households into which they enter to still more dislike the old-fashioned
ways of agriculture. Take twenty farmers' families, where there are girls,
and out of that twenty fifteen will be found to be preparing for a
scholastic life. The farmer's daughter does not like the shop-counter,
and, as she cannot stay at home, there is nothing left to her but the
profession of governess. Once thoroughly imbued with these 'social' ideas,
and a return to the farm is almost impossible. The result is a continuous
drain of women out of agriculture--of the very women best fitted in the
beginning to be the helpmate of the farmer. In no other calling is the
assistance of the wife so valuable; it is not too much to say that part at
least of the decadence of agriculture is owing to the lack of women
willing to devote themselves as their mothers did before them. It follows
that by degrees the farming caste is dying out. The sons go to the city,
the daughters go to the city; in a generation, or little more, a once
well-known farming family becomes extinct so far as agriculture is
concerned.

How could such a girl as poor Georgie, looking out of window at the
hateful fields, and all at discord with the peaceful scene, settle down as
the mistress of a lonely farmhouse?





CHAPTER XI



FLEECEBOROUGH. A 'DESPOT'