against the patriarchal instinct of the woman who was served. Kindness is apparently brushed aside. The affronted mistress says, resentfully, "Very well; let it be business, then. The next time she is sick she can go to a hospital. It isn't 'business' for me to wear myself out taking care of her!" True, the mistress's humanity is not business; but without it, what a bleak and ugly thing business becomes! how the mechanism jars! We hear the clatter of the wheels, the squeak and grind of pulleys; it is not lovely, even if it is progress. In our complicated domestic life of birth and death, and of the head of the house coming in, cheerfully, half an hour late to dinner--it is plain that mere machinery will not do. The wheels of business do not travel the path of peace. No; kindness cannot be left out; we have got to keep the despised personal relationship; we cannot rid ourselves of it. But would we, if we could? The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto a beryl; and their appearance and their work was, as it were, a wheel within a wheel; whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went . . . for the spirit of the Living Creature was in the wheel." The spirit of the Living Creature!-Love. But this Living Creature, this Love, this kindness, is no simple, easy, superficial thing, any more than fairness is. Kindness has more dignity than undusted piano legs! It includes the nursing, of course, and such simple and homely matters; it bids us remember the limitations of flesh and blood in regard to dusting; it bids us remember human nature, its weariness, its weakness; it bids us remember nerves, our own and other people's. But it does so much more than this! the Living Creature is not sentimental. Kindness is not slackness; it will not "let things go";—that letting things go, which lays up wrath against the day of wrath for us all. No; it does not dispense with machinery; it is the soul of the "business" of housekeeping. For the beautiful thing is, that the more reverently we look at life with all its noisy whirring of machinery that seems so entirely material, the more we come to feel that the Living Creature needs the wheels! Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went." We are not to try to progress without business; but we are to make the wheels carry us on to something which is divine! The Living Creature must have the wheels; but equally the wheels without the Living Creature would carry us to some crashing industrial ruin. One of the minor prophets sums up these three qualities that must be brought to bear on the domestic problem: fairness, a sense of proportion, and kindness. "What," demands the majestic voice-" what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before the Lord thy God?" There it is: Justice, mercy, humility; fairness, kindness, and a sense of propor tion. Strange that this old Hebrew, who never knew anything about the labor question and the domestic problem, can give as such vital advice on the subject, for surely the truest way to meet the economic conditions of our time, if not of our individual households (for some of us have Ellen), is this way of the Prophet. To be sure, when we are confronted by some irritating detail of carelessness or ignorance, it seems a very wide and abstract way. But it is something, in the pettiness of such details, to lay hold of wider issues of responsibility and brotherhood. Of course, it is a little thing to hire or discharge a cook; a little thing (and shamefully out of proportion to life) to fret and worry over impertinence, or what we call ingratitude, or the undusted piano. But it is a great thing to look out from this small relationship of the woman in the kitchen and the woman in the parlor, into the great relationship of human creatures; the greater relationship of God and man. And just in so far as we will do it, just in so far as we wake to our own responsibility to society as it is typified in our own kitchen, our responsibility to make it happy, to make it wise, to make it good, because of and through our own privileges, why, right here, in the kitchen, among our kettles and saucepans, we do make for that Far-off, divine event, To which the whole creation moves! R A STUDY OF GIRLHOOD BY ANNIE WEBSTER NOEL ILLUSTRATED BY F. Y. CORY UTH stood by the window of her room, looking into the garden. It was flooded with sunshine, and her heart beat quickly. She was fifteen years old to-day. She looked back over all the years of her life. They had slipped away almost without her noticing it. How had she lived all those years? What had she done, and thought, and felt? She hardly knew; she felt she did not care. Her thoughts of them were tinged with scorn. For everything was changed. She went down into the garden. There was a change there too. Ten spires of grass had come up in the April night; there were three new clover leaves; and then, pushing aside the dead leaves, she found the buds of violets. Everything was changed; the whole world was changed. A feeling of solemnity, almost of awe, crept over her. She felt the full earnestness of life. What should she do, now that she was fifteen? Ruth paced up and down the large front hall. She was thinking profoundly, bitterly. Only a little while ago she had been so happy. And now? She would walk and walk until she fell exhausted to the floor, for no one would care. No one, no one in the world, understood her. She had gone to her mother. She had confided in her and had told her everything. She had told her that she was going to become a nurse and then go to India as a missionary, where she was most needed. She She Her mother had not said anything. had not spoken an encouraging word. had smiled. She had just smiled! Ruth's heart filled with bitter tears which forced themselves to her eyes as she remembered it. Her mother had apparently forgotten that she was fifteen years old, that she was changed. Would her mother never understand her? Would no one understand her? Was she all alone in the world now? She stopped a minute to gaze sadly out of the window. There was Philip going by, on his way to the river. Should she go with him? She hesitated at the door. She looked back into the empty hall. The house was still in all its rooms. No one seemed to know she into compassion for him. She remembered have grown. But she had learned to expect that she was older than he was now. that now. If you are misunderstood and obstacles are placed in your path, if you must just stay at home forever until you are an old maid, then you must try to help those before whom a happier future lies. She resolved to help Philip. They sat down under a tall tree by the river and Philip cast his line. They had been silent some time when Philip turned and held up his hand. Will Ruth ever forget what she saw? It was a deep scar, running from thumb to wrist. When Ruth saw that scar she knew what the great change was. knew that she loved him. She "Who fixed it for you?" she asked, quickly. "Lucy Stone. She made a daisy bandage. She's going to be a nurse, and go to Africa." She knew now that no one would understand. Not even Philip. She was alone in the world. She rose to go. She did not care to stay if that was the way he felt about it. If he would rather have Lucy Stone. "Why, we've just come!" said Philip, in surprise. "It ain't supper-time yet." She remembered again that she was older than he was. So they could never marry, any way. There was sure to be incompatibility of temperament. He probably didn't even know yet what that meant. She sat and gazed at the river flowing golden into the future. They could not marry. But he might become blind for life. Then she would appear. She would lead him everywhere. Her face so gentle, her hand so tender! Or he would injure some one. All the world would turn against him. People would turn to look at them as they passed-he with proud, bitter eyes; she very pale, but with a sweet light on her face. "I suppose you're thinking now," Philip broke in, abruptly. "How do you feel?" He felt dimly that perhaps she did not know the answer herself. Ruth smiled gently, but was silent. She knew he would not understand - not yet. Some day he would know. After a while the fish began to bite. Ruth forgot all, for a little, and they had a lovely time. At sunset they started home. In the April evening she slipped alone into her garden. The stars shone brightly and she looked up at them, thinking. "I will stay up all night and think of him," she said, softly, to herself. She wondered how late it was; she wondered if he were sleeping peacefully. She turned and saw him coming. How strange that he should come just then! Was he drawn irresistibly to her? "Hello!" said Philip, sitting down on the piazza. "Hello!" said Ruth. She thought she heard her voice tremble. Perhaps it was the last time they would ever see each other. "I thought I'd tell you, before I went away, that I'm going to be a soldier and go to India." "How lovely!" cried Ruth. "And I'm going to be a nurse and go as missionary." They would see each other again in India, for he would be fatally wounded. Ruth's heart grew light. She wished he would go away so she could think of him. She ought Did Philip love her, she wondered, just before she fell asleep. If he did, wouldn't he have said so before going away? She remembered that he had passed the house very often of late. To be sure, he was going fishing in the river beyond. But he often did not even look at the house as he passed. What did that mean? That he loved her? Or that he didn't care? Or that he didn't dare show it, now that she was older than he was? He was going soon. Years would pass before they met again. As she passed between the white hospital beds in her gray nurse's gown (with just one pale pink rosebud in her hair?) she would see him brought in. How thin and wan he was! But she nursed him, and there was magic in her touch. He listened for her step, he watched for her, his face lit up when he saw her. Perhaps he would have several almost fatal wounds-perhaps he would get consumption-perhaps he would die-perhaps— She was asleep. There were tears for Ruth felt she almost fainted, but she heard Philip, undried, on her cheeks. Above her lips, Philip reply, "Yes'm." just curved, a smile hovered like a butterfly. The whole world had changed. Ruth's mother was at the door as they came home. "I hear you are going to move away from town," she said to Philip. No one seemed to notice how pale she must EVERLASTINGS WHEN WHEN you are seventeen you are grown up. Your character is formed. Your ideals are determined. Ruth was seventeen. She resolved to give her life to charitable work. She took a class of very wicked boys in a mission school. She invited them all to her house. (But her mother did not understand, and would not let her use the parlor or the best dishes.) gave them ice-cream. She gave them Christmas presents to gain an influence over them. Life is full of bitter disappointments. Did they change? Ruth sometimes thought they did not change at all. She Ruth was almost ready to give up when several new workers came into the school. Sometimes when she was completely absorbed in her class she noticed how interested he was in it. That gave her new hope in her work. She felt it was her life-work. Was he very much older than she? She could not tell. She had been wearing her blue dress lately and she was sure it had an influence on her class. Probably he was a few years older, but that would only make him a better teacher in the school, and a girl always feels older than a man. There was such a sad look in his eyes. Perhaps he was alone in the world. Or perhaps he was surrounded by loved ones who did not understand him. That is, after all, the very saddest thing that can happen to one. And yet how often that happens in life! She took up her work with renewed energy and hope. She felt a new tenderness toward her class. And she seemed to be acquiring an influence over them. Her class was better than his. She felt deeply sorry, for she knew how it must hurt him, to feel his lack of influence. That face was God-like in its sadness, with its large dark eyes. Oh, the loneliness of life! That a man's soul should be filled with aspirations and thoughts which met with no sympathy. To go his lonely way at night and look up at the cold, distant stars for the understanding of thoughts as high as they. Life is desolate without human voices, human faces, human sympathy. Surely he would ask to be introduced soon. When one is seventeen things happen which one cannot tell to any one in the world, yet they crowd one's heart to breaking. Ruth began a journal. She determined to penetrate deep into life, to experience all things possible to the human soul. "Away with gloomy thoughts," she wrote. "Here let me write my motto, and whatever befalls me, whatever waves of sorrow sweep over me, let me think steadfastly of this, 'We judge of a man's wisdom by his hope."" The next Sunday after school she reached |