210 MY FARM. 



her Lady s book, and her Ledger, and on such liter- 

 ary food grows apace; but such reading does not 

 instil a healthy admiration for the dairy or butter- 

 making ; rosy cheeks and incarmined arms do not 

 belong to the heroines of her dreams. I do not think 



she ever heard of Kit Marlowe s song : 



&quot; Come live with me, and be my love.&quot; 

 The faint echoes of the town in fashion plates and 

 sensation stories, make a weird, intoxicating music, in 

 listening to which, in weary bewilderment, she has 

 no ear for a brisk bird-song. No wild flowers from 

 the wood, are domesticated at her door. I catch no 

 sight of sun bonnets, or of garden trowels. Out of 

 door life is shunned ; and hence, come sallowness, 

 unhealthiness, narrowness not even the well-devel 

 oped physique of the town girl, who has the pave 

 ments for her marches and countermarches. I hear, 

 indeed, in summer weather, the tinkle of a piano ; but 

 it frights away the wrens ; and of the two, I must 

 say that I prefer the wrens. 



All this unfits for thorough sympathy with the 

 every day life of the father; and when common 

 sympathies do not unite a family, its career breaks at 

 the death of the patron. If there be nothing in the 

 country life which can call out and sustain the pride 

 of all members of the country family, it can never 

 offer tempting career to the young. 



