made for them at railroad stations, where rooms are set apart in which no smoking is allowed? Do we not hear of them as serving in various industrial capacities, ranging from the counter to the kitchen? Yes, and these, we are told, are the serious reasons, alluded to above, why the taboo has been placed upon a word otherwise inoffensive.

It is amusing to recall the admirable circumlocutory efforts made in my presence by a society woman to save herself from the necessity of uttering this hated word. The piteous gasp with which she at last let it fall from her lips suggested how the Bad Sister in the nursery tale must have appeared when about to open her mouth, knowing that a toad would instantly issue therefrom. There was, as it happened, no other term exactly to express the speaker's meaning; the point under discussion being one, not of sex, for which plain and unadorned ❝ woman "would have served, nor of birth merely, to be sufficiently designated by "gentlewoman," but rather of that mysterious combination of character, temperament, education, and experience into one beautiful whole, which sex, nor birth, nor position, nor any single advantage, outward or inward, can assure, and for which, "up to date," no word has been found so expressive as "lady." Moreover, the speaker herself was notably one of that sort which Dante delicately describes as "those who are gentle, and are not women merely." Yet would she not, except under protest, employ the sole distinctive name of such gentle women.

And this, forsooth, because the name has been misapplied! Frankly I ask it, is this a good reason? Frankly, I do not think that it is. Does it derogate in the least from one's ladyhood that those who have no claim whatever to such estate choose to adopt the title? If it pleases them, can it harm you, my lady? I have heard a specious argument to the effect that it is better the word, as distinguishing a class, should go the way of all titles in this democratic land. But, unfortunately for such an argument, this name has been dropped solely by those who still insist upon retaining a certain show of

aristocracy. They have apparently dropped it, not to facilitate the leveling process, but rather to keep up distinctions; if the masses were to see fit to relinquish it, I should look to see it reinstated in glory among the classes, on the same principle that governs the fluctuations of the crease in the legs of trousers.

There is no doubt that it has been an illused word,—ill used by those, too, who should best know its real signification. I do not wince, I only smile, when a girl behind a counter directs me to "that other saleslady," or when Mary Cook tells me there is a "lady in the kitchen " to see me. But when an educated woman says, speaking of her husband, perhaps, "Gentlemen like their coffee hotter than ladies," or, "Gentlemen are more easily put out than ladies," then I do not smile, but wince.

Let us not ignore the word; let us all try to use it discriminatingly, and help others to do so. It is only those who truly deserve the name of "lady" who can teach its proper use. "Gentlewoman" does not quite take its place, for, as already intimated, that term most obviously expresses birth. Yet we all know gentlewomen in this sense who are in no other sense ladies, just as we know ladies who are not gentlewomen. The cus" for tom of employing the word "lady

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woman," where a mere matter of sex is implied, is very old-fashioned indeed, and should long ago have fallen into desuetude.

I do not seriously fear the utter disappearance of the thing this noble word stands for. Surely there will always be true ladies, whether they call themselves so or not. But in a decade when the name is being intentionally hustled out into the cold by the very set of women which we should most expect to find cherishing every least thing belonging to the idea of lady, and when the members of another fast-growing set are, it may be unintentionally, so conducting themselves as to make men apprehensive lest the idea itself should be losing credit among the feminine half of creation, it seems well to sound a note of warning in regard to it, to urge a plea for its retention and for maintaining it in good repute.

IVORY

SOAP

IT FLOATS

Those who think that imported soaps must be the finest, do not know that the materials for Ivory Soap are the best to be found anywhere. The vegetable oil of which Ivory Soap is made, is imported, almost in ship loads, from the other side of the world.

THE PROCTER & GAMBLE CO., OIN'TI.

KNABE