Then, as the century was coming in, Yorkshire, with its great mills, began to be to the South of England what the Far West has been to the East here in our day, -the land of promise to all who wanted to better themselves. So a bright orphanlad in London and a lass in Norwich heard of it, and were caught by that impulse to get out of the land of their kindred, which caught their son, many a year after, and swept him over the Atlantic; and I have no doubt, from what I have heard them say, they were after that quite of the mind of the old ballad: :

"York, York, for my monie:

Of all the places I ever did see,
This is the best for good companie,
Except the city of London."

So what a boy saw, when he began to notice, was a woman, tall and deep-chested, with shining flaxen hair, and laughing blue eyes, a damask rosebloom on her cheek, as is the way with the women of her nation, a laugh that was music, too, and a contagion of laughter you could not escape was at the heart of it; a step like a deer for lightness, and an activity that could carry its possessor twenty miles a day over the rough northern hills, and land her safe home in the evening, no more tired than one of our fashionable ladies in Chicago would be in going from cellar to garret in her own home. Woman's rights, as a natural

truth, must have come to me by my mother. I believe, as I sit and think of her wonderful genius for doing whatever she took in hand, if she had been told to do it by her sense of duty, and then the way had opened, she would have led an army like the old queens, or governed a kingdom. What she did govern was a houseful of great, growing, hungry, out-breaking bairns, keeping us all well in hand, smiting all hinderance out of our way, keeping us fed and clad bravely, and paying for school, as long as we could be spared to go, out of the eighteen shillings a week the quiet manful father made at his anvil. The kindest heart that ever beat in a man's breast, I think, was his. It stopped beating in a moment, one hot July day; and, before any hand could touch him, he was in "the rest that remains." But in those brave old days, while the first fifteen years were passing which do so much for us all, there we were all together in one of the sweetest cottage homes that ever nestled under green leaves in a green valley. There was a plum-tree, and a rose-tree, and wealth of ivy, and a bit of greensward, outside; and inside, one room on the floor, and two above; a floor of flags scoured white, so that you might eat your dinner on it, and no harm be done except to the floor; walls whitewashed to look like driven snow, with pictures of great Bible figures hung where there was room, and in their own places, kept so bright as to

be so many dusky mirrors; the great mahogany chest of drawers and high-cased clock; polished elm chairs, and corner cupboard for the china which was only got out at high festivals; a bright, open, sea-coal fire, always alight, winter and summer; with all sorts of common things for common use stowed away snug and tight in their own corners, like the goods and chattels of Ed'ard Cuttle, mariner. That was the home in the day of small things, when the world was young and the glory of life was in its first spring.

WILD LILIES.