Clytia looked up at me with an odd expression. Her answer, coming from any one less sincere, would have sounded like cant. "We do not regard any work as mean." "But some kinds of work are distasteful, to say the least," I insisted. "Not if you love those for whom you labor," she returned. "A mother does not consider any sort of service to her child degrading." "O, I know that," said I; "that is simply natural affection." "But natural affection, you know, is only the germ of love. It is narrow,--only a little broader than selfishness." "Well, tell me how it applies in this question of service?" I asked. "I am not able to comprehend it in the abstract." "We do not require people to do anything for us which we would not do for ourselves, or for them," she said. "And then, we all work. We believe in work; it means strength to the body and relief to the mind. No one permits himself to be served by another for the unworthy reason, openly or tacitly confessed, that he is either too proud, or too indolent, to serve himself." "Then why have servants at all?" I asked. "My husband explained to you," she returned, "that our people are not all equally rich; and they are not all adapted to what you would call, perhaps, the higher grades of service. You see the little maid yonder with the children; she has the gifts of a teacher,--our teachers are very carefully chosen, and as carefully instructed. She has been placed with me for our mutual benefit,--I could not intrust my little ones to the care of a mere paid nurse who thought only of her wages. Nor could she work simply for wages. The money consideration is the smallest item in the arrangement. My husband superintends some steel works in which he has some shares. The man he is talking with now--who is attending to the grape vines--has also a large interest in the steel works, but he has no taste or faculty for engaging in that kind of business. He might spend his whole life in idleness if he chose, or in mental pursuits, for he is a very scholarly man, but he loves the kind of work he is doing now, and our vineyard is his especial pride. Moreover," a beautiful smile touched her face as she looked up at the two men on the hillside, "Fides loves my Calypso, they are soul friends!" When I became more familiar with the household, I found that the same relations existed all round; mutual pleasure, mutual sympathy, mutual helpfulness. First there seemed to be on the part of each employe a distinct preference and liking for the kind of work he or she had undertaken to do; second, a fitness and careful preparation for the work; and last, the love of doing for those who gave appreciation, love, and another sort of service or assistance in return. I heard one of them say one day: "I ask nothing better than to be permitted to cook the meals for these dear people!"