A moderate-sized farm, of from 200 to 800 acres, will no more enable the mistress and the misses to play the fine lady to-day than it would two generations ago.  It requires work now the same as then—­steady, persevering work—­and, what is more important, prudence, economy, parsimony if you like; nor do these necessarily mean the coarse manners of a former age.  Manners may be good, education may be good, the intellect and even the artistic sense may be cultivated, and yet extravagance avoided.  The proverb is true still:  ’You cannot have your hare and cook him too.’  Now so many cook their hares in the present day without even waiting to catch them first.  A euphuism has been invented to cover the wrongfulness of this system; it is now called ‘discounting.’  The fine lady farmers discount their husbands’ corn and fat cattle, cheese and butter, before they reach the market.  By-and-by the plough stops in the furrow, and the team is put up to auction, and farewell is said to the old homestead for evermore.

There was no warmer welcome to be met with in life than used to be bestowed upon the fortunate visitor to an old house in the country where the people were not exactly farmers in the ordinary sense, because they were sufficiently well off to be independent, and yet made no pretence to gentility.  You dropped in quite unexpectedly and informally after a pleasant stroll about the fields with a double-barrel, untrammelled by any attendant.  The dogs were all over cleavers sticking to their coats, and your boots had to be wiped with a wisp of straw; your pocket was heavy with a couple of rabbits or a hare, and your hands black enough from powder and handling gates and stiles.  But they made you feel immediately that such trifles were not of the slightest account.

The dogs were allowed to rush in anyhow and set to work to lick their paws by the fire as if the house was their own.  Your apology about your boots and general state of disorder was received with a smile by the mistress, who said she had sons of her own, and knew their ways.  Forthwith one sturdy son seized the double-barrel, and conveyed it to a place of safety; a second took the rabbits or the hare, that you might not be incommoded by such a lump in your pocket, and sent the game on home to your quarters by a labourer; a third relieved you of your hat.  As many tall young ladies rose to offer you a seat, so that it was really difficult to know which way to turn, besides which the old grandfather with silvery hair pressed you to take his chair by the fire.

They had just sat down to the old-fashioned tea at half-past four, and in a moment there was a cup and plate ready.  The tea had a fragrant scent, warm and grateful after the moist atmosphere of the meadows, smelling of decaying leaves.  The mistress suggested that a nip of brandy might improve it, thinking that tea was hardly strong enough for a man.  But that was, declined; for what could be more delicious than