"I am still so far left to myself as to take beefsteak for my lunch."

The speaker was one of the great army of women who work for their living outside of the home. The topic under discussion was the midday lunch. One girl had said peanut - brittle and a pickle checked the gnawings of hunger for her. Another had declared her adherence to those good old stand-bys of the schoolgirl, cream-puffs. A third had sustained the claims of pie as a "filler." It required a distinct effort of moral courage for any one to mention so homely and simple an article of diet as steak after these less substantial dainties, and it was evident that its advocate had stamped herself as hopelessly gross and material.

While the lunch question may be frequently and fervently debated from the stand-points of cheapness and palatableness, there is seldom much time wasted over such a trifle as nutritive values. Almost never is thought given to choosing food which will supply specific wastes. The woman who spends her time in active physical labor, the woman who toils in an occupation which is a constant strain upon the nerves, and the woman who exhausts her brain by steady and concentrated mental work, alike stay the cravings of hunger in the noon hour by "pie and soda-water," by pickles and ice-cream, by cream-puffs and caramels.

For a long time patient nature submits to the indignity. The stomach is a tough muscle, and bears much abuse without complaint, or with only an occasional murmur or writhing. But it is composed of ordinary human tissues, after all; it is not a cast-iron or gutta-percha repository, as it should be to bear the outrages inflicted upon it. The time comes when it turns - turns literally - when that exact creditor, the body, demands a strict settlement of long-standing accounts. Then we hear that So-and-so is a "martyr to dyspepsia," or that she is laid up with nervous prostration, or that she has "gone all to pieces." And every one wonders what could have been the cause of the break-down.

The busy worker who gives her best thoughts and energies to the occupation choice or circumstances has made her own, is likely to wax impatient at the suggestion that she should bestow serious consideration upon so unimportant a matter as her diet. Even those women who abjure the unholy combinations of food just enumerated usually select their meals entirely at random, or with but one essential qualification - that they shall please the taste. Yet here is just the point where a little present care may spare them much future inconvenience and even suffering. A small amount of knowledge of the specific effects of certain kinds of food will go far toward supplying strength and repairing wastes.

For example, the slight, bloodless-looking girl who is always chilly should eat meat like beef or mutton, that contains good red blood. She should also take fats and starchy foods that will produce heat. The stout, flabby girl does not need the starches, and she should cut sweets, pastry, and white bread from her bill-of-fare. She may eat meats, salads, green vegetables, fresh fruit. Neither should depend upon a cup of strong coffee or tea at noon to brace her for her afternoon toil. That stereotyped refreshment of women, a cup of tea and a piece of toast, is probably as poor a stand-by as any working woman could select. A sandwich and a glass of beer would be far more sustaining.

The brain worker needs phosphates. She should supply the demand by fish, brown bread, whole-wheat bread, and cereals. The woman who does hard physical labor can digest food that would cause distress to her of sedentary habits. The former can rely upon cheese in its various forms and will find chocolate nutritious and strengthening.

It is a great mistake to fancy that nourishing and wholesome food cannot be appetizing. The palate that craves cakes, can-dies, and pastry may not be tickled by plainer diet, and the girl whose ideal of an agreeable lunch is realized in coffee and "sinkers," may turn with scorn from a meal that makes less strain upon digestion. But that woman is hard to satisfy who cannot select a menu that will be at once pleasing, easy of digestion, and inexpensive. Such are, eggs in their many styles, fish in the variety that is possible on the sea-coast, steak, chops (not pork or veal), stews, minces, poultry, bacon, vegetables, and fruit, fresh or stewed.

The midday meal need not be heavy. A light lunch, so long as the food is all of it wholesome, will stand in better stead the woman who must work in the afternoon than a hearty meal which demands so much of the force of the body to digest it that it leaves no energy for other employment. A few experiments will teach the seeker for knowledge what article of diet she may safely choose and what she must leave severely alone.

C. T. H