CHAPTER IV. 



CHLOE AMONG THE BEES. 



The Bee-Mistress looked' at my card, then put its owner 

 under a like careful scrutiny. In the shady garden where 

 we stood, the sunlight fell in quivering golden splashes 

 round our feet. High overhead, in the purple elm-blos- 

 som, the bees and the glad March wind made rival music. 

 Higher still a ripple of lark-song hung in the blue, and a 

 score of rooks were sailing by, filling the morning with 

 their rich, deep clamour of unrest. 



The bee-mistress drew off her sting-proof gloves in 

 thoughtful deliberation. 



" If I show you the bee-farm," said she, eyeing me 

 somewhat doubtfully, " and let you see what women have 

 done and are doing in an ideal feminine industry, will you 

 promise to write of us with seriousness? I mean, will you 

 undertake to deal with the matter for what it is — a plain, 

 business enterprise by business people — and not treat it flip- 

 pantly, just because no masculine creature has had a hand 

 in it?" 



" This is an attempt," she went on — the needful assur- 

 ances having been given — " an attempt, and, we believe, a 

 real solution to a very real difficulty. There are thousands 

 of educated women in the towns who have to earn their own 

 bread; and they do it usually by trying to compete with men 

 in walks of life for which they are wholly unsuited. Now, 

 why do they not come out into the pure air and quiet of the 

 countryside, and take up any one of several pursuits open 

 there to a refined, well-bred woman? Everywhere the 

 labourers are forsaking the land and crowding into the 

 cities. This is a farmers' problem, with which, of course, 

 women have nothing to do. The rough, heavy work in the 

 cornfields must always be done either by men or machinery. 

 But there are certain employments, even in the country, 

 that women can invariably undertake better than men, and 

 bee-keeping is one of them. The work is light. It needs 



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