had sent for a man who was "very clever in cows."

In a short time this clever man arrived, bringing with him a friend,
likewise learned in cattle. He went to see the patient, and returned
to us looking very profound.

"A bad job!" said he, with a shake of the head worthy of Sheridan's
Lord Burleigh. "A sad job, indeed! and you only bought her last
market-day. Well, it can't be helped."

"But what ails her?" said I.

"What ails her! why, she's got the lung disease."

"But what it is that? said I.

"What's that! why, it's what kills lots of cows; takes 'em off in two
or three days. You must sell her for what she'll fetch. Perhaps you
may get $10 for her. I'll get rid of her for you."

"But," said H., "if she has the 'lung disease' you talk of, you tell
us she must die."

"Yes; she'll die, sure enough."

"Well, then, who will buy a cow that is sure to be dead to-morrow or
next day?"

"Oh, that's no concern of yours! _You_ get rid of her, that's all."

To this dictum we rather demurred, and resolved to send for a
cow-doctor, and see if she could be cured; if not, to take care she
was not converted after her death into "country sausages," for the
benefit of London consumers of those dainties. Our friendly counsellor
was very indignant at our perversity in not getting rid of a cow with
"the lung disease," and stumped out of the yard in a fit of virtuous
indignation. With proper treatment the cow soon got well.

We still had occasional trouble with our butter-making; sometimes it
would come in half an hour, sometimes we were hard at work with the
churn for two or three hours, and then the butter was invariably bad.
We tried to procure information on the subject, and asked several
farmer's wives in the neighborhood "how long butter ought to be in
coming." We always received the same answer:--

"Why, you see, ma'am, that depends."

"Well," we asked, "what does it depend on?"

"Oh, on lots of things."

"Well, tell us some of the things on which it depends."

"Why, you see it's longer coming in hot weather, and it's longer
coming in cold weather; and it depends on how long the cow has calved,
and how you churn, and on lots beside."

We found we must endeavor to discover for ourselves the reason why we
were half an hour in getting it one day, and the next, perhaps, two or
three hours.

As the weather became colder we found it more troublesome, and one
frosty day we churned four hours without success. We