enemy. They are bolder in speech than their husbands to those
who occupy higher places in the social scale. It cannot be said that
agricultural women are handsome. In childhood they are too often thin
and stunted; later they shoot up and grow taller, but remain thin and
bony till from eighteen to twenty, when they get plumper, and then is
their period of prettiness, if at all. Bright eyes, clear complexions,
and glossy hair form their attractions, for their features are scarcely
ever good. The brief beauty of the prime of youth speedily fades, and at
five-and-twenty the agricultural woman, especially if married, is pale
or else burnt by the sun to a brown, with flat chest and rounded
shoulders. It is rare indeed to see a woman with any pretensions to what
is called a figure. It would be wonderful if there were, for much of the
labour induces a stooping position, and they are never taught when
young to sit upright.

Growing plainer and plainer as years go by, the elder women are wrinkled
and worn-looking, and have contracted a perpetual stoop. Many live to a
great age. In small parishes it is common to find a large number of
women of seventy and eighty, and there are few cottages which do not
contain an old woman. This is hardly a result in accordance with the
labour they have undergone. The explanation probably is that, continued
through a series of generations, it has produced a strength and stamina
which can survive almost anything. Certain it is that young couples
about to marry often experience much difficulty in finding cottages,
because they are occupied by extremely aged pairs; and landlords,
anxious to tear down and remove old cottages tumbling to pieces, are
restrained from doing so out of regard for the aged tenants, who cling
with a species of superstitious tenderness to the crumbling walls and
decayed thatch. At this age, at seventy-five or even eighty, the
agricultural woman retains a strength of body astonishing to a town-bred
woman. She will walk eight or ten miles, without apparent fatigue, to
and from the nearest town for her provisions. She will almost to the
last carry her prong out into the hayfield, and do a little work in some
corner, and bear her part in the gleaning after the harvest. She lives
almost entirely upon weak tea and bread sops. Her mental powers continue
nearly unimpaired, and her eyes are still good, though her teeth have
long gone. She will laugh over memories of practical jokes play