f country life has been accepted; the same courtesy
must be given her when she tells us more or less frankly--frankly when
she can be brought to speak at all--what objections some may have to a
life which it seems to many ought to be good for any one, and which, if
it is not, surely can very easily be made so.

It is no more than right that a system should be judged not only by the
most fortunate example of its working, where factors that have little to
do with its essential principles may have crept in to modify the
outward appearance, but also by the less known cases, by flagrant
examples of what is possible under the existing plan. What wrongs can be
found? What sufferings to certain individuals? What must be rectified in
order that the machinery may be wholly approved? Is the system, which
was evidently designed to foster justice and happiness, accomplishing
this end for a reasonable majority? These are very natural questions to
those who listen to the testimony of the girl of the rural districts
when she discloses her problems almost without knowing that she is doing
so. What about exceptional cases? What about a vital minority?

The following description of a Country Girl's working day is taken from
the life of a fourteen-year-old girl, who lives on a farm of medium
size, so fortunately or so unfortunately placed as to be not very far
away from a summer colony. There is no mother in this farmstead.

"Description of my average working day? Here it is. I rise shortly
before five o'clock and dress hurriedly. Father is calling me to come
and strain the milk and get his breakfast. Go down cellar and strain the
milk into pans, set them on a large stone table, and skim the milk for
cream for the campers along the lake. Measure out ten to twenty quarts
of milk and put them into separate pails to be sent out to customers
encamped on the lake. Take cream up stairs and put it in a warm place to
ripen for churning. Get breakfast, call the children, and after the
others have eaten and the boy has started on his morning delivery, I eat
breakfast and clear away the dishes. While sister washes them, I mix
bread and set it away to rise. Stir the cream, and then sweep three
floors and make five beds. By this time it is nine o'clock. Then there
are berries to pick, and vegetables to be got ready for market and I go
out to help till about half-past ten, when I come in and make three or
four pies and a cake or a pudding. While these