Just how far the wide-spread passion for knitting has interfered with more vigorous sports among our young women I am unable to say, but the loss to links and courts in the Western provinces must have been enormous. The Minikahda Club of Minneapolis was illuminated one day by a girls’ luncheon. These radiant young beings entered the dining-room knitting--knitting as gravely as though they were weaving the destinies of nations--and maybe they were! The small confusions and perplexities of seating the party of thirty were increased by the dropping of balls of yarn--and stitches! The round table seemed to be looped with yarn, as though the war overseas were tightening its cords about those young women, whose brothers and cousins and sweethearts were destined to the battle-line. Longfellow celebrated in song “The Four Lakes of Madison,” which he apostrophized as “lovely handmaids.” I treasure the memory of an approach round one of these lakes to Wisconsin’s capitol (one of the few American State-houses that doesn’t look like an appropriation!) through a mist that imparted to the dome an inthralling illusion of detachment from the main body of the building. The first star twinkled above it; perhaps it was Wisconsin’s star that had wandered out of the galaxy to symbolize for an hour the State’s sovereignty! [Illustration: On a craft plying the waters of Erie I found all of the conditions of a happy outing and types that it is always a joy to meet.] Whatever one may miss on piers and in amusement parks in the way of types may be sought with confidence on the excursion steamers that ply the lakes--veritable arks in which humanity in countless varieties may be observed. The voyager is satisfied that the banana and peanut and the innocuous “pop” are the ambrosia and nectar of our democracy. Before the boat leaves the dock the deck is littered; one’s note-book bristles with memoranda of the untidiness and disorder. On a craft plying the waters of Erie I found all the conditions of a happy outing and types that it is always a joy to meet. The village “cut-up,” dashingly perched on the rail; the girl who is never so happy as when organizing and playing games; the young man who yearns to join her group, but is prevented by unconquerable shyness; the child that, carefully planted in the most crowded and inaccessible part of the deck, develops a thirst that results in the constant agitation of half the ship as his needs are satisfied. There is, inevitably, a woman of superior breeding who has taken passage on the boat by mistake, believing it to be first-class, which it so undeniably is not; and if you wear a sympathetic countenance she will confide to you her indignation. The crunching of the peanut-shell, the poignant agony of the child that has loved the banana not wisely but too well, are an affront to this lady. She announces haughtily that she’s sure the boat is overcrowded, which it undoubtedly is, and that she means to report