ttle girl has duties at home as well, and is sometimes seen, a
pitcher in one hand and a mop in the other, making the house tidy. She
can boil potatoes, shell the beans, feed the hens, and make herself
useful in many ways.

On rare occasions she has a holiday in the fields, and then what joy
it is in spring and early summer to find the haunts of the wild
flowers which grow in such abundance in the English country. Miss
Mitford writes of a wonderful field where bloomed in season,
"primroses, yellow, purple, and white, violets of either hue,
cowslips, oxlips, arums, orchises, wild hyacinths, ground ivy,
pansies, strawberries, and heart's ease, covering the sunny open slope
under a weeping birch."

A favorite game is making cowslip balls. The tufts of golden flowerets
are first nipped off with short stems, until a quantity are gathered.
Then the ribbon is held ready and the clusters are nicely balanced
across it until a long garland is made, when they are pressed closely
together and tied into a sweet golden ball.

When we remember that the little Offy, who was the original Strawberry
Girl, was transplanted from her Devonshire home to the great city of
London, we are interested to know something of her after life. She
grew to be as dear as a daughter to her uncle. In the dreary days when
he could not use his eyes she was his reader and amanuensis. The many
distinguished guests who enjoyed his hospitality were charmed with her
sweet manners. In the course of time she married Richard Lovell
Gwatkin, a Cornish gentleman in every way worthy of her. "Her
happiness was as great as her uncle could wish. She lived to be
ninety, to see her children's children, and, intelligent, cheerful,
and affectionate to the last, vividly remembered her happy girlhood
under her uncle's roof, and the brilliant society that found a centre
there."

XV

DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON

The eccentric figure of Dr. Samuel Johnson was one of the familiar
sights of London during the middle of the eighteenth century. He was a
man of great learning, a voluminous writer, and an even more
remarkable talker. He was born in 1709, and, the son of a poor
bookseller, he struggled against poverty for many years. Literary work
was ill paid in those days, and Johnson gained his reputation but
slowly. He contributed articles to the magazines, and twice he
conducted short-lived periodicals of his own--the "Rambler" and the
"Idler." He wrote, besides, a drama, "Ir