lse. It is sometimes the call of the best
and noblest part of the soul. To such as recognize this higher purpose
the passion for education, for free access to libraries, for association
with intellectual people, form a part of the city's lure. They desire to
see more of life, to have more and closer contact with one's fellows, to
gain valuable companionship, to get more and broader pleasures, to have
greater opportunities to make something of one's self. The young women
who are thinking such thoughts as these are full of the energy of
youth; they are at the moment of opening ambitions and developing
personality; they are making plans for the future. They are not the
women who in long years have grown accustomed to their burdens and have
either learned how to bear them or have become sodden with the despair
of ever finding any relief from their load. The brightness of young hope
has not faded out, and the buoyant spirit still stands up underneath
whatever is to be done or borne. Youth feels equal to anything.
Therefore the slightest deflection of their courage from the norm should
have the closest attention.

CHAPTER VIII

THE INHERITANCE

We men of earth have here the stuff
Of Paradise--we have enough!
We need no other thing to build
The stairs into the Unfulfilled--
No other ivory for the doors--
No other marble for the floors--
No other cedar for the beam
And dome for man's immortal dream.

Here on the path of every day--
Here on the common human way--
Is all the busy gods would take
To build a heaven, to mold and make
New Edens. Ours the stuff sublime
To build Eternity in time!

_Edwin Markham._

CHAPTER VIII

THE INHERITANCE

This, then, is the indictment of country life as it now is, by the
Country Girl who is now living in the midst of it.

It is depressing, it is terrible, that a concourse of country girls will
stand up before The Fathers and declare that while they love the
country, and prefer to remain there all their days, yet they cannot,
because life there is intolerable to them. They say this in all
sobriety; no one can accuse them of speaking in haste; their mood is
most judicial. The young woman in the farm life of to-day has a
deep-seated love for country life; many things about it command her
affection and give her delight; but there are also some things that she
does not feel called upon to endure. If it were not for them, for these,
and