little note from the editor informing me that my article was good, but that his last political issue had just gone to press. He was sure I could place my manuscript elswhere.

Something desperate had to be done. We could not go to

our relatives and appeal for help. That were treason against Bohemianism!

An influential friend had promised to go with me that morning to the editor of one of the evening papers, with a view to obtaining for me a position on his staff. I called at the gentleman's office at the appointed time. He was outhad probably forgotten the engagement, the stenographer told me. Choking down my disappointment, I went to the office of the paper to which I had been a contributor. The Sunday editor informed me that there would be no room in the next Sunday's issue for my customary love story. I was too proud to tell him that I needed the five dollars that story ought to bring me; but he saw the distress in my eyes. After a moment's reflection he said:

"Here, you take this out to my friend Smith. He sometimes uses stories in his paper."

I left the office with my two pieces of manuscript, and as I walked out into the street a mute appeal for help and courage went up from my heart.

The editor glared at me out of a pair of whiskey-bleared eyes as I meekly told him the purpose of my visit.

"Got no time for literary work. Can't use anything but political stuff now. Come in after the election and I may find time to talk to you," he growled.

There was a great lump in my throat, and my lips quivered; but the case was too desperate to permit my feelings to be taken into consideration.

"I have some political stuff that I believe you will like," I ventured to say.

"Oh, you women are a nuisance! I can't bother with your stuff!" And he bolted from the room.

"Don't mind him," the city editor said sympathetically. "He is worried with this campaign and is unusually gruff. I believe you can sell your political article to our morning paper. But I would advise you not to go to the editor-inchief. He will treat you worse than our man did."

"I have had some experience with the man Eugene Field made the hero of one of his brightest poems," I said, “and I would rather face a lion in his den than face him."

As I was leaving the office I remembered that the editor of the leading monthly magazine had asked me to do some translating for him. I called at his office, but he was busy. "Come in after the election," he said rather brusquely.

I summoned all my courage for the next call. As I entered the office of the associate editor on our wealthiest newspaper, I found, sitting at his desk, my bête noire, the editor-inchief. I will not relate my experience with him. Poor wretch! He found life unbearable and ended it with the dying year. Suffice it to say, I left his presence crushed and humiliated.

Still I did not give up. There was a spicy little magazine in town that sometimes used political stuff, and I called upon its editor.

"Sorry, but we have just slipped into the Irish Sea and have suspended publication," he said politely.

The

On the street I met a friend. "I saw the directory man last night and he said he had a piece of work for you," he told me. At last help had come! With a heart full of gratitude I hurried to the directory building. The work was simple enough. Eight thousand envelopes to be addressed. work must be done at the office and done with a pen. The price to be paid was seventy-five cents a thousand. I figured out the cost of car-fare and luncheon and found that I could earn thirty cents a day by working ten hours. I had not yet come down to sweating-shop labor, so I thanked the clerk and went my way.

It was not yet five o'clock, but the atmosphere seemed thick and black around me, and a great cloud of despair settled down over my spirit.

When I reached home, Agnes had not yet returned from her painting lesson. I was alone and I thought I should go mad. Out into the street in the twilight I fled, not caring whither my steps led me. The first person I met was an artist who had spent many a jolly evening in our den. He had seen the sketches Agnes had made of me, and he needed a model.

"You have exactly the figure I need, and I will pay you three dollars a day to pose for me," he said.