CHLOE AMONG THE BEES 4t 
ago, anemic, pale as the paper she typed on all day 
for a living. Now she is well and strong, and 
almost as brown as the bees she works among so 
willingly. All my girls here have come to me from 
time to time in the same way out of the towns, for- 
saking indoor employment that was surely stunting 
all growth of mind and body. And there are 
thousands who would do the same to-morrow, if 
only the chance could be given them.” 
We stopped in the centre of the old orchard. 
Overhead the swelling fruit-buds glistened against 
the blue sky. Merry thrush-music rang out far 
and near. Sun and shadow, the song of the bees, 
laughing voices, a snatch of an old Sussex chantie, 
the perfume of violet-beds and nodding gillyflowers, 
all came over to us through the lichened tree-stems, 
in a flood of delicious colour and scent and sound. 
The bee-mistress turned to me, triumphantly. 
‘Would any sane woman,” she asked, “ stop 
in the din and dirt of a smoky city, if she could come 
and work in a place like this? Bee-keeping for 
women! do you not see what a chance it opens up 
to poor toiling folk, pining for fresh air and sun- 
shine, especially to the office-girl class, girls often 
of birth and refinement—just that kind of poor 
gentlewomen whose breeding and social station 
render them most difficult of all to help? And here 
is work for them, clean, intellectual, profitable; 
work that will keep them all day long in the open 
air; a healthy, happy country life, humanly within 
the reach of all.” 
‘*What is wanted,’ continued the bee-mistress, 
as we went slowly down the broad main-way of the 
honey-farm, ‘‘is for some great lady, rich in busi- 
