sympathy and service;--bread-giver to those who are in need. The idea
that it means something external in dress or circumstances has been too
generally adopted by rich and poor; and this, coupled with the sweeping
notion that in our country one person is just as good as another, has
led to ridiculous results, like that of saleswomen calling themselves
"sales-ladies." I have even heard a chambermaid at a hotel introduce
herself to guests as "the chamber-lady."

I do not believe that any Lowell mill-girl was ever absurd enough to
wish to be known as a "factory-lady," although most of them knew that
"factory-girl" did not represent a high type of womanhood in the Old
World. But they themselves belonged to the New World, not to the Old;
and they were making their own traditions, to hand down to their
Republican descendants--one of which was and is that honest work has no
need to assert itself or to humble itself in a nation like ours, but
simply to take its place as one of the foundation-stones of the
Republic.

The young women who worked at Lowell had the advantage of living in a
community where character alone commanded respect. They never, at their
work or away from it, heard themselves contemptuously spoken of on
account of their occupation, except by the ignorant or weak-minded,
whose comments they were of course to sensible to heed.

We may as well acknowledge that one of the unworthy tendencies of
womankind is towards petty estimates of other women. This classifying
habit illustrates the fact. If we must classify our sisters, let us
broaden ourselves by making large classifications. We might all place
ourselves in one of two ranks--the women who do something and the women
who do nothing; the first being of course the only creditable place to
occupy. And if we would escape from our pettinesses, as we all may and
should, the way to do it is to find the key to other lives, and live in
their largeness, by sharing their outlook upon life. Even poorer
people's windows will give us a new horizon, and people's windows will
give us a new horizon, and often a far broader one than our own.

X.

MILL-GIRLS' MAGAZINES

THERE was a passage from Cowper that my sister used to quote to us,
because, she said, she often repeated it to herself, and found that it
did her good:--

"In such a world, so thorny, and where none
Finds happiness unblighted, or if found,
Without some thistly sorrow at its side,
It seems th