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Yet she is a womanly child, who will not easily be turned back. She feels the importance of her errand, and is worthy of the trust. The simple low-cut gown is that of a village maid. An odd cap, something like a turban, covers her head and adds a trifle to her height and dignity. Her round face and chubby neck would be the envy of the puny city child who knows not the luxury of big porringers of bread and milk. If her hands are rather too delicately moulded for those of a country child we must remember again that Reynolds was painting from his own little niece.

In imagination we follow the little maid about the simple round of her childish pursuits. Every morning she goes demurely to school to fix her thoughts on "button holes and spelling books." Perhaps it is a dame school like that in "Water Babies," with a "shining clean stone floor and curious old prints on the wall and a cuckoo clock in the corner," Here some dozen children sit on benches "gabbling Chris-cross," while a nice old woman in a red petticoat and white cap hears them from the chimney corner.

Our little girl has duties at home as well, and is sometimes seen, a pitcher in one hand and a mop in the other, making the house tidy. She can boil potatoes, shell the beans, feed the hens, and make herself useful in many ways.

On rare occasions she has a holiday in the fields, and then what joy it is in spring and early summer to find the haunts of the wild flowers which grow in such abundance in the English country. Miss Mitford writes of a wonderful field where bloomed in season, "primroses, yellow, purple, and white, violets of either hue, cowslips, oxlips, arums, orchises, wild hyacinths, ground ivy, pansies, strawberries, and heart's ease, covering the sunny open slope under a weeping birch."

A favorite game is making cowslip balls. The tufts of golden flowerets are first nipped off with short stems, until a quantity are gathered. Then the ribbon is held ready and the clusters are nicely balanced across it until a long garland is made, when they are pressed closely together and tied into a sweet golden ball.

When we remember that the little Offy, who was the original Strawberry Girl, was transplanted from her Devonshire home to the great city of London, we are interested to know something of her after life. She grew to be as dear as a daughter to her uncle. In the dreary days when he could not use his eyes she was his reader and amanuensis. The many distinguished guests who enjoyed his hospitality were charmed with her sweet manners. In the course of time she married Richard Lovell Gwatkin, a Cornish gentleman in every way worthy of her. "Her happiness was as great as her uncle could wish. She lived to be ninety, to see her children's children, and, intelligent, cheerful, and affectionate to the last, vividly remembered her happy girlhood under her uncle's roof, and the brilliant society that found a centre there."