THE GIRL’S OWN
PAPER

“OUR HERO.”

By AGNES GIBERNE, Author of “Sun, Moon and Stars,” “The Girl at the Dower House,” etc.

“THE HORSES IN QUESTION WERE SOMEWHAT SORRY BEASTS.”

All rights reserved.]

{178}

CHAPTER XII.

ORDERED TO VERDUN.

“Mamma! Mother!” cried Roy, bursting
into the sitting-room at Fontainebleau
one wintry day. “Ma’am, what
do you think?”

Roy had by this time quite recovered
from his illness, though his face still
bore evidence of the same in the shape
of several small red pits, which had not
yet had time to lose their prominence.
His eyes sparkled with excitement.
Mrs. Baron was on the sofa, resting after
a walk with her husband, and Colonel
Baron sat near, book in hand. Ivor,
who happened to be in rear of them
both, made a silencing gesture, but Roy
was much too eager to attend, or to read
his meaning.

“Only think, ma’am. Do but hear!
All of us are ordered off from Fontainebleau
to Verdun. Verdun! Why, that
is where Mademoiselle de St. Roques
lives. We shall see her again. And I
shall like that, though I don’t like going
farther away from England. That is
horrid. Everybody is saying what a
shame it is! Must we go, do you think,
Den? Verdun is a fortified town, they
say, and we are to be in stricter keeping,
all of us prisoners.”

Roy liked to speak of himself as a
prisoner, even while he chafed furiously
against the restraints of imprisonment.
He could not make up his mind to the
indignity of being looked upon as too
young to be worth detention. Thirteen
years old!—with a Commission in His
Majesty’s Army already secured! Roy
was very conscious of his prospective
position. “I am quite as old already as
lots of middies,” he would declare, “and
only two years younger than General
Moore when he began to be a soldier.”

“You should not startle your mother,
Roy,” the Colonel said gravely, as Mrs.
Baron sat up, her eyes wide and terrified.
“It is necessary sometimes to think of
other people before yourself. You
understand?”

“I’m sorry, sir; but is it true?” asked
Roy, too much excited to be penitent
for more than three seconds. “Are we
really and truly going to Verdun?”

“It is true, unfortunately. Den and
I were told this morning of the order at
appel. But you should have waited
until I spoke.”

Roy began to see the nature of his
blunder, too late for reticence.

“Then we really are going! I shall
like to see Mademoiselle de St. Roques
again, only I would rather, ever so much,
be going home. Shall we do it by diligence,
papa, or poste, or will you have
a carriage? Only four of us, and they
say we may do it any way we like.”

Colonel Baron made up his mind to
take the bull by the horns there and
then. He would have preferred to tell
his wife quietly, with no spectators, but
since Roy had hurried matters on, he felt
that it was best to speak out at once.

“I shall probably have a carriage for
your mother and Denham and myself,
Roy,” he said slowly.

“And me!”

Colonel Baron was silent, with a
silence which spoke more plainly to his
wife than to Roy. Mrs. Baron knew
what it meant, while Roy merely supposed
his own name to have been
inadvertently left out.

“What does all this mean, Roy?”
his mother was asking, in a low voice.
“Tell me.”

“Why, mamma, I suppose old Nap
wants to have us all more out of the way.
Perhaps he thinks Nelson will come and
set us free some day.” Roy laughed.
“Lots of détenus and prisoners are
ordered off to Verdun, from here and
other places too. And everybody says
it is such a tremendous shame, this cold
weather? Why couldn’t they settle
things sooner? It’s horrid of him.”

Mrs. Baron stood up, and with her
slow graceful step she moved across to
Roy. Colonel Baron waited silently.
He knew that in her mind, as in his,
was the promise she had given months
before, that if they should have to go
farther away from England, she would
then consent to Roy’s immediate return
home. The dread of this had been on
her all through the autumn, and now
abruptly the blow had fallen.

Mrs. Baron would not draw back from
her word—Colonel Baron knew this—but
neither would she try to hide what
the keeping of it would cost her. The
détenus had pretty well ceased to hope
for any speedy release from their
captivity, and she could not but be
aware that a parting from her boy at
this juncture might mean long separation.
If Mrs. Baron idolised her husband,
she idolised her son only one
degree less. It was hard to be away
from Molly, but in that respect Colonel
Baron was the greater sufferer of the
two, since he had always especially
doted on his little girl. To send Roy
away would be to Mrs. Baron simply
heart-breaking. Yet she felt that it
would have to be. She had promised,
and Colonel Baron would not let her off
her promise.

She laid one slender hand on either of
the boy’s shoulders, looking into his
face with a fixed wistful gaze, while
tears gathered heavily in her eyes. Roy
was puzzled.

“Why, ma’am, you don’t mind it so
much as all that! I would not cry for
old Napoleon!”—forgetting a certain
little past scene in an upstairs Paris
bedroom. “And I’m tired of Fontainebleau.
Aren’t you? I think I sha’n’t
mind a new place. I wonder what Verdun
is like. Please don’t cry, mamma,”
entreated Roy, holding himself very
upright.

“My dear Harriette!” remonstrated
the Colonel.

He came close, and she turned from
Roy to lean against him, breaking into
bitter sobs.

“My dear heart, you must think of the
boy—not of ourselves. Think how much
better for him to be at school in England.
But for Den, this life would be ruination
for him.” For Ivor, after acting as
Roy’s nurse, had made himself tutor
and guardian and companion to the
lad; and Roy by this time was ready to
maintain against a world in arms that
his equal for either lessons or play
did not exist on earth. It had been,
indeed, Ivor’s chief consolation in
captivity to look after Roy, and the two
were warmly attached.

“How soon?” Mrs. Baron tried to
ask, her voice half strangled with tears.

“In a few days. Not directly. There
is time for arrangements. We must find
an escort for him, if possible.”

“Am I to go home?” Roy inquired,
as the meaning of his father’s words and
his mother’s distress dawned upon him.
“Will Napoleon let me?”

An exchange of glances took place
between the gentlemen.

“I hope so,” Colonel Baron replied
cheerfully. “You are not a détenu,
Roy, and there is no reason why any
difficulty should be made. I must apply
at once for a passport.” Colonel Baron’s
mind misgave him as he spoke, for he
had heard lately of more than one
instance in which such an application
for a passport had proved a failure.
Although English ladies and boys under
eighteen were not avowedly prisoners,
yet every possible hindrance was beginning
to be placed in the way of the return
of anyone to England. This made him
only the more desirous not to put off any
longer getting Roy across the Channel.

Roy stood thinking.

“And I shall see Molly again,” he
observed. “I shall like that. It does
seem an awful long while since I left
her. Shall I go to school at once, sir, and
shall I spend my holidays in Bath till
you and mamma come back?”

Mrs. Baron hid her face.

“Yes, of course. I see—I ought to
go,” pursued Roy. “It wouldn’t do
for me to stop on here. In two years
I’ve got to be a soldier, and then
Napoleon would think he had a right to
keep me altogether. That would stop
me from fighting, and I should have to
give my parole, I suppose, and to be a
regular prisoner. Yes; I’d much better
be off. How soon, I wonder? And I’ll
take letters home. It will be jolly to see
Molly again.”

Roy was making matters worse, and
Ivor stood up, throwing aside his book.

“Come!” he said shortly, with an
imperative sign, and Roy followed, not
knowing why. Outside the house Ivor
said, “You must be more careful. You
have to think of your mother’s feelings.”

Roy looked up in surprise.

“Did I say something wrong? Why,
what was it?”

“Could you not see? She is breaking
her heart at the thought of losing you.
Just imagine what it will be to her, not
to have her boy any longer. Don’t let
her think you are pleased to go.”

“But I’m not glad to leave her—of
course not. I’m only glad to go to
England, and to see Molly, and to be
able to fight. I should think she
understood.”

A curious expression crossed the
other’s face. “You can hardly expect
her to want you to fight. That’s not the
way with mothers, you know. The last
thing she would wish would be for you
to hold back, but still, she will be unhappy.
And, Roy, don’t you see yet that
a brave man has to be kind as well as
brave, especially where women are concerned?
You can’t possibly know what{179}
the parting will be to her, but still, you
can manage to be kind.”

Roy showed signs of being impressed.
He knew Denham to be so gallant a
soldier that words of this sort coming
from him had especial weight. Neither
spoke again directly. Roy walked
fast, doing his best as usual to match
Ivor’s long stride, though compelled now
and then to make a droll little extra
step, if he would not be left behind.
His face had taken a look of supreme
seriousness.

“Yes, of course,” he said, at length.
“I see. I suppose that’s what we men
have to do. I mean—we have to try not
to make women unhappy. I used to set
Molly off crying sometimes. I didn’t
mean to, but I did, you know. She
thought I meant things I didn’t mean,
and I used to call that stupid. But I
daresay it’s only that she’s a girl, and
so she can’t help it. When I get back,
I mean to do my very best never to say
one single word that can make her cry.
Because I’m ever so much the strongest,
and I’m very nearly a man now. But
Den, it won’t be going home. I suppose
my home will be in Bath, won’t it—like
Molly?”

“Until your father can return—yes.
The London house is let for the present.”

Roy’s face fell somewhat.

“It won’t be the same thing at all,
will it? And I shall miss you all too;
but I suppose I ought to go.”

The application for Roy’s passport
was duly made, and a formal reply promised
attention to the application.
There the matter stood still. Days
passed, and the time for their start drew
near. Colonel Baron deferred their
journey as long as possible, hoping that
Roy’s passport might arrive in time.
He took further steps meanwhile, urging
upon the officials a speedy compliance;
but his efforts were fruitless. He had
found an English lady, who also was
anxious to return to England, and she
had promised to take charge of Roy.
But her passport, as well as that of
Roy, was not forthcoming. It became
evident that obstructions were deliberately
placed in the way of their leaving France.

Some discussion took place as to the
possibility of leaving Roy behind in
Fontainebleau, for the chance of a passport
being sent soon, but this was felt to
be too great a risk. Such friends as the
Barons had made were among the
English détenus, and these, like themselves,
were ordered to Verdun. A good
deal of kindness had been shown to
English prisoners by French residents
at Fontainebleau, but there was no one
with whom the Barons could contentedly
leave Roy. They slowly made up their
minds that he must go with them to
Verdun. Not Colonel Baron only, but
his wife also, by this time regretted
greatly not having sent Roy home at the
first, when passports had been more
readily granted.

Roy rebelled angrily. He had liked
to talk of himself grandly as a “prisoner
of war,” all the time feeling that he was
free. It was another matter to find himself
in truth not free, but almost as much
of a prisoner in France as those who
were compelled to give their parole.

“It’s too beastly disgusting,” he declared
to his chief confidant, having
managed in his mother’s presence to
restrain his regrets. “That old beast
of a Boney! I wish I could shoot him!”

“Roy, you must be more careful;
walls have ears in France. If you abuse
the First Consul, you will some day get
yourself into serious trouble. This is not
a land of free speech, like England.
Your father and I could do little for
you if you fell into the hands of the
gendarmes. We are prisoners ourselves.”

“But isn’t it hateful? Only think—if
I’m kept on here for two years I sha’n’t
be able to go into the Army directly I’m
sixteen.”

“We may have peace long before
three years are over. No use to look
forward so long.”

“He hasn’t any right to keep me.
I’ve a right to go home.”

“I’m afraid the First Consul cares
little for any man’s rights, except his
own. But you must be brave and not
give way. Think of your mother, not of
yourself. We are all sufferers together.
And, after all, the passport may arrive
later. You could return home from
Verdun, though it would be a longer
journey. It will not do for us to delay
starting any more. We have barely
allowed ourselves time to reach Verdun
by the latest day specified.”

“Den, don’t you want to go home?”

Did he not want it? The handsome
bronzed face, which had of late grown
thinner than its wont, looked quietly at
Roy. “Sometimes I would give my
right hand to get away,” he confessed.
“Yes, I want it—more than you can
know, perhaps. But these things do not
come of themselves. They are allowed,
for some good purpose.”

“You don’t mean that God wants
Napoleon to behave in such a way?”

“No; certainly not. But it may be
His will that you and I should have this
opportunity to be patient and brave.
It’s a great trouble for both of us—no
use to deny that. And to be brave in
captivity is much harder than to be
brave in fighting. But it will come to
an end in time. Napoleon will not be
allowed to go on always unchecked.”

“I suppose he is angry because
he can’t make England do whatever
he chooses, as he makes Germany
and Prussia and Austria and all the
other countries. And so he punishes
us.”

“That may be it. My own belief is
that Britain is called upon to save all
Europe from a hopeless thraldom, and
that in time we shall see her successful.
But we may have to wait a while first.
Only, while we wait, we mustn’t forget
that God really is over all. He sometimes
lets bad men have their way for a
time, but in the end truth and justice
and freedom will conquer.”

“I don’t think mamma is sorry that
I’m going to Verdun,” Roy said.

“She is sorry for your sake, not for
her own. That is much what I feel
about it.”

Roy looked up quickly.

“Would you have been sorry? Would
you have missed me?”

“Much more than you can imagine.
I have been wondering what I should
do with myself without my friend
Roy.”

The boy flushed up.

“Den, am I your friend truly? Do
you like to have me?” He clutched
the young Guardsman’s arm, with a
quick gesture. “Would you be sorry if
I went?” He read a plain answer in
the other’s face. “Oh, then I don’t
mind, then I’ll be glad I haven’t got a
passport. I don’t care, if you like to
have me. I thought I was just a
bother.”

“I’m not so selfish as to wish to keep
you here, and if a passport comes I shall
be glad. But you have been no bother.
It is bad enough anyhow, going to
Verdun. It would be ten times worse if
we were leaving you behind. You are
the one bit of cheer left to us.”

Another furtive clutch on his arm.

“I’m glad. I’d rather be your friend
than anybody’s. And I promise to work
hard and to do whatever you like.”
Then, in the same breath, “How soon
shall we see Mademoiselle de St.
Roques?”

“I have had a letter from her. That
is one little piece of good news. I wrote
to ask if she could recommend us where
to go for rooms, and she tells me that
the old people with whom she lives would
be glad to let the upstairs floors. She
promises that they would do their best
to make us comfortable, and suggests
that we should go there on our first
arrival, to try how we like the accommodation.”

“And shall we?”

“Your father seems willing. Even
if it does not do for a permanency, we
shall have time to look out. But probably
it will do very well. Prisoners
must not be over particular.”

“And are the people she lives with
noblesse too?” asked Roy, who had
heard a good deal about the old French
noblesse and their sufferings in the
Revolution, during the last few months.
“Will they wait upon us? It would be
funny to have an old nobleman handing
the plates at table.”

“No; I think M. and Mme. Courant
are bourgeois. But evidently they have
been very good to Mademoiselle de
St. Roques, whose parents really did
belong to the old noblesse. Probably
they may keep a servant to wait upon us,
and we must not mind if things are
rather rough.”

“I shall like to see her again. But
I would rather go home to Molly—much
rather!” murmured Roy, his face
falling. “Except for staying with you
and the others.”

One day later, passports being still
withheld, Roy started, in company with
his parents and Denham, on the cold
and dismal journey to Verdun. The
Colonel secured a large roomy old
coach or chariot, which had once belonged
to some well-to-do person,—probably
a nobleman, since decapitated.
With relays of horses, even
though the horses in question were
somewhat sorry beasts, they made fairly
quick advance.

(To be continued.)

{180}

OUR LILY GARDEN.

PRACTICAL AIDS TO THE CULTURE OF LILIES.

By CHARLES PETERS.

The life history of the lily is one of perpetual
growth. The lily never lies dormant.[1] In
the severest frost, or in periods of great
drought, this plant is ever developing. As
soon as the flower-stem has died down, the
bulb begins to form fresh roots and continues
to do so until the time comes round again for
it to send up its flower spikes. Lilium
Candidum throws up a winter crop of leaves
during the autumn, but the other lilies
perform all their winter labours below ground.

Lilium Monadelphum.

Let us follow the life of the lily through the
year and see how each particular season has
its special work and dangers.

We have planted our bulbs in November.
They will do nothing but form roots till about
March. During this period most bulbs will
stand any frost that we are likely to have, but
those of L. Wallichianum, L. Catesbaei, and
one or two others, occasionally die during
severe frost. Though cold does not appreciably
injure lily-bulbs, it is far otherwise
with wet. As we have said before, lilies love
rain when the stems are growing, but when
the bulbs are making root in winter they do
not like much moisture. If the soil is
perfectly well drained, we much doubt
whether any quantity of rain would cause the
bulbs to rot. But in soils where stagnant
water can lie about the bulbs, the result of a
wet winter is often disastrous.

“Our soil is a stiff clayey loam, but we
wish to have lilies. What can we do to
render our ground a fit place wherein to grow
them?” You can do one of two things.
Either you can provide that the lilies are well
drained by digging deeply and filling in with
crocks, stones, etc., and mixing plenty of
sharp sand with the soil; or else you can
follow the Japanese plan of placing the lily
bulbs on their sides. Bulbs with large, open
scales, such as those of L. Brownii, suffer
much more from wet than such compact bulbs
as those of L. Umbellatum, etc.

The second stage in the growth of lilies
dates from the appearance of the shoot till
the opening of the flower-buds. We have
already described the treatment necessary at
this stage. It is at this time that you must
guard against drought and slugs, and look out
for diseases.

The opening of the flower-buds is the most
anxious but also the most exciting period in
the life of the lily. When the buds have
begun to change colour a good drenching of
the roots with very weak liquid manure will
materially help to develop the flowers. Do
not give liquid manure before this time,
and never give more than two doses to any
plant.

The green fly or aphis is a very exasperating
foe. It does not eat holes in the leaves, but
lives upon the upper leaves and buds, usually
upon their under surface. Its presence causes
the buds to develop irregularly. The bud
grows less quickly on that side where the
aphides are domiciled, and the whole bud
becomes curved or twisted. When this bud
opens, it shows but an ugly, deformed flower.

The best way to deal with aphides is to
brush them off with a soft brush. This is
the only method of dealing with them that
can do no harm to the buds. Fumigation
or syringing with soft-soap and water are
frequently used to destroy these pests.

Another cause which ruins the lily flowers
is canker of the buds or blossoms. We
described the cause and treatment of this
calamity last month.

Very often a lily will produce more buds
than it has strength to develop. Some of
these superfluous buds will soon show signs
of withering and should be at once removed.

It is well to remove every deformed or
injured bud as soon as possible, for it gives
the plant a better chance of developing the
remainder.

When once the flowers have opened, the plant
may be left alone till they wither. If possible,
lilies should be placed in the shade whilst
they are in blossom, as the flowers will then
last for a longer time.

Usually one bud will open and then die
before another is fully developed. In this
case the dead blossom—or rather the seed-vessel,
for the perianth falls of its own accord—should
be cut off.

After the lily has flowered, it will require
but little attention until the flower spike has
completely died down. At this period but
little water need be given.

The flower spike must never be cut down
till it has completely withered to the base.
When this has occurred the entire stem can
be easily removed by a slight jerk.

The life of the lily for the year is now over.
What are we to do with the bulbs? Shall
we leave them as they are, or shall we
transplant them?

Lilies in the ground do best when left
undisturbed for years. Some lilies, such as
Martagons and Lilium Candidum, never do
well until they have been established for a
year or two. Other lilies, such as L. Longiflorum,
often dwindle in a very few years.

If the lilies have done well, have not been
diseased and have blossomed freely, leave
them as they are. If, on the other hand, the
plants have borne poor or deformed blossoms,
or have become diseased, or, above all, if they
have been getting poorer year by year, take
up the bulbs, as soon as the flower stems have
died down, and plant them elsewhere.

Plant these bulbs in the same way and with
the same precautions as you do new bulbs;
detach any small bulblets and plant these
separately. Never let the bulbs remain out
of the ground longer than can possibly be
helped.

Lilies in pots must be repotted every year.
As soon as the stem has died down, empty
the pot, shake out the bulb, separate any
offshoots that it may have made, and replant
at once.

Very little water need be given during the
winter, but the bulbs must not be allowed
to become dry. It is a great mistake to
winter hardy lilies indoors or in a greenhouse,
as it renders the plants tender and liable to
disease.

Although all lilies are perennial, that is,
they come up every year, there are some
kinds, notably Lilium Canadense, which show
great reluctance to becoming established, and
after coming up well for two or three years,
suddenly disappear altogether. This is
especially the case when the plants have been
allowed to ripen their seed. Indeed, all
lilies tend to dwindle when they are allowed
to go to seed. One reason why L. Candidum
is so much better when grown in neglected
situations than any other lily is because it
never produces seed in this country.

There are four methods by which lilies may
be propagated; by seed; by bulblets, which
are formed in the axils of the leaves of some
species; by offshoots from the parent bulb,
and by detached scales. Again the bulbs
often split into two or more parts. If a single
bulb has sent up two flower spikes, the bulb
will probably be found to have split into two,
the scales re-arranging themselves accordingly.
If these two bulbs are separated, each will
send up flower spikes either next year or the
year after.

Growing lilies from seed is a tedious
affair and is not worth its salt except when
trying to raise hybrids or new species of great
rarity.

The seeds should be grown in seed-pans in
a mixture of peat, leaf mould, sand and moss.
They take from six weeks to two years to
germinate. Under glass they germinate more
quickly. They never produce flowering bulbs
till at least two years after they have been
sown. Lilium Tenuifolium grows the most
rapidly, and often flowers in the third year.
Other kinds take from three to ten years to
form a flowering bulb—time enough to
exhaust the patience of any amateur. The
vast majority of seeds either never germinate,
or, if they develop so far, die before they
have formed a bulb of sufficient size to send
up a flower spike. Not all lilies produce seeds
in this country. L. Candidum, Testaceum,
Chalcedonicum, and others never do. Most
kinds only ripen their seeds in very propitious
seasons. So much for seeds.

The second method of increasing lilies is
by growing the small bulblets which form in
the axils of the leaves. Only L. Bulbiferum, L.
Tigrinum, and occasionally one or two others,
produce these axial bulblets. Sow the bulblets
as you do the seeds. They usually germinate
very quickly, and produce flowering bulbs
within two years.

The commonest, quickest and best way to
increase lilies is through the small bulbs which
grow round the base of the parent. These
may be removed when the bulbs are lifted and
planted at once. They will flower in one or
two years.

Before we leave the question of the cultivation
of lilies, we will refer to two or three{181}
constituents of the soil, the presence of which
is by some authors described as imperative, by
others as injurious.

Peat is absolutely necessary to L. Superbum,
L. Canadense, L. Roezlii, L. Philadelphicum,
L. Pardalinum, L. Parryi, and some others.
Even those lilies to which peat is not a
necessity, are yet benefited by its presence in
the soil. This is notably the case with L.
Auratum, L. Speciosum and L. Longiflorum.
L. Candidum, L. Testaceum and most of the
Martagons dislike peat. To L. Szovitzianum
and the other varieties of L. Monadelphum
peat seems to be positively injurious.

It has long been a moot point whether lilies
should or should not have manure administered
to them. Here, as elsewhere, we will give
our own experience of the matter. Most
lilies appreciate manure if it is not too strong
or moist. Manure which is likely to turn the
earth sour is fatal to lilies. The remains of a
hot-bed is the best possible kind of manure to
give to lilies. Place a little of the manure
below the bulb and a little above it, but do
not let it come within two inches of the bulb.
The bulbs will rot if manure is placed near
them.

Some lilies like a chalky soil, others show
distinct aversion to it. The swamp lilies
and others which like peat object to lime in
the soil. L. Candidum and Monadelphum
apparently require a considerable quantity of
lime.

All lilies require sand. Sand should be
placed round and below each bulb and should
also be mixed with the earth in which the
lilies are planted. Clean, sharp river sand is
the best to use, but sea sand or clean silver
sand may be used. Sand is used for the
triple purpose of attracting moisture, preventing
stagnation, and rendering the soil
permeable.

The leaf mould most suitable for lilies is
that formed from decayed oak or beech leaves.

Clay is prejudicial to most lilies, but in very
dry, sandy soil lumps of clay may be placed
about the lily bed. L. Auratum likes a small
quantity of clay in the soil.

We have finished our remarks on the
cultivation of the lily, and will now glance
into the æsthetic side of these noble flowers.

Though every lily is beautiful in itself, it
does not follow that it will look well in the
flower bed. A garden should be a sheet of
beauty, not a herbarium in which curious and
beautiful flowers grow singly, each named and
numbered, and requiring a guide to point out
the various objects of interest. No! A
garden must be one harmonious blaze of
beauty, and though, of course, individually
beautiful objects are necessary to produce
this result, a great deal depends upon the
proper grouping of the various constituents.

A bed of mixed lilies, in which all kinds
were grown together, would look simply
ridiculous. To have L. Giganteum, ten feet
high, next door to L. Rubellum, of scarcely
half as many inches, would be absurd. You
must think of the general look of your garden.
You must have pleasing contrasts of colour,
and the plants arranged according to their
height or method of growth.

One of the most beautiful sights that we
have ever seen was a garden in Middlesex in
which the path leading from the gate to the
house was lined on either side with a border
of very fine L. Candidum. The effect of the
long lines of pure white blossoms was exceedingly
fine, but unfortunately this lily is only in
flower for about one month of the year. Still
no one would grumble at having to wait eleven
months if such a splendid effect could be obtained,
even if it lasts but a twelfth of the year.

Have you ever seen a bed of L. Monadelphum
at the back of the tropical palm-house
at Kew? Last year it was a sight never to
be forgotten. The lilies were grown in a bed
of small azaleas, the green of whose foliage
was a beautiful set-off to the gorgeous heads
of blossoms which towered three or four feet
above the carpet of foliage. There are other
beds like this one planted with different sorts
of lilies, but only one species is present in each
bed. In one bed L. Brownii, in another
L. Croceum, and in others again the various
varieties of L. Auratum arrested the attention.
All were perfect in their way, but none of
them gave us such keen delight as this bed of
L. Monadelphum.

A large clump of lilies of one variety is
always a pleasing sight, and so is a solitary
lily rearing up its head high above the other
occupants of the flower bed. A small hillock
covered with L. Longiflorum, or the side of
a stream with the lofty L. Pardalinum is also
very beautiful.

When you wish to grow various kinds of
lilies in the same bed, a good deal of taste and
experience is needed to produce a perfect
effect. A gradation in height from the centre
to the borders is necessary. Tall lilies planted
at the edges of the bed are out of place, whilst
the dwarfer lilies are insignificant in the centre.
Lilies in the ground flower from April till
November, and so a succession of these plants
can be obtained throughout the late spring,
the summer and the autumn. For artistic
effects you must be careful not to place lilies
of nearly the same colour together. Never,
for instance, place L. Pomponium near to
the red varieties of L. Elegans, else the effect
is harsh and displeasing. A mixed border of
L. Candidum and L. Chalcedonicum produces
a fine effect, especially if both plants flower at
the same time.[2]

Another fine picture can be caused by a
mixed border of L. Longiflorum with the late
red varieties of Lilium Elegans.

A considerable amount of taste can be
shown in the proper grouping of lilies, and
the flower-grower who likes constant variety
can satisfy his desire by altering the arrangement
from year to year.

(To be continued.)

{182}

ABOUT PEGGY SAVILLE.

By JESSIE MANSERGH (Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey), Author of “Sisters Three,” etc.

CHAPTER XI.

Esther was preparing for the Cambridge
Local Examination at Christmas,
and making a special study of “The
Merchant of Venice,” as the play chosen
for the year. Fräulein explained the
notes, and expatiated on the Venice of
the past and the manners and customs
of its inhabitants, but it was Mr. Asplin
who had the brilliant idea of holding a
Shakespeare reading which should make
the play live in the imagination of the
young people, as no amount of study
could do. The suggestion was made
one day at dinner and was received with
acclamation by everyone present.

“Oh, how lovely, father! It will
help me ever so much!” said Esther.
“And Peggy must be Portia.”

“I’d like to be that funny little man
Launcelot—what do you call it?—only
I know I couldn’t do it,” said Mellicent
humbly. “I’ll be the servants and
people who come in and give messages.
But, of course, Peggy must be Portia.”

“Peggy shall be Portia, and I’ll be
the Jew, and snarl at her across the
court,” said Rob, with an assurance
which was not at all appreciated by his
companions.

“I’ve rather a fancy to try Shylock
myself,” Max declared. “Oswald would
make a capital Bassanio, and you could
manage Antonio all right if you tried,
for he has not so much to do. Let me
see: Peggy—Portia; Esther—Nerissa;
Mellicent—Jessica (she’s so like a Jewess,
you see!); you and Oswald—Bassanio and
Antonio; Shylock—my noble self. Father
and mother to help out with the smaller
characters. There you are! A capital
cast, and everyone satisfied. I’m game
to be Shylock, but I can’t do the sentimental
business. You two fellows will
have to take them, and we’ll divide the
smaller fry among us.”

“Indeed, we will do nothing of the
kind. I’m not going to take Bassanio;
I couldn’t do it, and I won’t try. I’ll
have a shot at Shylock if you like, but
I can’t do anything else. The cast is
all wrong, except so far as Peggy is
concerned. Of course she is Portia.”

“Proposed, seconded, and carried
unanimously that Peggy is Portia!” said
Mr. Asplin, smiling across the table at
that young lady, who tried to look modest
and unconcerned, but was plainly aglow
with satisfaction. “For Shylock, as the
character seems so much in demand,
we had better draw lots. I will write
the names on slips of paper, and you
must all agree to take what comes and
make the best of it. I will fill in the
gaps, and I am sure mother will help all
she can——”

“Lemonade in the intervals, and coffee
for those who prefer it, with some of my
very best company cake,” said Mrs.
Asplin briskly. “It will be quite an excitement.
I should rather like to be
Shylock myself, and defy Peggy and her
decree; but I’ll give it up to the boys,
and make myself generally useful. Why
couldn’t we begin to-night?”

“Oh, Mrs. Asplin, no! It will take
me days to get up my part! And the
costumes—consider the costumes!”
cried Peggy anxiously. And her hostess
raised her hands in surprise.

“The costumes! Are you going to
dress up? I never thought of that!”

“Surely that is unnecessary, Peggy!
You can read the play without changing
your clothes!” echoed the Vicar; but,
from the chorus of disclaimer which
greeted his words, it appeared that the
young people could do nothing of the
sort.

Max wanted to know how a fellow
could possibly “talk Shylock” in a
white tie and an evening jacket. Oswald
thought it equally ridiculous to pose as
an Italian lover in English clothing;
and Peggy turned up her eyes and said
she could not really abandon herself to
her part if her costume were inappropriate.
Even Esther, the sober-minded,
sided with the rest, so the Vicar
laughed and gave way, only too pleased
to sanction anything which helped the
object which he had at heart.

“Dress up by all means, if it pleases
you. It will be interesting to see the
result. But, of course, I must be
absolved from any experiments of the
kind.”

“Oh, of course! And mother, too, if
she likes, though I should love to see
her made-up as Shylock! You must
not see or ask about our dresses until
the night arrives. They must be a secret.
You will lend us all your fineries, mother—won’t
you?”

“Bless your heart, yes! But I haven’t
got any!” said Mrs. Asplin, in her
funny Irish way. “They were all worn
out long, long ago.” She gave a little
sigh for the memory of the days when
she had a wardrobe full of pretty things
and a dozen shimmery silk dresses
hanging on the pegs, and then flashed
a loving smile at her husband, in case
he might think that she regretted their
loss. “If there is anything about the
rooms that would do, you are welcome
to use them,” she added, glancing
vaguely at the sideboard and dumb
waiter, while the boys laughed loudly
at the idea of finding any “properties”
in the shabby old dining-room.

Peggy, however, returned thanks in
the most gracious manner, and sat
wrapped in thought for the rest of the
evening, gazing darkly around from
time to time, and scribbling notes on
sheets of note-paper.

Short of playing Shylock, which in
the end fell to Maxwell’s share, it
seemed as if all the responsibility of the
performance fell on Peggy’s shoulders.
She was stage manager, selecting
appropriate pieces of furniture from the
different rooms and piling them together
behind the screen in the study, whence
they could be produced at a moment’s
notice, to give some idea of the different
scenes. She coached Esther and Mellicent
in their parts, designed and superintended
the making of the costumes,
and gave the finishing touches to each
actor in turn when the night of the
“Dramatic Reading” arrived.

“Taking one consideration with
another,” as Max remarked, “the
costumes were really masterpieces of
art.”

To attire two young gentlemen as
Italian cavaliers, and a third as a
bearded Jew, with no materials at hand
beyond the ordinary furnishings of a
house, is a task which calls for no small
amount of ingenuity, yet this is exactly
what Peggy had done.

Antonio and Bassanio looked really
uncommonly fine specimens, with cycling
knickerbockers, opera cloaks slung
over their shoulders, and flannel shirts
pouched loosely over silk sashes, and
ornamented with frills of lace at wrists
and neck. Darkened eyebrows gave them
a handsome appearance and distinguished
air, and old straw hats and
feathers sat jauntily on their tow wigs.

The Vicar sat in the arm-chair by the
fire, Shakespeare in hand, waiting to
fill in the odd parts with his wife’s help,
and simultaneous cries of astonishment
and admiration greeted the appearance
of the two actors at the beginning of the
first scene.

“It’s wonderful! Did I ever see
such children! What in the world
have they got on their heads? Milly’s
old leghorn, I declare, and my pink
feathers. My old pink feathers! Deary
me! I’d forgotten all about them.
I’ve never worn them since the year
that——”

“‘In sooth, I know not why I am so
sad,'” quoth the wearer of the feathers,
scowling darkly at the frivolous prattler
who straightway hid her head behind
her book, and read Salanio’s first
speech in a tone of meek apology.

There was a good deal of confusion
about the first scene, for four people
had to read the parts of six, and one of
the number was so much occupied with
gazing at the costumes of the actors
that she invariably lost her place, and
had to be called to order by significant
coughs and glances. By this time it
generally happened that the Vicar had
made up his mind to come to the rescue,
and both husband and wife would begin
to read at the same moment, to their
own amusement, and to the disgust of
the two lads, who felt uncomfortable in
their borrowed plumes, and keenly
sensitive about their precious dignity.
Antonio mumbled his last speech in
undignified haste, and followed Bassanio
out of the room prepared to echo his
statement that this sort of thing was
“tom-foolery,” and that he wasn’t
going to make an idiot of himself any
longer to please Peggy Saville, or any
other girl in the world. But the
words died on his lips, for outside, in
the hall, stood Peggy herself, or rather{183}
Portia, and such a Portia as made him
fairly blink with amazement! Amidst
the bustle of the last few days
Portia’s own costume had been kept a
secret, so that the details came as a
surprise to the other members of the
party. Nerissa stood by her side, clad
in a flowing costume, the component
parts of which included a dressing-gown,
an antimacassar, and a flowered
chintz curtain; but despite the nature
of the materials, the colouring was
charming, and frizzled hair, flushed
cheeks, and sparkling eyes, transformed
the sober Esther into a very personable
attendant on the lady of Belmont.
There was nothing of the dressing-gown
character about Portia’s own attire,
however. Its magnificence took away
the breath of the beholders. The little
witch had combed her hair to the top of
her head, and arranged it in a high
coil, which gave height and dignity to
her figure. A string of pearls was
twisted in and out among the dark
tresses; her white silk frock was mysteriously
lengthened and ornamented
by two large diamond-shaped pieces of
satin encrusted with gold, one placed
at the bottom of the skirt, and the other
hanging loosely from the square-cut
neck of the bodice. Long yellow silk
sleeves fell over the bare arms and
reached the ground; and from the
shoulders hung a train of golden-hued
plush, lined with a paler shade of yellow.
Bassanio and Gratiano stood aghast,
and Portia simpered at them sweetly in
the intervals between dispensing stage
directions to the boot boy, who was clad
in his best suit for the occasion, and
sent to and fro to change the arrangement
of the scenery. He wheeled the
sofa into the centre of the room, piled
it up with blue cushions, and retired to
make way for the two ladies, who were
already edging in at the door.

A gasp of astonishment greeted their
appearance, but when Peggy dragged
her heavy train across the room, threw
herself against the cushions in an
attitude calculated to show off all the
splendour of her attire, when she leant
her pearl-decked head upon her hand,
turned her eyes to the ceiling, and said,
with a sigh as natural and easy as if
they were her own words which she was
using, and not those of the immortal
Shakespeare himself, “‘By my troth,
Nerissa, my little body is a-weary of this
great world!'”—then the Vicar broke
into a loud “Hear! Hear!” of delight,
and Mrs. Asplin seized the poker and
banged uproarious applause upon the
fender. For the first few minutes
amazement and admiration held her
dumb, but as the girls moved to and fro,
and the details of their costumes became
more apparent, she began to utter
spasmodic cries of recognition, somewhat
trying to the composure of the
actors.

Portia’s description of her lovers was
interrupted by a cry of “My table
centres! The Turkish squares I bought
at the Exhibition, and have never used!
Wherever did they find them?” while
a little later came another cry, as the
identity of the plush train made itself
known, “My portière from the drawing-room
door! My beautiful portière—with
the nice new lining! Oh, dear,
dear! it’s dragging about all over the
dirty carpet! Don’t sit on it, dear!
For pity’s sake, don’t sit on it!”

“Mother!” cried Esther, in a deep
tone of remonstrance; but Portia was
unconscious of interruption. The other
actors held their books in their hands,
and, for the most part, read their
speeches; but Peggy trusted entirely
to memory, and sighed and yawned
over the denunciation of her lovers, with
evident satisfaction to herself as well as
to the beholders. Nerissa read her part
“conscientiously,” as the newspapers
would say, punctuating her sentences in
exemplary fashion, and laying the emphasis
upon the right words as directed
by the stage manageress, but such is
the contrariness of things that, with all
her efforts, the effect was stiff and
stifled, while Peggy drawled through
her sentences, or gabbled them over at
break-neck speed, used no emphasis at
all or half-a-dozen running, at her own
sweet will, and was so truly Portia that
the Vicar wondered dreamily if he
should have to interview the Duke of
Morocco in his study, and Mrs. Asplin
sighed unconsciously, and told herself
that the child was too young to be
troubled with lovers. She must not
dream of accepting any one of them for
several years to come!

At the end of the scene, however,
anxiety about her beloved portière overpowered
everything else in the mind of
the Vicar’s wife, and she rushed after
the actors to call out eager instructions.
“Hang it up at once, there’s good
children. If you put it down on a chair,
Peggy will sit on it as sure as fate!
And oh! My table centres! Put them
back in the drawer if you love me!
Wrap them up in the tissue paper as
you found them!”

“Mother, you are a terrible person!
Go back there’s a dear, and do keep
quiet!” cried a muffled voice from
behind the dining-room door, as Shylock
dodged back to escape observation, and
Mrs. Asplin retreated hastily, aghast at
the sight of a hairy monster in whom
she failed to recognise a trace of her
beloved son and heir. Shylock’s make-up
was, in truth, the triumph of the
evening. The handsome lad had been
transformed into a bent, misshapen
old man, and anything more ugly,
frowsy, and generally unattractive than
he now appeared it would be impossible
to imagine. A cushion gave a hump to
his shoulders, and over this he wore an
aged purple dressing-gown, which had
once belonged to the Vicar. The
dressing-gown was an obvious refuge,
but who but Peggy Saville would have
thought of the trimming which was the
making of the shaggy, unkempt look so
much desired? Peggy had sat with her
hands clasped on her lap, and her head
on one side, staring at the gown when it
was held out for her approval two days
before, then had suddenly risen, and
rushed two steps at a time upstairs to
the topmost landing, a wide, scantily-furnished
space which served for a playground
on wet afternoons. An oilcloth
covered the floor, a table stood in a
corner, and before each of the six doors
was an aged wool rug, maroon as to
colouring, with piebald patches here
and there where the skin of the lining
showed through the scanty tufts. Peggy
gave a whoop of triumph, tucked one
after the other beneath her arm, and
went flying down again, dropping a mat
here and there, tripping over it, and
nearly falling from top to bottom of the
stairs. Hair-breadth escapes were,
however, so much a part of her daily
existence that she went on her way
unperturbed, and carried her bundle
into the study where the girls sniffed
derisively, and the boys begged to know
what she intended to do with all that
rubbish.

“‘They that have no invention should
be hanged,'” quoted Peggy, unperturbed.
“Give me a packet of pins, and
I’ll soon show you what I am going to
do. Dear, dear, dear, I don’t know
what you would do without me! You
are singularly bereft of imagination.”

She tossed her pig-tail over her
shoulder, armed herself with the largest
pins she could find, and set to work to
fasten the mats down the front of the
gown, and round the hem at the
bottom, so that the wool hung in shaggy
ends over the feet. The skins were
thick, the heads of the pins pressed
painfully into her fingers, but she
groaned and worked away until the
border was arranged for stitching, and
could be tried on to show the effect.

“Perfectly splendid!” was the verdict
of the beholders. And so the
matter of Shylock’s gown was settled;
but his beard still remained to be provided,
and was by no means an easy
problem to solve.

“Tow!” suggested Mellicent; but
the idea was hooted by all the others.
The idea of Shylock as a blonde was
too ridiculous to be tolerated. False
hair was not to be bought in a small
village, and Maxwell’s youthful face
boasted as yet only the faintest shadow
of a moustache.

The question was left over for consideration,
and an inspiration came the
same afternoon, when Robert hurled
one of the roller-like cushions of the
sofa at Oswald’s head, and Oswald, in
catching it, tore loose a portion of the
covering.

“Now you’ve done it!” he cried.
“The room will be covered with feathers,
and then you will say it was my fault!
We shall have to fasten the stupid thing
up somehow or other!” He peered
through the opening as he spoke and
his face changed. “It’s not feathers—it’s
horsehair! Here’s a find! What
about that wig for Shylock?”

Esther was dubious.

“It would take a great deal of horsehair
to make a wig. It would spoil the
cushion if the horsehair were taken
away; it would spoil the sofa if the
cushion were small; it would spoil the
room if the sofa——”

Peggy interrupted with a shriek of
laughter.

“Oh, oh, oh! It’s like the ‘House
that Jack built’! How long do you
intend to go on like that? Nonsense,
my dear! It would be perfectly easy to{185}
take out what we want and put it back
afterwards. I’ll promise to do it myself
and sew it up tightly, though, if you desire
my opinion, I think the cushion would
be improved by letting in a little air.
You might as well lean your head on a
Bath brick. Max, you are a made
man! You shall have a beautiful,
crinkly black wig, and a beard to
match. We will sew them to your
turban, and fasten them with black
elastic. It will never show, and I’ll
finish off the joins after you are dressed.
You’ll see!”

“You can do as you like! I’m in
your hands!” said Max easily. And
when the night of the reading arrived,
and he was attired in wig and gown,
Peggy seated him in a chair and tucked
a towel under his chin with an air of
business. She had a number of small
accessories on a table near at hand,
and Max was first instructed to stick
pieces of black plaster over alternate
teeth so that he might appear to possess
only a few isolated fangs, and then
made to lie back in his chair, while she
stood over him with a glue-brush in one
hand and a bunch of loose horsehair in
the other.

“Shut your eyes!” she cried loudly.
And before he could say “Jack Robinson”
a tuft of the wiry stuff covered
his eyebrows. “Keep your face still!”
And, to his horror, the gum was daubed
from the borders of the beard half-way
up to his eyes, and little prickly ends
of hair were held in Peggy’s palm and
pressed against his cheeks until they
were firmly attached.

This, indeed, was more than he had
bargained for! He jerked back his
head and began a loud-voiced protest,
only to be interrupted by shrieks of
excitement.

“Oh, oh, oh! It’s beautiful—beautiful!
What a fright! What a delicious
fright! No one would know you!
You look an old hairy monster who would
gobble up half a dozen Christians. Do
look at yourself!”

Peggy felt the pride of an artist in
the result of her efforts, and Max was
hardly less delighted than herself as he
stood before the glass, gazing at his
hairy cheeks and leering horribly to
admire his toothless gums. If the result
were so hideous as to astonish even
those who had watched the process of
his make-up, what wonder that the effect
upon Shylock’s fond parents was of a
stupefying nature!

Horror kept Mrs. Asplin silent until
the middle of the scene between Shylock
and Antonio when the bond is signed,
and then her agitation could no longer
be controlled, and Shylock’s little
speeches were interrupted by entreaties
to take that horrid stuff off his teeth, to
use plenty of hot water in washing his
face, and to be sure to anoint it plentifully
with cold cream after doing so.

An ordinary lad would have lost his
temper at these interruptions; but Max
adored his mother, and could never take
anything she did in a wrong spirit.
Anger being therefore impossible, the
only other resource was to laugh, which,
in Peggy’s opinion, was even worse than
the former. A Shylock who chuckled
between his speeches, and gave a good-humoured
“Ha! ha!” just before
uttering his bitterest invective, was a
ridiculous parody of the character, with
whom it would be impossible to act.
It would be hard, indeed, if all her
carefully-rehearsed speeches lost their
effect, and the famous trial scene were
made into a farce through these untimely
interruptions!

The second part of the play went
more smoothly, however, as the audience
settled down to a more attentive hearing
and the actors became less self-conscious
and embarrassed. If four out of the
six were sticks, who never for a moment
approached the verge of the natural,
Portia and Shylock did nobly, and when
the reading was over and the young
people gathered round the fire in the
drawing-room, it was unanimously
agreed that they had acquired a more
intimate knowledge of the play by this
one evening’s representation than by
weeks of ordinary study.

“I feel so much more intimate with
it!” said Esther. “It seems to have
made it alive, instead of just something
I have read in a book. It was a delightful
thought, father, and I am grateful
to you for proposing it. I wish I
could do all my lessons in the same
way.”

“I’ve not enjoyed myself so much for
ages. You just did beautifully, all of
you, and the dresses were a sight to
behold. As for Peggy, she’s a witch,
and could make up costumes on a desert
island if she were put to it! But I
don’t know what is going to happen
to my poor, dear boy’s face. Oswald,
what is he doing? Isn’t he coming to
have some lemonade and cake?” asked
Mrs. Asplin anxiously. And Oswald
chuckled in a heartless fashion.

“Pride must abide. He would be
Shylock whether we liked it or not, so
let him take the consequences. He is
fighting it out with cold cream in the
bath-room, and some of the horsehair
sticks like fun. I’ll go up and tell him
we have eaten all the cake. He was
getting savage when I came down, and
it will sweeten his temper!”

(To be continued.)

The Old Year’s Grief.

John Lea

“SISTER WARWICK”: A STORY OF INFLUENCE.

By H. MARY WILSON, Author of “In Warwick Ward,” “In Monmouth Ward,” “Miss Elsie,” etc.

CHAPTER II.

Browning.

“Sister!“

The urgent word pierced the thick cloak of
sleep and scattered fair dreams of the home of
her childhood.

“Sister!”

She started into a sitting posture, and in
another moment was out of bed, for Margaret
Carden was saying—

“Mr. H—— has just brought us a croup
case, Sister, and a very bad one, I am afraid.”

As the nurse hurried away the great hospital
clock boomed out the hour—two—and almost
immediately the Sister had joined a sad little
group in front of the fire that, even during
the summer, often was lighted in the huge
open grate at night.

Nurse Carden had taken into her arms a
poor little child of three, who was fighting
and beating the air for the struggling breaths
that the tortured throat was strangling.

It was a pitiful sight. The poor young
father and mother—scarcely more than boy
and girl—stood by, the former uttering sharp
clicks with his tongue against his teeth as he
watched and was tortured too in the sufferings
of “the little chap,” the latter literally
wringing her hands and moaning with the
agony of her mother’s heart.

They were trying every remedy without
avail. There was only tracheotomy left for
them to do. But the father refused his
consent.

Cut the fair skin of his boy? No, that
they shouldn’t!

He was obdurate in his ignorance.

Mr. H—— urged the otherwise hopelessness
of the case. His words were impatient,
almost angry. But still the man said, “No!”

Sister Warwick drew him aside, and, taking
a candle, led him along the ward to the side
of a little cot where a smiling, rosy child lay
sleeping sweetly. She pulled away the sheet
and showed him the little silver tube in her
neck.

“She would not have been alive without
it,” she said. “She was at death’s door, like
your little one. It saved her life. She is
going to be bonny and strong. Let Mr.
H—— do what he wants. You must; you
cannot say no now!”

{186}

They hurried back.

Was the poor little face changing?

“There, do it, doctor, do it! Have your
way!”

The reluctant words were scarcely uttered
before the clever strong hands were at work.

There was immediate relief, and for a
moment they believed that the little life,
hanging trembling on such a tiny thread, was
to be given back. But suddenly the baby
hands dropped, and the little head fell back.

Even then the skilful hands would not yield
the battle. They persevered with artificial
respiration. They tried every means, until
the truth had to be faced. There was nothing
more they could do. They must lay down
the poor little buffeted body and let it sleep.

This is always a terrible moment for doctors
and nurses, and it was with a face quivering
with emotion that Sister Warwick left Margaret
Carden to the sacred work of tending the
little lifeless form, and, leading the poor young
mother to her room, took up the harder task
of trying to help her in the first bitterness of
her grief.

Half-stunned with what had happened, the
man sat in the shadows beyond the range of
the light from the fire and lamp, and followed
with his eyes the movements of the nurse as
she went to and fro.

Let us hope that he was not realising the
fact that his tardy consent had perhaps cost
the child its life.

Mr. H—— laid a kind hand on his shoulder
once, with a hearty—

“I am awfully sorry for you;” and he
murmured something by way of answer.
Then he rose—still half-dazed—to meet his
wife who was coming out of Sister’s room.

They stood side by side, holding each
other’s hands—like the children they almost
were—and looked long at the sleeping baby.

Nurse Carden had taken the buttercups and
grasses from one of the vases on the ward
table, and the little fingers were folded round
the stalks.

The inexplicable peace of the presence of
death stole into the hearts of the poor young
parents, and they went quietly away with
bowed heads, sharing and bearing together
their first real grief.

“Good night, Sister!”

The house physician was going back to his
quarters and to the rest that was so often
broken.

“Good night,” she added, and then, with
a half smile, she added: “Don’t bring me
a case like that again for a long time, please!
And yesterday was his birthday too, they
tell me—poor mite!”

The doctor’s reply to this was a happy one.
He said—

“Then we must wish him many happy
returns of to-day instead!”

Sister Warwick could sleep no more that
night—or early morning rather. She tried,
with a conscientious remembrance of the
day’s work to come. But such episodes tore
her tenderest sympathies in a way that the
nurses, who thought her hard and cold, would
never have credited.

She lay on her couch, not thinking so much
in detail of the scene of conflict she had just
been through, as of the ever-recurring wonder
that such things had to be. These sudden,
dashing, jangling chords in life seemed so inexplicable;
and for children to suffer so, and
for peaceful lives to have such dark passages!
And then some lines of Browning flashed
into her mind, and she repeated them to
herself over and over again, till the meaning
sank in and soothed her.

The quiet of the night was broken by a
sudden trampling of feet in the hospital
square. Sister Warwick guessed what it
meant—an operation in the theatre. She
could hear the even tread of the porters as
they carried the stretcher and the clank as it
rested on the stone floor. Now a messenger
was running round to the college and stopping
beneath the students’ windows. His voice
reached her ears—

“Operation! Operation!”

Coming in the darkness and shrouded by
night, it would all have seemed weird and
uncanny if custom had not reconciled her to
the strangeness of the sounds. As it was,
the discordant noises only served—by some
connection of ideas—to turn her thoughts to
another anxiety—the special “crook in her
lot” just now. She lay and tried to put the
matter clearly before her mind.

There was no doubt that in spite of the
fact that Nurse Hudson had passed her exams
and won the nurse’s buckle, she was not
trustworthy. Something was probably exerting
a wrong influence over her. It was sadly
evident that, as a nurse, she was deteriorating,
and Sister Warwick acknowledged bitterly
that she herself had failed to arrest that course.

What could she do now? There were too
many lives at stake to allow to remain unnoticed
these recurring acts of carelessness,
and, worse still, these signs of hardness and
want of tenderness in her dealings with the
patients.

Yet how her kind heart shrank from the
strong measure of a complaint to the matron!
She had spoken a few decided, and she hoped
calm and “Sisterly” words of warning to her
that very evening as she was leaving the ward.
Should she now wait and see if they took
effect? Surely it would be only fair to give
her one more trial? Meanwhile she herself
could use greater diligence in overlooking the
work done in the ward.

After much thought she settled it so, and
then tried to put the anxious matter aside.
Did she err in her judgment? If so, it was
on the side of mercy—the way we women
would all prefer to lean.

(To be continued.)

THREE GIRL-CHUMS, AND THEIR LIFE IN LONDON ROOMS.

By FLORENCE SOPHIE DAVSON.

CHAPTER III.

TWO LETTERS.

I am afraid that
as this account
of the doings
of our three
friends unfolds
itself, some of
my readers may
be tempted to
complain that it
seems to be always
meal-time
at “The Rowans.” Indeed,
I must admit that
from their point of view
the complaint is a just
one, but I would beg them
to remember that my object
is to give an account
of the culinary doings of
the household; their
meals, and how they were contrived, and the
cost thereof; and as, like the old woman in
the nursery song,

the food question must perforce be continually
before us.

As a girl of fourteen I had to take the reins
of government and direct the house during
my mother’s long illness. It would certainly
have helped me greatly to have been able to
follow the chronicles of some young housekeeper
and to have learnt how she arranged
matters. But at that time Marion and the
Orlingburys were all in short frocks and had no
experiences to unfold for my benefit.

The trials of the members of our household
during the time of my rule were doubtless
very severe. The chief thing that I remember
is that my favourite sultana pudding was
served about four times a week, with sauce;
on the last point I was most particular.

I had always a great longing to go down in
the kitchen and cook myself, but my father
forbade this, saying that if I worried the cook
she would probably give warning; and that,
if in addition to my mother’s illness and other
present ills (of which I fear my housekeeping
was one) we were left without a cook, he
should not know what to do. This was a
sore disappointment, for as yet I had never
been able to make any attempt at cooking,
except on one occasion, when at the age of
six I had been discovered surreptitiously
frying chocolate creams on the shovel in the
dining-room, for which I was sent to bed.
At a yet earlier period, having heard somewhere
that toffee was made with butter and
sugar, I put a small pat of butter and a
tablespoonful of sugar into an empty sweet-box,
and, hiding it amongst my toys, waited
with anxiety for it to turn into toffee, looking
in the box with keen interest every morning
and hoping for the joyful day when the sticky
mess should become a neat brown slab of
finest toffee; a day, alas, which came not, as
was not strange, and the end of it was that
the nurse found the hidden treasure and
promptly threw it away.

To come back to “The Rowans,” where
Marion, having finished her morning’s cooking,
is reading a letter in the sitting-room.
The letter is from an old playmate, now
grown up and lately married, who is living on
the other side of London.

“Tulse Hill,
“Jan. 10th.

“My dear Marion,—Do not look for
any interesting news in this letter, and make
up your mind to exercise all your good nature.

“I am writing to you for advice and consolation,
for I am at my wits’ end. How I wish I
were a clever housekeeper, like you, and how
I envy the Orlingburys for having secured you
to live with them. I should so like to run over
for a chat, but you are such a busy woman, I
do not know when I should find you at home
without disturbing you in your work, and it
would be too bad to make you talk business{187}
on your only holiday—Saturday. Do tell me,
Marion—in the strictest confidence—are you
afraid of your servant? I am of mine—horribly!
Oh, dear me! When I first
married I thought I was going to do wonders;
to do such a lot of cooking, and to manage
and contrive so cleverly. Let me explain a
few of my troubles.

“To begin with, I have a cook who was
recommended to me as ‘a perfect treasure,’
but I do not find her any sort of a treasure,
and I am happy to say she is now leaving.
She has a terribly superior manner, and
resents it very much if I go into the kitchen
at all. On days when I have attempted to
do any cooking she is frigid beyond words.
She is not a good cook herself—I could put
up with a great deal if she were that—and the
only things we have that are nice at all are
curries and fricassees made in the stewing jar
after your fashion. I heard about the jar
about a month ago from a mutual friend—your
Aunt Anne.

“Cook makes the most abominable pastry
and cannot roast at all; our poor little joints
of meat are shrivelled up and hard, so she has
really no need to give herself such airs. With
regard to the roasting I really am most
perplexed, and hope you will be able to advise
me. I have by me a standard cookery book,
which assures me most positively that a joint
should be put in a hot oven to make a casing
to keep in the juices, and then it is to be
cooked more slowly. This, I know, has been
done, but the result is far from satisfactory,
and I wonder if the oven is too hot.

“Only last night a beautiful little piece of
loin of mutton was served nearly black and as
hard as a brick. I was so distressed for poor
Arthur’s sake. It does so worry me to think
of his coming home hungry from his office to
such a dinner. He was most amiable over it
and only smiled, telling me not to worry, I
would soon learn. But the question is, how
long will he keep on smiling if he often has
bad dinners? One must look these matters
in the face, must one not?

“I do not want to vex him too often; in
fact, I do not want to vex him at all, but what
can I do? And then his mother is coming to
stay in a week or two, and although she is
kindness herself, and very fond of me, I feel
quite sure that she will feel a profound pity
for her unfortunate son if she sees a black
joint on the table.

“Her pastry—I mean cook’s, of course—is
so bad, that a week ago I plucked up my
courage. Venturing into the kitchen, I tried
my hand at making some. I rubbed seven
ounces of dripping into a pound of flour that
had first been mixed with a teaspoonful of
baking powder—that was right, was it not?
Then I mixed it with water to a dough and
rolled it out. It kept sticking to the board,
and I got very nervous, for I felt the cold,
unsympathetic glance of the cook was upon
me. But I persevered and made it up into
a pie and baked it; but every time I went to
the oven to take a peep—about every three
minutes—the dripping was running out as fast
as it could. Surely pastry is very wasteful.
What is the use of putting it in if it only runs
out again? And to eat, it was hard beyond
words! And to see cook’s scornful smile
when, on the following day, she asked politely
if I wished the remains sent up to table.

“Now, as I tell you, she is leaving shortly.
I have heard of a girl who might do. She
makes good soups, cooks vegetables well,
roasts and boils fairly well, and she is very
clean. I know she is a nice girl, and not at
all inclined to be refractory, if I could only
make up my mind as to the best way of
starting. As I tell you, my mother-in-law
is coming to stay soon. Marion, do advise me.

“Your perplexed friend,
“Madge Holden.”

Marion read all this very carefully and
thought it over. Then she answered Mrs.
Holden’s letter.

“My dear Madge,—I shall be only too
pleased if I can help you, but you must not
overrate my powers, as I think you are inclined
to do. To begin with, I have had opportunities
of learning housekeeping such as few
have. You see, we all have to help at home,
and mother is such a good manager; it would
be odd if I had not picked up some of her
household knowledge. You ask if I am
afraid of my servant. If you could see her, I
think your own question would amuse you.
She is only fourteen, and she knew absolutely
nothing when she came to us; by dint of
great exertions, I am gradually teaching her
to dish up our dinners and to wait at table.
She can also turn out a room (with assistance)
and wash up, but as she has learnt this under
me, it would be odd if I felt afraid of her. If
I had a real cook and housemaid like you, I
might perhaps tremble in my shoes, but really
I think there is no need. I am glad you find
the stewing jar useful. If your cook cannot
even roast a small joint of meat without
spoiling it, she has nothing to be very
conceited about.

“The rule you quote from your cookery
book is quite correct for large joints, but it
does not do for small ones. If you put a big
joint into a hot oven, it crisps the outside
nicely, but a small joint put into the same
temperature will soon become hard right
through. Put small joints in a gentle oven
and cook them slowly, basting often. Shortly
before you serve it, let the oven get hot or else
finish it before the fire, so that it may brown.
Of course, the oven must not be too slow or
the meat will not cook at all. This point you
will gradually learn, and so will your new
cook if she is intelligent. I am glad you
allude to her as a ‘girl.’ A young person is,
as a rule, more teachable, although an older
person will probably know more. As Dr.
Johnson remarked of Scotchmen, ‘Much may
be done with them if you catch them young.’
When you engage your new cook, just say
that you are in the habit of cooking occasionally—mention
it as a matter of course.
Do not start by being afraid of her. It is
really most absurd.

“With regard to the pastry. You do not
seem to have made it quite rightly, as it
should not stick to the board. You made it
too wet, and your oven cannot have been hot
enough if the dripping ran out. Pastry should
go into a hot oven, then the starch grains in
the flour burst and enclose the particles of
dripping; but if the oven is not hot enough,
the reverse happens; that is to say, the
dripping melts and encloses the starch grains
so that they cannot burst. Try again.

“I am wondering if it would help you to
see a list of our dinners for the week; I send
one in case it may be of use and also my food
bill. The quantities will seem very small to
you, but you must remember we have no
‘downstairs’ to consider. Our girl only
comes for a few hours each day. This makes
a great difference in our expenses. In fact, if
we did not make this arrangement, I do not
think we could continue our present mode of
living. Now, do not worry. If you are
so anxious to have everything nice you will
succeed in time, and if your mother-in-law is
so kind and so fond of you, I am sure she will
not pity her son too much, even if your cook
does make one or two failures. Could you
not get her to postpone her visit until you are
a little more settled.

“Here is the dinner list—

Sunday.

• Stewed Steak. Mashed Potatoes.
• Mince Pies.
• (Supper.) Poached Eggs on Toast; Cocoa.

Monday.

• Tripe à la Normandie.
• Sago Pudding.

Tuesday.

• Sheep’s Head.
• Vegetables and Dumplings.
• Baked Treacle Tart.

Wednesday.

• (High Tea.) Fish Mould.
• Gingerbread.

Thursday.

• Brown Soup.
• Fish in Milk.
• Cottage Pudding.

Friday.

• Mutton Cutlets.
• Boiled Potatoes. Brussels Sprouts.
• Macaroni Cheese.

Saturday.

• Celery Soup.
• Minced Callops and Mashed Potatoes.
• Cup Puddings.

“You see, we live very simply.

“The stewed steak was cooked the day
before and warmed up; the mince pies also.

“The ‘tripe à la Normandie’ is made with
a thick brown gravy; the tripe made in rolls
with pieces of ham in each and a few
mushrooms to flavour. We have half a ham
in the house just at present, so it was a good
time to have the dish. The brown soup on
Thursday was made of the broth in which the
sheep’s head was cooked; the fish mould is
made by pounding half a pound of breadcrumbs,
one ounce of butter, a beaten egg and
a gill of thick white sauce; season this well and
steam in a buttered mould. The callops are
minced beef, which I buy at threepence each
callop.

“Here is the food account—

“Let me know if I can be of any further
use,

“Yours affectionately,
“Marion Thomas.”

Three weeks later Marion received a
hurriedly-written note.

“Many, many thanks, my dear Marion, for
your letter. I have been waiting to profit by
your instructions before writing to you, and
now I am so busy I can only write a few lines.
The new cook is an amiable girl, and I am
getting on famously—thanks to you. Mrs.
Holden is here, and I am enjoying her visit
very much. She is so kind and helpful. You
are quite right; it is ridiculous to be afraid of
one’s own cook, and I now enter the kitchen
with an easy mind. Also, my cooking has
improved so much, that I quite enjoy eating
my own pastry, which I thought would for
ever be an impossibility.

“Your grateful friend,
“Madge Holden.”

(To be continued.)

{188}

ART IN THE HOUSE.

PART II.

How to Decorate Furniture
with Stencilling.

The idea of decorating your own furniture
seems to be an extraordinary thing to many
readers, and yet I hope to show you that
this much to be desired consummation
is quite within your reach. In the former
article I gave as an illustration a portion of
a chiffonier I decorated with stencilling, as can
be seen by referring to it, which, by the
way, is reproduced from a full-size design
which was actually stencilled with the same
stencils as I used on the chiffonier. Stencilling
is a very simple business indeed if you
will take ordinary care. Indeed the mere
getting of an impression is a mechanical
matter, as can be seen by the way packers
mark boxes with stencils of letters. The art
is seen in the way you colour the patterns
and the use you make of your stencils, for
with some four or five stencil plates, as I
shall hope to show later, many combinations
are possible; you can evolve new patterns as it
were by taking a portion of one and combining
it with a portion of another.

Fig. 1. Stencilled border of butterflies and sprigs with background, suggested by a spider’s web. For details see Figs. 1B and 1C.

Fig. 1A. The right-hand half is white on black ground, the reverse of the left-hand half. For details see Figs. 1B and 1C.

Fig. 1B.

Fig. 1C.

Some years ago, I forget how many, I
described in these pages how to cut a stencil,
but I had better for the sake of the newer
readers very briefly explain the method. Good
drawing paper I generally use from which to
cut my stencils. Draw out your design upon
the paper, and with a sharp penknife cut on a
sheet of glass, so that the knife travels over
the smooth surface and enables you to cut
a quite intricate design with ease. Have a
small oil-stone at hand to keep the knife in
condition, for you ought to be able to cut
clean without pressure.

If you refer to the designs accompanying
these articles you will notice that each form
where it comes against another seems outlined
in white. This effect is caused by the
“ties” as they are termed. If we consider a
moment we can realise that as our design is
formed by the pieces we cut away an intricate
design must be tied together, or the whole
thing would fall to pieces. Take a simple
case, the letter B. We must not cut out the
letter without adopting some plan to keep
the two pieces forming the loops in their
place, so we tie them in so

We put a second tie in the
lower loop to strengthen it
as I have done in several
cases among those designs
given. Take another case,
the flower in Fig. 1C. By
cutting each petal separate
and the centre as a circle we
get a very effective stencil,
for the “ties” give form to
the design. Take them away,
and instead of a daisy we
should only have a circular
open space of no interest. One of the arts of
successful stencil cutting is to make the “ties”
form part of the design, and by a little
management this can be done. I don’t wish
to point to my own work more than to say{189}
you can learn the method of stencil cutting
by referring to the designs I have given to
illustrate the subject.

Peacock-feather border. The complete impression
is given at 2, and requires the
plates 2A and 2B to produce it.

“Ties” which are left to merely strengthen
a design, and which therefore do not help the
effect, can be put in with a brush while the
colour is wet if it be thought desirable.

If by chance you cut through a “tie”
while cutting your stencil or break one when
using it mend it with gummed paper or
stamp edging. By keeping your stencils in
repair they will last you years and do any
amount of work. When the stencils are cut
give them a good coat of varnish back and
front, and allow it to dry hard. This makes
the paper waterproof and greatly toughens it.
“Knotting,” which you can procure at a good
oil shop, does very well for this purpose, as it
dries quickly.

Repeating stencil of fish and arrow-head, with insects and water lines. For cutting
this stencil, see Figs. 4A and 4B.

Detail of Fig. 4.

Those readers who prefer it can enlarge
some of my designs and cut them, but others
may like to try and originate them for themselves,
so a word or two to them. Make
your designs simple, and you mustn’t attempt
foreshortening (that is, drawing in perspective),
as you cannot render such an effect in a
stencil. A flat treatment is necessary, as
though the plant you take to found your design
upon were pressed between blotting-paper,
like a dried specimen. You must not
attempt to be too natural. An ornamental
treatment is more effective, and you want to
develop the decorative features in the plant
you take, for you must not think of drawing
a flower or plant so much as making a
design based upon the particular plant.

Detail of Fig. 4.

Birds, insects, fish, can all be cut as
stencils if you attend to this ornamentalising
which is necessary. The two flying birds,
Figs. 5 and 6, are modelled on Japanese designs,
and by a little management very excellent
effects can be produced. Butterflies too can
be made into very effective stencils, and in
one case I have introduced a background
suggested by a spider’s web, Fig. 1. By only
using the butterfly out of one plate and the
web background out of the other we obtain a
third combination as in Fig. 1A.

In the case of the large butterfly, Fig. 1A, it
will be noticed that a pattern is stencilled on
the wings, and to do this it is necessary to
have a second stencil, Fig. 1B. I give impressions
of these two stencils, Figs. 1A and 1B, so
that you may see what is cut out in each plate
and how the two fit together. You cut some
one or two details out of both plates as a
guide in placing them when in use, see Figs. 2,
which requires the two Plates A and B to
produce it.

Flying bird in stencil, after the Japanese.

Flying bird in stencil, after the Japanese.

In cases of stencils which repeat so that
spaces of any length may be covered, it is
necessary to cut a small portion of the next
impression out of the stencil and put this{190}
in, so that when you shift the stencil on to
take the next impression, the left side of your
stencil is placed over the right-hand side of
the impression first taken. In the butterfly
referred to in Fig. 1, the tip of the left wing
is cut on the right-hand side of stencil, which
is a guide for placing the stencil when we
shift it for our next impression. In Fig. 4 it
will be noticed that the nose of the fish is
stencilled on the right-hand side to show you,
when you shift the stencil along, exactly
where to place it. In stencils requiring two
plates to produce them, you draw out the
design and then arrange in your mind the
portions you will cut out of the first plate.
When you have cut them stencil them on to
the piece of paper to form the second plate,
and having drawn or transferred the rest of
the design to this second piece of paper you
cut out the rest of the pattern. By stencilling
the first plate on to the second plate you see
how far to cut, for it is obvious that the two
plates should fit together like a puzzle and
form one design. The object of having two
plates is that you can obtain an impression in
two or more colours. Thus in the butterfly
design having stencilled the insects in the first
colour you can put on the markings and web-background
in much lighter colours. If the
sprig is to be put in and you want it against
the web-background, you stencil this latter in
first, and when dry the sprigs upon it.

By cutting a design out of two plates you
can get a much more elaborate design and
scheme of colour. The water in the arrow-head
and fish frieze, Fig. 4, is a case in point,
for the water lines and flowers can be in
light tones of colour, while the fish and
foliage are in darker ones, and by this means
relief is obtained.

Were the water lines cut out of the same
plate as the foliage, it would be impossible to
keep them in a distinct colour and the design
would look confused. The stencil too would
be very weak, as the “ties” would have to be
so numerous. This is a practical disadvantage,
for if a stencil is very weak it is apt to
break all up while you are using it. By the
use of the two plates, Figs. 4A and 4B, we get
two fairly strong stencils.

(To be continued.)

THINGS IN SEASON, IN MARKET AND KITCHEN.

JANUARY.

By LE MÉNAGÈRE.

This is one of the coldest, if not the coldest,
months of the year; the time when we most
need to put on our thinking-cap in order to
provide such things as will best supply that
extra consumption of fuel that goes on in the
human engine. Some starchy foods we must
have and a goodly proportion of fats and oils—more
than at any other time of the year.
Now we find both these elements in grains
and “pulse,” peas, beans, lentils, etc., and
we can supply the necessary amount of fats
by good wholesome puddings that contain a
little suet, and home-made cakes, also in
eating a fair amount of nuts.

For breakfast every morning we might begin
with a plateful of Quaker oats, “H. O.,” or
any other kind; these are splendid food, and
however small the portion, everybody would
be the better for having some. Some people
like sugar with their porridge, but it is a fact
that sugar does not help the digestion of oaten
food—rather retards it in fact.

Coffee is better for breakfast on winter
mornings than tea, for all who can take it:
not because it is more nourishing, but because
it possesses staying qualities, and so is more
satisfying.

Eggs, bacon, fish, or a well-cooked sausage
should be ready to tempt the appetite of the
older members of the family, but a little
stewed fruit and brown bread and butter
would be better than these for children. Say
stewed Peras, figs, or prunes, and a cupful of
milk or coffee.

Cheese is a good and nourishing food for
cold weather, perhaps because it contains so
much of that essential oil that we need.
Toasted cheese should never be given to
anyone of weak digestion, however, for it is
one of the most difficult of all things to deal
with. As an experiment in the line of
“savouries,” I would recommend the trial of
grated cheese with a plate of oats; it is by no
means to be despised.

A typical menu for January would be the
following—

• Chestnut Soup.
• Fried Lemon Soles.
• Ragout of Mutton.
• Creamed Potatoes and Jerusalem Artichokes.
• Roast Snipe on Toast.
• Chelsea Pudding.
• Cheese. Butter. Biscuits. Coffee.

Chestnut Soup.—Boil a pound of chestnuts
until they seem tender, peel off the shell and
brown skin; return the white part to the stewpan
and cover with water, add a finely-minced
onion, an ounce of butter, pepper and salt.
Let this simmer for an hour or more, then rub
all carefully through a sieve, add a pint or
rather more of boiling milk and a dessertspoonful
of cornflour previously mixed smooth
with cold water, and stir this again over the
fire until it boils. Serve fried croutons with
this soup.

Lemon Soles should be filleted before frying
them, and they should be dipped in beaten
egg and fresh crumbs of bread and sprinkled
with seasoning. Fry them to a golden brown
in boiling lard or beef dripping, squeeze a
little lemon juice over them and serve garnished
with fried parsley.

Ragout of Mutton.—A piece of the middle
neck, or the shank half of the shoulder, the
meat taken from the bones and trimmed into
neat pieces, is the best for this. Flour each
piece lightly, lay in a stewpan with thinly-sliced
onions, sliced turnip, a few sprigs of
savoury herbs and seasoning. Pour over all a
teacupful of water and cover tightly. Let
this simmer in a corner of the oven for about
two hours, and then arrange the meat on a
dish, add a spoonful of mushroom ketchup to
the gravy, with more water if it seems too
thick, and pour over the meat.

Mash the potatoes and beat them up with
milk till like thick cream; pile this up in
a buttered pie-dish, and put the dish into
a quick oven to brown the surface.

Mash the artichokes also and press them
into a shallow dish, sprinkling breadcrumbs
over the top and a bit of butter, and brown
these also.

Snipe require a very quick hot oven for
their roasting, and about fifteen minutes is
long enough to allow. Place them on a strip
of crisp toast, and some tiny frizzles of bacon
with them, and sprinkle fried crumbs over.
No sauce will be needed.

Chelsea Pudding.—Shred and chop very
finely two ounces of suet, add to four ounces
of flour into which a teaspoonful of baking
powder has been rubbed, also a pinch of salt
and two ounces of castor sugar, the grated
rind of a fresh lemon or a pinch of spice, mix
well, and make into a soft dough with a
beaten egg and a teacupful of milk. Grease a
shaped pudding-basin and sprinkle the inside
with brown sugar, pour in the pudding-mixture
and bake until it has risen well and is
of a rich brown colour.

The sauce for this pudding is made by
placing half-a-pound pot of plum or currant
jam in a saucepan, with a few lumps of sugar
and an equal amount of water. Let this boil
for a little while, then strain it through a
tamis and pour over and around the pudding
when that has been turned out.

Suitable dishes for the dinner-table in cold
weather are the following: Beefsteak pudding,
Irish stew, stewed steak, sea pie, camp pie,
haricot mutton, liver and bacon, etc.—very
homely dishes, it is true, but good and
nourishing for all that.

Avoid having large joints that would leave
much cold meat on hand in cold weather.
Not many families care much about cold meat
when the thermometer is near freezing point,
and twice-cooked meat is not nearly so
nourishing as fresh, however savoury it may
be made.

{191}

OUR PUZZLE POEM REPORT: A PUZZLE-SOLVER.

SOLUTION.

A Puzzle-Solver.

Prize Winners.

Seven Shillings and Sixpence Each.

• Josephine Burne, 5, Howbeck Road, Oxton, Birkenhead.
• Constance Daphne, Alresford, Hants.
• Dorothy Fulford, 49, Bateman Street, Cambridge.
• Sophie C. Funnell, 25, Clarendon Place, Leeds.
• Winifred A. Lockyear, Willow Grove, Beverley.
• Miss A. A. L. Shave, 6, Craufurd Rise, Maidenhead.
• Violet Shoberl, Hookwood, Edge Hill, Wimbledon.
• Helen Simpson, 32, Brighton Place, Aberdeen.

Five Shillings Each.

• Miss A. Kilburn, Penkridge, Staffs.
• Agnes McConnell, Ballycarry, Belfast.
• Lucy Richardson, 2, Bootham Terrace, York.
• S. Southall, South Bank, Worcester.
• Mrs. C. E. Warren, Ashantee Villa, Norwich Road, Ipswich.
• W. Fitzjames White, 9, Kinfauns Terrace, Low Fell, Gateshead.
• Miss Wilkins, Westcroft, Trowbridge, Wilts.
• Rev. H. Addams Williams, Llangibby Rectory, Newport, Mon.

Equal with First-Prize Winners.

Mrs. J. Cumming, Edith E. Grundy, E.
St. G. Hodson, E. Lord, M. Theodora Moxon,
A. C. Sharp, Ellen C. Tarrant.

Equal with Second-Prize Winners.

Eliza Acworth, Lily Belling, F. M. Morgan,
E. R. Oliver, Isabel Snell, G. S. Wilkins.

Most Highly Commended.

Ethel B. Angear, Florence M. Angear,
Elsie I. Bale, Elsie Bayley, Mabel Brownlow,
M. J. Champneys, Helen M. Coulthard, Rose
D. Davis, E. H. Duncan, E. Ross Duffield,
Dorothy V. Foley, A. Goakes, Mrs. W. H.
Gotch, Alice L. Hewlett, M. Hodgkinson,
G. D. Honeyburne, F. W. Hunt, Alice E.
Johnson, Elizabeth A. Lord, Rev. C. T.
McCready, Ethel O. McMaster, Benjamin
Marcroft, Isabella M. Maxwell, Mrs. Nichols,
Margaret G. Oliver, Gertrude Pegler, A.
Pentelow, A. T. Porter, Constance M. Reade,
Annie Roberson, Winifred H. Roberts, Kate
Robinson, J. C. Scott, Lucy Shattock, James
J. Slade, Gertrude Smith, Ethel Tomlinson,
Etheldreda, M. Viner, Emily Wilkinson,
Henry Wilkinson.

Very Highly Commended.

Edith K. Baxter, Elsie Benians, Rev.
F. Townshend Chamberlain, Maud Chinn,
Leonard Clark, Leila Claxton, Nina E. Coote,
H. Cope, Vera F. Cremer, Mrs. Crossman,
E. G. Dalton, Eva M. Edwards, William
H. Edwards, Beatrice Fitzhugh, Marjorie A.
Forbes, Edith A. Freeman, Will L. Freeman,
Mabel Frewen, Ada J. Graves, Florence
Graves, F. S. A. Graves, C. B. C. Hancock,
Eleanor Hearsey, Julia A. Hennen, Percy E.
Herrick, A. Hughes, W. R. Hughes, Minnie
Ives, Annette E. Jackson, Gertrude J. Jones,
D. Langley, Clara E. Law, B. M. Linington,
Fred Lindley, M. Dorothy Long, Florence
Lush, Winifred M. Macallister, C. Y.
MacGibbon, Nellie Meikle, Nellie Minchener,
Blanche A. Moody, Mrs. C. F. Morton,
Charles Martin Morris, May Morris, Charles
Nunneley, jun., G. de Courcy Peach, L.
Pentelow, Ada Mavee Pleasance, Jessie C.
Poole, Alexandrina A. Robertson, Dora O.
Robinson, Elizabeth Russell, Mary Sheriff,
A. J. Selwood, Kate C. Sinclair, Clara Souter,
William Stradling, Margaret B. Strathorn,
Mollie B. Taylor, Muriel Thompson, Lilian
S. Toller, Aileen M. Tyler, Katie Whitmore,
Helena M. Wilson, Alice Woodhead, Emily
C. Woodward.

EXAMINERS’ REPORT.

Once again we have been unable to satisfy
every claimant for a prize, and in order to
reduce the list to manageable limits we have
been obliged to exclude all solvers who have
been enriched during the last year.

As for mentions, space forbids us to indulge
in anything less honourable than “very
highly commended,” and even that has been
much more deserved than usual.

Concerning the special difficulties we need
only refer to the mysterious M in line 1 and
to the adjective in line 6. It was rare indeed
for any solver who surmounted both those to
fail elsewhere. The first stands for “maiden”
in cricket parlance, being the manner in which
a “maiden” over is recorded on the score
sheet. It is not the first time in which the
device has been employed in these puzzles,
and yet it was interpreted in no less than
twenty-six different ways.

The second difficulty is not so easily disposed
of, as several adjectives equally well
describe the fanciful G. But few of them are
really appropriate as qualifying “guile,” and
to select the right one severely tested the
solver’s ability.

For instance, “flowery” describes the G
exactly but is not at all a happy qualification
of guile. We think that “fanciful” is, on
the whole, the best word for the double duty,
but we have also accepted “beautiful,”
“wonderful” and “exquisite.” “Picturesque”
would have been good but for the
necessary transference of the accent from the
last to the first syllable.

We observe with great pleasure the much
larger number of solutions giving the form of
the verse correctly. Failure in this respect in
this puzzle marks the difference between the
solutions most highly and very highly
commended.

As to punctuation, actual mistakes had to
be counted, and we found two of a glaring character
in several papers, namely a comma after
tried and after clash! Let no one say in regard
to such errors that they are matters of opinion.

Many solvers still persist in ignoring the
title, and others will write their names at the
foot instead of at the head of their solutions.
But on the whole the difference in carefulness
between the solutions we now receive and
those of three years ago is amazing. So much
for the educational value of Our Puzzle Poems.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

Girls’ Employments.

Emigration.—”In which part of South
Africa should I have the best prospect of
obtaining employment as a useful help?
Owing to a delicacy of the chest, I have been
advised to seek a dry climate.“—Christine.

Domestic servants, pace the latest report
from the Emigrants’ Information Office, are in
less demand in South Africa than in Canada
and Australasia. At the same time active
girls, who are willing to rough it and to work
hard, can usually obtain respectable situations
with good wages. South Africa, however, is
a large tract of country, and it may be of
value to “Christine” if we quote some
passages from an interesting letter which we
have recently received from Miss Plunkett,
who has lived for some time at Johannesburg.
Miss Plunkett writes:—”Personally I cannot
advise young women to go to Johannesburg;
salaries are much lower; situations are scarce,
and there are many other reasons why they
should avoid the Transvaal altogether. British
possessions are certainly to be preferred.
Young women intending to go out to South
Africa ought to procure reliable facts from
the Agent-General of Cape Colony or Natal,
or the United British Women’s Emigration
Association, Imperial Institute, South Kensington,
who can extend information and advice
on Rhodesia also.” Miss Plunkett (to whom
we tender our thanks for this helpful letter) adds
the information that the Women’s Residential
Home, to which we referred some months ago,
is now at 91, Bree Street, Johannesburg, and
has passed under the care of Mrs. Matthews.

Nursing.—I am anxious to become a
trained nurse, but I could not pay a premium.
I have been engaged for four years as a
children’s nurse. I am twenty-three, and
have no home.—S. E. C.

Under the circumstances “S. E. C.” mentions,
we think she might find it difficult to be
taken as a probationer into one of those
hospitals to which a recognised training-school
is attached, while if she entered certain others
which might be eager to have her, the drawback
would be that in middle life she would be
thrown out of this kind of work because no hospital
would appoint to a paid post a nurse who
was not, in the technical sense, “fully trained.”

On the other hand, there is a great demand
at the present time for what are known as
“Cottage Nurses,” and few women come
forward to fill these posts. A cottage nurse
is one who nurses the poor of a rural district
in their own homes, sleeping and living under
the cottager’s roof during the period of illness,
and helping to keep the house in order in
those cases where the patient is the cottager’s
wife. The salary, usually £25 to £30, is paid
to the nurse by an association or a local
committee. If “S. E. C.” cared to consider
this suggestion further, she must write to the
Hon. Secretary of the Holt-Ockley Association,
Mrs. Hervey Lee Steere, the Cottage, Ockley,
asking whether the association would be
willing to have her trained for this work.
There are other similar associations—one, for
instance, is the Mid-Oxon Association, in
which the Countess of Jersey is much interested,
and another has lately been established
under the best auspices in Norfolk.

{192}

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

MEDICAL.

STUDY AND STUDIO.

MISCELLANEOUS.