There are the farmer, his wife and children, an aged mother whose voice has become a mere thread of sound, and who thinks over the past in the chimney-corner, sometimes with a distaff in her hand; two old uncles, a youth of all work, who has been brought up as one of the family, and a little bright-eyed, bare-legged servant girl, whose brown feet I still hear pattering upon the floors.

The maid of Domrémy was about to change her distaff for an oriflamme.

It is not Eve, who sits in the background with her first-born at her breast and her distaff by her side,but Death, who, with a huge lever in his bony gripe, goes at his work with a fierce energy which puts the efforts of his muscular companion to shame.

At last the thread was snapped; her head was bowed; Life dropped the distaff through his hands serene; And loving neighbors smoothed her careful shroud, While death and winter closed the autumn scene.

285 So erst, when HERCULES, untamed by toil, Own'd the soft power of DEJANIRA'S smile; His lion-spoils the laughing Fair demands, And gives the distaff to his awkward hands; O'er her white neck the bristly mane she throws, 290 And binds the gaping whiskers on her brows; 290 Plaits round her slender waist the shaggy vest, And clasps the velvet paws across her breast.

Elsie raised and poised on her head the great square basket that contained her merchandise, and began walking erect and straight down the narrow rocky stairs that led into the gorge, holding her distaff with its white flax in her hands, and stepping as easily as if she bore no burden.

The things a man has heard and seen are threads of life, and if he pull them carefully from the confused distaff of memory, any who will can weave them into whatever garments of belief please them best.