riages. Is it so, to the same extent, in our day? The term "old maid," even when used, is not uttered with the contempt of former times. Think of the many noble single women of your acquaintance who are bravely fighting the battle of life alone, winning for themselves a competency and fair renown, and at the same time doing good service for humanity. The prince has not come to them. Some have grown old in life's struggle and will go through the remainder of their years without the halo of love, without tender home ties of their own; but they will have fought a good fight, and in many cases they have given of their strength and courage to some weak wife or mother, bowed down with the burdens and responsibilities of a position too often lightly and thoughtlessly assumed. Some of these brave and earnest working women are young and blooming. For them the prince may come, he may not. They are content to wait, not idly, not with folded hands and the feeling that if he come not all hope is lost and life not worth the living, but working sturdily and blithely, developing the energies of mind and body, proving themselves worthy of their womanhood and fit mates for strong and manly men. So the car of progress moves onward, rapidly in favored localities, more slowly in sections less tolerant of innovations; but always towards that perfect solution of the "woman question" so happily pictured in Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward."
What of Afro-American womanhood? What of our wives and mothers and sisters and daughters? Are they, too, included in these movements of progress, in this
