d not the dialogues of PLATO,
And sets above the Cult of Flowers
The Cult of the Potato.

The studious maid whose classic brow
Was high with conscious pride of learning
Now grooms the pony, milks the cow,
And takes a hand at churning;
And one I know, whose music had
Done credit to her educators,
Has sold her well-beloved "Strad"
To purchase incubators!

The object of this humble lay
Is not to minimize the glory
Of women of an earlier day
Whose deeds are shrined in story;
'Tis only to extol the grit
Of clever girls--and none work harder--
Who daily do their toilsome "bit"
To stock the nation's larder.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Overburdened Mother_. "GIT A MOVE ON, ALBERT--KEEPIN'
THE 'OLE BLOOMIN' WORLD BACK--AN' A WAR ON, TOO!"]

* * * * *

ONE OF OUR DIFFICULTIES.

Under this title I refer to a lady whom I will call Mrs. Legion, for
there are many of her all over the country, bless her conservative old
heart. She has been in service as cook or cook-housekeeper most of her
life (she is now getting on in years), and constant preoccupation
with kitchen affairs has somewhat narrowed her outlook, so that the
circumvention of the butcher, whose dominant idea (she believes) is to
provide her with indifferent joints, is more to her than the defeat of
HINDENBURG; and so far as she is concerned the main theatre of the
War is neither Europe nor the Atlantic, but the coal merchant's yard,
which disgorges its treasure so grudgingly. Not only is her first
thought for her cooking, in order--the transition to her second
thought is automatic--that her employer or employers may be
comfortable; but it is her last thought too.

With such singleness of purpose to crystallize her, she cannot
absorb even the gravest of warnings; not from unwillingness or stupid
obstinacy, but from sheer inability to grasp any novelty. That her
beloved master and mistress--either or both--should not have the
best of everything and plenty of it is, at this advanced stage in
her career, unthinkable. Even though she read it in print she would
disregard it, for her attitude to them papers is sceptical; even Lord
NORTHCLIFFE, with all his many voices, dulcet or commanding, has wooed
in vain.

I imagine that the milkman, from whom she heard of the War and whom
she thinks (for his class) a sagacious fellow, has warned her against