To illustrate somewhat, in this connection, the curious adaptation of words to express a local meaning in provincial life, I relate a little incident, interesting as a reminiscence, told me this summer by a charming Westmoreland lady. Many a one of these picturesque farms was a scene well worth remembering in harvest time in the old days. The dance after the sheep-shearing, in July, was a gala season. It was held in the barn, and kept up long after midnight; the evening was made merry by eating and drinking, supper being served usually in the flagged court, opening out from the great farm kitchen. There were many quarry men and women among the merry-makers. My friend was watching them, when her attention was called to an ancient dame, who, sitting on a bench at the outer door, was giving some instructions to a younger one engaged in cutting bread.

"Cut them no more London, Maggie," she admonished, "cut them plenty of Thom, plenty of Thom"; meaning, Cut no more thin bread of the better quality, but plenty of thick slices of coarser grain. London and Thom were names given to the quality of slates in the quarry; London, meaning the fine and smoother slate which was taken out, Thom, the rougher and coarser pieces.

There are few other industries in this remote corner of the world except farming. One, however, which was singularly interesting to us was bobbin-turning, a rare old trade, which fortunately is not dead. The bobbin-mill stands in one of the most wildly beautiful woods in England; for many a year it has been there, until it is so toned with the storms and the sunshine of by-gone seasons, that it is a piece of the quiet content of the scene, with its great piles of

door-way. All day long the Stockgill stream, which turns the wheel, rushes leaping down the glen, dashing and splashing over the rocks; all day long the mill burrs and hums, and in the high ceilinged working-room, where the spiders spin webs undisturbed. among the rafters, the human toilers, men and boys, turn skillfully the reels and the bobbins. There is the faint scent of the fragrant wood in the air, and the dust of the silvery ash, which softens the ruddy color in the children's cheeks, and powders the white hair of many of the older men, giving them a subdued, refined expression.

These older men are the most skillful workers; practice has made them perfect in the turning. First, the logs are sawn into manageable pieces, then cut by the boys into smaller bits, pierced by a machine, so as to give the hole, as in our spools, then finished by the older hands. There was one aged man who interested me out of the ordinary way, he plied his tools so swiftly and unerringly, with never a flaw in the reels.

He had a rugged, strongly marked face, and long shapely hands, with the exception of the thumb on the right hand, which was abnormally large where it had pressed the tool to fine off the work's imperfections for sixty years or more.

It reminded one of Grimm's old household tale of the Three Witches, derived, no doubt, from some such practical illustration. "What makes your feet so big?" the fairy child questions.

"From working the wheel so many hundred years," replies the witch.

"What makes your thumb so big?" queries the child of the second witch.

itary plan by an eccentric Scotch doctor, and called by him Edinboro' Row. I was not wrong in my surmise. But it is too long a tale for this sketch, so I go back to the mill and the happy workers.

One man can turn in a day from thirty to fifty gross of sewing cotton reels (spools, as we should call them); spools and cotton spinning bobbins, three to five gross. Sewing cotton reels bring from three pence ha'penny to one shilling six pence per gross.

It seems a pity there are so few enterprises of this kind in the Lake country; much is due to the present owner of the bobbin-mill for keeping alive, despite the dullness and competition of trade, this old industry.

There is much material for thought in the condition of the working people so employed, and others elsewhere. If their wages, comparatively speaking, are so much less, so, also, in the same proportion, are their wants. A home in one of the earth's unequaled gardens, and enough! What else can the world give a working man-or any one, in fact? The rest, life's happiness, depends upon one's self. Compare then the toiler's grind in the New World, with his tranquil lot in the Old! In our plans for the benefit and advancement of the working people, wages tip the balance, and happiness goes up in the scale. We leave out of our reckoning entirely, in the problem, the proportional amount of happiness.

This subject, of late, has been attracting a great deal of attention. There are too many people in the large cities, and yet the majority of helpless ones are unwilling to live on little in the country. The beautiful lake of Thirlmere must be dragged to give the dirty, clamorous throng of Manchester water. It is a pity that we could not bring some of the masses to proper homes in the Lake district, instead of carrying the lake to them. Crowds push yearly to the seaports for emigration, and yet, by the latest statistics, it is the working people of the better class in the colonies who are suffering even more than those at home. If trade is stagnant in England, at least a man VOL. VII.-5.

can live comfortably on less; whereas many of the young men of education and ability in Cape Colony and New Zealand would be glad to work their way back to England, to the opportunities they considered no opportunities when they left home.

Many leading men have interested themselves in this curious and perplexing problem; and to rectify in some way the ill effects of the concentration in great cities of too large a mass of population, and the emigration of young talent to form the corner-stone and power of another nation, they have started in the quiet corners of England, industries to tempt the people back to their legitimate homes.

Mr. Ruskin, in his beautiful residence near Coniston, in the Lake district, has been one of the most energetic of these leaders; but classical industries never pay, so the men continue to stolidly emigrate. But the women, who could not emigrate if they would, and who have grown tired and faint in trying to make pin-money out of chickens' eggs and summer boarders, remain to eagerly grasp at this emancipation.

Mr. Albert Fleming, a barrister in Ambleside himself, relates in a most interesting article in one of the London papers, his own experiences and results in reviving the handspinning and weaving so long dead in the "North Countree." To use his own words:

"Scattered about on the fell side were many old women, too blind to sew, and too old for hard work, but able to sit by the fireside and spin (with the cheerful companionship of some younger one), if some one would show them how. When I broached my scheme to a circle of practical relatives" (which no one would do except in England) "a Babel of expostulation arose wild. 'It won't pay. No one wants linen to last fifty years. It's fantastic, unpractical, sentimental, and quixotic.'

halfway between Mr. Ruskin's home at Coniston, and Wordsworth's at Rydal."

He goes on to relate how difficult it was to get wheels, some coming even from Stornoway and the Isle of Man; how old garrets were sacked, and how finally the village carpenter was inveigled into constructing home-made wheels. Then a little cottage was taken and made into a spinning-school. When a woman could spin a good thread, Mr. Fleming allowed her to take a wheel home, giving her the flax, and buying it back when spun at two shillings per pound of thread. Ladies were impressed into the service as Miss Encouragers and Commenters. Pupils poured in, and then came the weaving.

"In an old cellar in Kendal, we discovered a loom. It was in twenty pieces, and not all the collective wisdom of the village knew how to put it together. Luckily a lady friend had a photograph of Giotto's Campanile, and by help of that, the various parts were rightly pieced together. We then se cured an old weaver, and one bright Easter morning saw our first piece of linen woven -the first purely hand-spun and hand-woven linen produced in all broad England in our generation. A significant fact, that, if you think all round it.

"Over that first twenty yards, the scoffers rejoiced greatly. It was terrible stuff, frightful in color, and of dreadful roughness, with huge lumps and knots wandering up and down its surface. However, one dear lady pronounced the material delightful, and purchased a dozen yards at four shillings a yard.

"As Giotto fixed our loom for us, Homer taught us the true principle of bleaching, and so we adopted the simple method described in the Odyssey.

"Orders and inquiries soon came from all parts of England. Fashion helped us too, for our linen was eagerly sought after for embroidery, portières, tea cloths, etc. To conclude, we have two looms going at Coniston, and another at Sheffield, employing about forty women. Two of my women once spun me one pound of thread in the day, but that was a tour de force; the women's

average weekly earnings are under five shillings.

"The widest linen is forty-four inches, and its price four shillings. All the money produced by the sale of linen is paid into the bank, and the profits will be divided among the workers at the end of the year.'

One of the prettiest of the "Old Countree" customs is the "rush bearing," still kept up symbolically in many of the villages. It was long before we could find the origin of this quaint practice, but we finally succeeded in doing so from the rector. The parish children assembled one particular day in July, when the wild and cultivated flowers were in their glory, each child carrying a rustic frame or emblem decorated with exquisite blossoms. Of all ages, from the little toddler to the tall, gawky boy, from every corner of the hamlet they came, even from the neighboring farms, bearing their wealth of roses, pillars, broken columns, arches, baskets twined and interwoven with nodding grasses and trailing vines. One of the most beautiful designs on this particular occasion was a harp, bound round with rushes, and half smothered in pond lilies. the white petals and gold centers conspicuous for a long distance. Another was a crown of pale blush roses veiled with ferns. Other forms were simply rushes themselves, twisted into scepters and wands.

When all the children were gathered together, they marched in twos, led by the village band, which had practiced for weeks on the green the most appropriate selections for the festival, to the church. The streets were lined with people, strangers and residents, attracted by any incident which lent novelty to their quiet life. A short service was held in the chapel, after the emblems had been arranged on the altar and window-seats On the following Monday the children removed the flowers and placed them on the village graves, chanting meanwhile "The Rush-bearing Hymn," written for the purpose by Coleridge; then all adjourned to the neighboring green, where the school-treat was held, each happy little one receiving a bran new silver sixpence, and a

piece of ginger-bread from the lolly-pop shop.

The origin of the custom is so simple, it hardly needs an explanation; and yet, to a stranger, it appears very puzzling at first. When our forefathers lived in rude huts, the house of worship was little else in its construction than a miserable refuge from the inclemencies of the weather. Built of mud and stone, it had not even the comforts of a sanctuary. The floor was of earth or clay. So every year in midsummer time the worshipers went out and gathered rushes, when they were at their full, to strew as a carpet in the house of worship, chanting praises the while, as a kind of thanksgiving. The custom has continued in unbroken line to the present day; but flowers are substituted for or intermingled with the rushes, as symbols of earth's midsummer thank-offering, and the little rush-bearers have taken the place of older ones.

We had dwelt among the cottagers and their homes for quite a long time, so we shouldered our knapsacks one day, with a little supply of linen, and sending our lug gage on before us, started out for the Castle district. Lowther Castle, near Penrith, the first one of interest, belongs to the Earl of Lonsdale.

After we left Keswick the country became monotonous and flat, especially so after our sojourn among the lakes. Twenty miles at day is a stiffish stretch to keep up, and before the last five were ended, on our first day's work, we had felt every stone in the road for some time, and were glad at frequent intervals to rest by the road-side, with the welcome prospect of an hospitable inn and toasted muffins and tea before us, if we ever could get there. The highway appeared long, white, dusty, and unending.

It was during one of these numerous rests, when we had only suddenly straightened up to let a coach roll by, realizing, as its occupants strained and craned their necks to see us, that we were an incident in their excursion, that one of the girls of the party declared as she sat on the bank that not one step further could she go; we either had to

stop at the nearest farm house, or to leave her behind.

It was very warm, and the once light little brown canvas satchel seemed an insupportable burden. Hearing wheels, and seeing a jaunty little dog-cart approaching, we sug gested soliciting a ride. This suggestion the tired girl rejected promptly, and seizing her staff, began anew with renewed energy.

"Suppose," said the young geologist of the party, twirling his deer-stalker on the point of his cane, "suppose the driver of that charming vehicle—for a wheel-barrow, even, would be charming just now-should ask you to ride, Prue, would you accept?"

This was rather tantalizing and provoking to the tired pedestrian. "No," snapped Prue, a little hastily for so amiable a girlfor she was amiable (but there is nothing so trying to one's temper as seeing a country on foot). "How could I, here in England, in this precious prudish place? I might in America. But then an Englishman would never ask me."

"I don't know about that," questioned the geologist, provokingly, striking off a little bit of the neighboring rock with his hammerfor he was not at all fatigued. "How could he pass by so charming a tired girl? Mark my words, he'll ask you to get in. Be sure you accept."

"I was tying

The vehicle was upon us by this time; it drew up slowly before Prue. "Won't you jump in," said a cheery voice. up some peas, at my farm yonder, when I saw you go by on the road; so I harnessed up, fancying I would overtake you before long. I have to go to the village for the post, so you do not take me out of my way."

Prue made a faint protest, but the jolly young gentleman farmer was not to be refused. He bundled us all in, and never was ride so welcome as in that smart little "jigger," as he termed it, behind that lively mare. He was a Cumberland man, it shall never be forgotten.

Lowther Castle, the seat of the Earl of Lonsdale, is five miles from the dull little town of Penrith. It stands in a beautiful