THE GIRL’S OWN
PAPER
Vol. XX.—No. 1005.]
[Price One Penny.
APRIL 1, 1899.
[Transcriber’s Note: This Table of Contents was not present in the original.]
THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.
VARIETIES.
A RAISED FLOWER-BED.
ABOUT PEGGY SAVILLE.
HOUSEHOLD HINTS.
THANK GOD FOR MAY.
A HAPPY HEALTHY GIRLHOOD.
“THAT LUNCHEON!”
LETTERS FROM A LAWYER.
THREE GIRL-CHUMS, AND THEIR LIFE IN LONDON ROOMS.
“OUR HERO.”
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH
All rights reserved.]
CHAPTER I.
A lady came out of a little house set in the
corner of a quiet street on the northern edge of
Bloomsbury. The house she left was tiny and
odd-shaped, and seemed to have been built as an
afterthought on a remnant of ground spared from
the erection of its high, solemn, symmetrical
neighbours, which towered two storeys above it.
Among the dark dingy brick houses its front alone
was painted, and it was also rounded in form,
probably to give a little more space to its small
rooms. It had a verandah too, whose top made
a sort of balcony for the upper windows, and the
whole was decorated by bright hardy creepers.
As the lady left the house, she proceeded to
cross the road. About midway she paused, and
looking back, she smiled and nodded to somebody
not very distinctly visible. Then something moving
at the French window opening on the verandah
caught her eye. This was a maid-servant with
a little child, and the lady, nodding with greater
energy and kissing her hand, hurried on her way.
She had a light, swift step, and a bright mobile
face. But it bore a strain of repressed, intense
emotion scarcely to be understood in a pretty
young woman with a houseful of living treasures.
On and on she went, threading her way across
squares and along streets, looking neither to the
right hand nor to the left, her thoughts evidently
turned within herself. At last she emerged at the
south-western side of Bloomsbury, into a street{418}
chiefly taken up by shops and hotels.
She slackened her pace a little, as one
may if one wishes to prolong a pleasant
hope which may not be crowned by
realisation.
She paused opposite a shop window,
wherein, backed by a half-curtain of
heavy green serge, stood three low
easels. Two bore sketches, one of an
opal dawn over a mass of low red roofs;
the other of a lurid sunset above a forest
of spires and masts rising from a
purplish mist. But the centre easel was
empty.
She gave a slight exclamation, and
hastily entered the shop. She was not
long inside. When she came out, she
had her purse in her hands. Though
she had a smile on her lips, the emotion
in her face was but more vivid, as
if fuel had been added to the inner
flame.
She did not retrace her steps to the
little corner house with the creeper-draped
verandah. She went on westward,
through the quiet streets at the
back of Oxford Street until she reached
a long, decorous thoroughfare many of
whose doors were adorned with brass
plates bearing the names of well-known
doctors. Again she slackened her pace
and looked at her watch.
Very slowly did she walk past one
great house, with heavy stained glass
in the dining-room windows, and an
elaborate gorgon’s head for the brass
knocker. As she drew near the broad
white steps, the door, which bore the
name of Dr. Thomas Ivery, opened, and
a woman came out, hastily drawing a
veil over tear-stained features. With
a sudden movement, our pedestrian
stepped forward and arrested the staid
man-servant in the very act of closing
the door.
“Can I see Dr. Ivery?” she asked.
“Well, ma’am”—the well-trained
servant hesitated—“his consulting hours
are just over. Have you an appointment
with him?”
“No,” she frankly admitted. “But
I think he may see me. Will you ask
him, please?—say that Mrs. Challoner
of Pelham Street will be so grateful if
he can spare her a few minutes.”
“I will ask him, ma’am,” answered
the man of the imperturbable face.
“Will you wait here for his answer?”
And he showed her into the front room
with the stained glass windows, of whose
glories in the deepening gloom of the
autumn afternoon little was visible save
one waving streak of crimson like a
stream of blood.
To her tense mood, the room seemed
heavy with the atmosphere of doom.
She wondered whether the apartment
had any other uses, whether a happy
family ever gathered about the great
hearth, or a merry party ever sat around
the long dining-table. There were big
pictures on the walls, though all she
could see of them was spaces of darkness
and mystery enclosed by heavy
gilt frames. A bust stood ghostly in
the furthest corner.
She had not to wait long. The man-servant
threw open the door.
“Dr. Ivery will see Mrs. Challoner,”
he announced, as if she were one of a
waiting group. “Will you walk this
way, madam.”
She followed him along a gloomy
passage. He ushered her into a room,
cheerful and homelike compared with
that she had left. This got the last of
the day’s brightness through a big west
window overlooking some open space;
it was lined with books; a great blue
jar filled with red flowers stood in one
corner; one or two homely crayon portraits
and weak little water-colours hung
immediately behind the doctor, as he
sat in front of his desk.
“Mrs. Challoner?” he said, half-interrogatively.
He had never seen her
in walking dress before. There was a
suggestion of anxiety in his tone.
“Yes, Mrs. Challoner, Pelham
Street,” she humbly explained. “Will
you forgive me, sir, and tell me if I am
doing wrong. I so want to speak to you
about my husband.”
“Ah, your husband,” echoed the
doctor. “Yes, yes—nothing wrong
anew, I hope.”
“Oh, no,” she answered. “All is
going on well, so well that I know——”
she paused. “I want to consult you
privately, Dr. Ivery. I could get no
opportunity while Charlie was so very
ill, and since he has been better only
the young doctor has come, so I thought
if I might visit you here—if you will
forgive me?”
“Certainly, Mrs. Challoner, certainly.
A private conversation with a patient’s
nearest friend is often as much a
physician’s duty as writing a prescription.
Tell me just what is on your mind
about your husband.”
Dr. Ivery was a tall spare man with a
silvered head very high and full at the
top. His composed face softened as he
met the eager searching eyes of the
young wife. This was a woman who
must have the truth. He thanked God
inwardly that though the truth for her
must be hard enough, yet it was not the
hardest!
“It is the future, sir,” she said,
schooling her voice to absolute calmness.
“Charlie is already talking of
returning to the office.”
“The season of the year is against
him,” remarked the physician, guardedly.
“But, apart from anything just now,
sir,” she pleaded, “what do you think
of Charlie’s possibilities in the long
run?”
She said the only words she could
bear to say. It would have killed her
to ask, “Has Charlie any chance of life?
Must Charlie die?”
The doctor paused. This was not
because he had to extinguish hope, but
because he feared to fan it too much.
“My dear lady,” he said, “I am
sure I need not tell you that such
symptoms as his are always serious and
always mean that grave mischief has
been done. At the same time, apart from
these lung troubles, his general health is
unusually good. The mischief seems
so local, that if he could get the right
climatic conditions, I would incline to
believe that he may live as long and as
happily and usefully as most of us.”
Mrs. Challoner’s face brightened.
“And are such climatic conditions to
be found anywhere in Great Britain?”
she asked wistfully.
“I fear not,” said the doctor. “I
was thinking of some of the colonies in
the Southern Hemisphere.”
“I thought so,” she answered with
patient sadness. She and Charlie had
talked over these matters before. Even
before his recent illness, her husband
had said that if he had known his own
constitution earlier, he would not have
adopted such a profession as a solicitor’s,
with all the limitations which would
involve a new professional training in
any change of sphere.
“Would there be any good for Charlie
in a long, long sea voyage?” she asked
in the tone of one pleading for a dear
life.
The doctor brightened.
“The very greatest good,” he said.
“This is just one of the cases where a
sea voyage often gives a new lease of
life. But we scarcely like to suggest it
to a young professional man—a young
married man. We find that an absolute
rearrangement of life is often more
feasible.”
“A sea voyage could be managed,
Dr. Ivery!” cried Mrs. Challoner. “If
there is hope in it, it can be done—it
shall be done!”
“To be of real service, it must be very
long,” warned the physician.
“It shall be the very longest that is
to be had,” she said. She had risen
from her seat. “I will talk over all
details with my husband,” she added.
“And when you come, sir, you will
support my arguments.”
“Certainly,” he said, “and most
heartily too, now I am entitled to do so.
We must remember that we may have
disappointment,” he added, gazing-down
at her eager face. “But I can assure you
we shall have good grounds to hope.”
“I must not detain you longer,” she
said. “How blessed you are to be able
to make others as happy as you have
made me.”
“I have often to make them sad,” he
answered, shaking his head, “at least,
so far as we poor humans know what is
gladness and what is sadness. And
Mr. Challoner is really doing well?
My assistant always gives favourable
reports. And your boy? A bonnie boy!
Why, who is looking after him while
you are so much absorbed in your
husband?”
“Oh, he can be with us now since
Charlie has been getting stronger!”
she answered. “And I can always
trust him with Pollie. I don’t know
what I should do without her. She has
been with us ever since we married. I
have been so much more fortunate than
most of my friends.”
“Pollie has been more fortunate than
some of your friends’ Pollies probably,”
laughed the doctor. “I shouldn’t wonder
but you spoil her.”
“No, I don’t!” declared Mrs. Challoner,
with a good housewife’s indignation.
“But I knew when I had a good
servant, and I kept my place open for
her for six months during her mother’s
last illness, and when her invalid sister
was attending the Free Hospital, I had{419}
her to stay with Pollie. That is how we
came to hear about you, Dr. Ivery. So
I am sure we have been trebly repaid.
These poor people live in a little damp
cottage in Essex—I don’t wonder the
family are sickly. Pollie herself has
grown into a different girl since she has
lived in Pelham Street.”
She spoke quite volubly. The doctor
understood the nervous tension thus
suddenly relaxed. She scarcely knew
what she was saying. Then she recollected
herself, smiled—the smile
mounting to her eyes—for the first time
for many weeks, and modestly took her
leave.
The doctor himself escorted her to his
door, the watchful attendant saying to
himself, “There ain’t a many ladies, be
they whom they may, for whom the
master does that.”
The physician returned to his study,
thoughtful. He said to himself, “I
wonder how they are to manage this?
Challoner has said enough to me to
show how necessary he felt a speedy
return to business to be! I suppose
she is going to work some sort of little
human miracle. How she lighted up!
I wish I could find such a miracle to be
worked by some of my lady patients, if
it would waken them up thus. But I
suppose each of us must find his or her
own miracles. They cost too much for
any of us to be able to get them for each
other.”
Mrs. Challoner turned eastward with
flying feet. Her one thought now was,
that at any cost this thing must be done.
She felt herself like a frail little ship
which has but to get the wind behind it
to speedily reach its desired haven.
Only she had got to steer it! If it were
wrecked, the fault would lie with her,
and with her only. It is something to
have ever gone through such an hour
of glorious life. Henceforth, come what
may, we know the secret of the faith
which “can remove mountains.” We
know too that the great will of the
universe is with all things good and
glad and hopeful, though we may fail
to set our little vessels where they can
catch its current, or though they may
come to disaster on other vessels already
foundered.
Still, she had another visit to make
ere she went back to the little house with
the verandah.
This time she paused at a great house
in one of the more important Bloomsbury
squares. On its portal it bore the sign
of “St. George’s Institute of Arts and
Languages.”
She was admitted with smiles, for of
old she had been familiar there. She
stayed inside fully half an hour. When
she came out her face was not less glad,
but it was grave and set, as that of a
sailor whose hand is already on the
wheel.
She had one more interruption of her
homeward journey. She was not far
from Pelham Street, when she was
suddenly greeted by a short, plump lady
richly dressed.
“Why, Lucy, you are so absorbed that
I believe you would have passed me, your
very own sister!” cried the stranger.
They shook hands heartily.
“Have you been calling at our place?”
asked Mrs. Challoner. “Didn’t Pollie
invite you to await my return? She
knew I would not be much later than
this.”
“Oh, yes, she asked me to wait.
‘Her mistress would not like to miss
Mrs. Brand,’” said the lady, evidently
mimicking Pollie’s tone. “She was
civil enough. I did sit down for a few
minutes; but, as it was plain there was
some cast-iron rule against my getting
upstairs to see Charlie——”
Mrs. Challoner interrupted. “I had
told her no visitors were to be admitted
during my absence,” she said, “and
she knows that when I am at home I
allow nobody to go upstairs, not even
Charlie’s great chum, Wilfrid Somerset,
without my going too. Charlie is so
lively and energetic that unless I am
there to intervene and put on the brake,
he would take to delivering orations,
and then in a moment all that he has
regained might be lost.”
“Well, I thought you might have
made an exception of me,” remarked
Mrs. Brand. “You might have credited
me with some sense, seeing that I am
your own sister—your only relative in
London; it seemed hard to find myself
shut out by a servant.”
“I could not know you would call,
Florence,” said Mrs. Challoner very
gently. She might have added, “since
you have not called for more than a
week,” but she refrained, partly because
she did not wish to reproach, and partly
because she was by no means sure that
under any circumstances would she have
made an exception of Florence Brand.
“It does not matter,” Mrs. Brand
answered. “I don’t suppose either of us
lost much. But if Charlie is so weak and
so unfit to take care of himself, it’s a
bad outlook for you, poor dear, and you
are worn to a thread paper already.”
“Won’t you turn back with me, and
have a cup of tea with us?” invited the
younger lady.
“No, thanks,” said Mrs. Brand.
“Mr. Brand does not like me to be out
alone after dark, and already it will be
dark before I get home. No, never
mind; I’ve heard how Charlie is and
I’ve seen you and the boy, and, by the
way, Lucy, through having been left so
much with Pollie, I do believe little
Hugh is catching her horrid Essex
accent.”
“Well, then he must let it go again!”
retorted Mrs. Challoner with some spirit.
More than once she had silenced a
reflection that her sister, with her well
appointed nursery and her lady
“mother’s help,” with no duty beyond
attendance on the two little Brands,
both older than Hugh, might have
invited a visit from her nephew while
his father lay at death’s door, and his
mother and her solitary servant wrestled
with sick nursing and housewifery.
She had said to herself that Florence
had not reflected on the struggle it was,
and would have been quite ready to
give help if she had been asked for it.
But that could not be, though Lucy had
conquered her insurgent independence
sufficiently to give one or two broad
hints, which had fallen dead. Yet it did
seem hard that Florence, so slow to
consider, should be so quick to criticise!
“Well, as things are going on so
nicely, I suppose we shall see you at
our place soon,” said Mrs. Brand. “I
should think you ought to take Charlie
for some drives before the weather gets
cold. It would be a good thing for him
to have a real change. It might have
saved much, if only he had taken one in
time. Jem and I are thinking of running
down to Brighton next Saturday.
Jem can stay till Tuesday morning, and
maybe I’ll persuade him to leave me
there for a day or two longer. It’s such
a rest to get away from one’s housekeeping
and one’s children and one’s
callers! I can assure you I’m a very
busy woman, Lucy,” she laughed,
“though I see by your face that you
don’t believe it. I might well envy you
your nice homely little house, with only
Pollie to control. Why, our table
decorations alone are a perpetual worry,
and the cook’s temper is awful. Ta-ta!
Don’t bring Charlie to see us till I am
sure to be back at home.”
They parted and Lucy Challoner went
on. The little interview had not done
her good. She began to feel that she
was very tired—tired in body now, and
tired in soul, with the sense of a steep
duty stretching before her.
But when she turned the corner of
Pelham Street, and saw the cheery light
streaming from the windows both within
and above the verandah, her feet felt
lighter. Ten minutes later, presiding
over the little tea-table drawn up beside
her husband’s couch, Lucy Challoner
was again her dauntless self, prepared
to extract its uttermost from every
pleasant possibility.
She brought out her purse with a
dramatic air of mystery.
“Do you see this little article,
Charlie,” she said. “Look at it!”
“Why, it’s the old purse I gave you
during our honeymoon,” he answered
in his invalid’s whisper. “Poor little
girl, if I had been able to put more in
it, it would have been worn out by this
time!”
“Oh, never mind that nonsense,” said
she. “This purse held five shillings
when I went out this afternoon. What
do you think it holds now?”
“Not more than four-and-sixpence I
hope,” he replied, “for you have been
out so long, that I trust you have treated
yourself at least to a sixpenny bus
fare.”
“Sir, do not trifle,” she said demurely.
“Guess again. I brought home
more, not less. You give it up? Well,
this purse now contains three pounds
eight shillings. I did not spend a
penny, and Messrs. Mapp have sold my
little sketch of the old Surrey mill and
have handed me three guineas for it.”
“And a very good bargain somebody
got,” remarked Charlie, who was
straightway called “an ungrateful
man.” “I should like to keep all your
pictures to myself,” he said.
“That is selfish,” she answered, with
quaint affectation of dogmatism. “Don’t
you know that the true purpose of a
work of art is to be seen and not merely
possessed?”
Charlie laughed. “I would not
grudge it to a gallery,” he said. “But
if some fellow has got to possess it, I’d
rather I was that fellow.”
“But that wasn’t in our bond,” persisted
his wife. “Don’t you remember
that when I gave up teaching to marry
you, sir, I bargained that I might sell
any sketch I did, provided that I never
sketched when I ought to be doing my
duty to you?”
“Nevertheless you forgot to put in a
clause that I was not to buy them,”
laughed Charlie. “I suppose my money
is as good as any other body’s—always
provided I have any,” he added, with a
little sigh.
“You are so mercenary!” cried Lucy.
“Do you think I cared only for the
money—though I did want to be able
to give you real presents, sometimes.
No, sir! Let me tell you I care also
for my art. I wanted it to gain criticism—I
desired it to pass tests.”
“A gentle hint that my art opinions
are not worth much!” said Charlie
archly.
“A gentle hint that you have such
foolish opinions about a certain woman,
that, provided five pound notes were
in plenty, you would give her one for
an outlined cube set on four sticks, and
inscribed with the legend ‘This is a
pig!’” said Lucy.
“But now, Charlie,” she went on, with
a sudden change of tone from the
assumed merriment in which they had
both innocently disguised the anxieties
lying in both breasts, “I have got a
piece of news for you—very important,
good news. You are to go for a long
sea voyage. It is all arranged. Dr.
Ivery says so.”
There was a moment’s pause.
“But it is impossible, Lucy,” said the
young husband gravely. “And that
being so, it is well for us to remember
that, could I get it, it might do me no
real good.”
“But you can get it,” Lucy cried,
almost passionately. “Of what good are
our savings, small as they are, if they
are not to help you to—to recover
health,” she said with a gasp.
“Lucy, my dear,” said Charles
Challoner, putting his arm about her
and drawing her close to him, “could
it do me good to go away, knowing
that every day of the holiday brought
want nearer to you and the boy and
myself? Would not all the good I might
gain be undone if I had to return home
and begin life again under the hardest
and worst conditions, struggling for
each day’s bread, dreading lest another
attack might leave you not only a
widow, Lucy, but penniless, perhaps in
debt?”
“Ah, I own all that, Charlie,” she
admitted, gently withdrawing herself
from his clasp that she might gaze
straight into his eyes, “but I have
thought it all out, and planned everything,
so that this shall not be. You
must arrange for a year’s leave of
absence from your office; I think the
firm will give you that—you leaving
your salary to be paid to whoso shall
temporarily undertake your work.”
“And am I to lose the little business
I am gathering up for myself—my three
or four private clients?” he asked
piteously, as if he felt himself already
yielding to the sweet dominance of her
will.
“Transfer them to your locum tenens,
too,” she said, “or even lose them;
something may have to be sacrificed.
Then from our little hoard take what
will suffice for a thoroughly long sea-voyage—there
must be no doing it in a
half-and-half way. And leave the rest
in the bank.”
“The rest in the bank!” echoed poor
Charlie. “There won’t be much to
leave after paying for a long journey for
you and me and the boy. And it will
cost something to keep the house going
while we are away, or we should lose
dreadfully if we tried to sell leasehold
and furniture at a pinch.”
“Dearest old boy!” said his wife,
laying her cheek upon his. “Why will
he interrupt? and why will he give
himself needless worries? I am to stay
at home with the boy and to keep the
house going. Did he think I was to
be dragged all over the world—I and
our poor little pet?” (She could speak
so, never flinching, while shocks of pain
shook her heart at the thought that no
such journey was possible, but only this
awful loneliness of which she would not
dare to begin to think, until Charlie
should be fairly gone, and it was too late
to call him back!) “And I’ll whisper it
to you, Charlie, that just as I added
three guineas to my five shillings this
afternoon, so I trust when you come
back you will find something—not much
maybe, and yet something—added to
the nest egg you will leave in the bank.
For, Charlie, at the St. George’s Institute,
they are prepared to forgive me for
deserting them for you, and they will
take me on again as a teacher, and Mr.
Mapp says he thinks my sketches will
sell very well, and he advises me to try
for a little book-illustrating.”
“And what will become of Hugh,
while you are at the Institute?” asked
Charlie.
“I have thought it all out,” she
answered. “He shall go to that nice
kindergarten near the church. Its hours
are the same as at the Institute. I
shall take him when I go, and call for
him on my return.”
“I did not marry you for all
this, Lucy,” observed Charlie, looking
earnestly at her.
She knew what he meant. But she
lightly turned aside the pathos of his
words.
“I don’t believe you thought I had
it in me,” she said. “There isn’t very
much in me, perhaps—just enough to
hold out for a little while till my husband
comes back, robust and strong.”
“You must have been thinking over
this for some time, Lucy?” he remarked.
“For a few days,” she answered.
“And to know myself laying little plans
and setting little traps, with you so innocent
of them, has made me feel quite
guilty of keeping a secret.”
“Poor little girl!” said Charlie, “and
I too had my secret. At least your
secret has turned something into a
secret, by investing a trifle, which I did
not mention to you, with a significance
it did not have before. If you had not
told your secret, you would never have
heard mine!”
They paused in their talk, for Pollie
came into the room to remove the tea-things.
“Did you tell her anything of your
plans?” asked Charlie, motioning his
head towards the door as the maid
closed it behind her.
“Certainly not,” Lucy answered.
“Is it likely I would tell her of my
schemes before you heard them? What
makes you ask such a question?”
“Because she looks so solemn and
constrained,” he answered, “as people
do when they know something important
is in the air.”
(To be continued.)
VARIETIES.
More Information Wanted.
Possible Boarder: “Now, I have enjoyed
my dinner very much, and if it was a fair
sample of your meals I should like to come
to terms.”
Landlady: “First of all may I ask if it was
a fair sample of your appetite?”
Painting for Posterity.—“What a
folly,” said Sir Edward Burne-Jones, on one
occasion, “to talk of only painting for
posterity. Posterity is only one more drop in
the ocean of time. Indeed, I never pass the
chalk-artist working upon the pavement, but
I think, ‘Ah, brother, my pictures can last
but a day longer than yours.’”
Classical Music.
“Mamma, what is classical music?”
“Oh, don’t you know? It is the kind you
have to like, whether you like it or not.”
An Oriental Proverb.
A Source of Weakness.—A frequent
source of weakness lies in the notion that
what we do at the moment does not matter
much, because we shall be able to alter and
mend and patch it as we like by-and-by.
Melancholy Words.
The words “no more,” it was once remarked
by Madame de Staël, both in sound and sense
are more expressive of melancholy meaning
than any others in the English language.
If not before these, at least second in the
scale may be placed the single word “alone,”
and next to this “never.”
Two Halves make a Whole.
Mother: “Bobbie, how many sisters has
your new schoolfellow?”
Bobbie: “He has one, mamma. He tried
to make me believe he had two half-sisters,
but he doesn’t know that I’m studying
fractions.”
A RAISED FLOWER-BED.
One of the ancient trees upon my lawn
having fallen into a dying condition, I was
reluctantly compelled to give an order for
its removal.
I was sorry to part with an old favourite,
and also I was a little puzzled as to how the
great bare place left by its wide-spreading
branches was to be filled up. At last an
inspiration came, “We will have a raised bed
of flowers and shrubs!”
It was a recollection of my youth, for I
could recall rustic beds, tier upon tier, in a
certain garden in which I had played when a
child.
I sketched for my proposed bed a plan
which was skilfully carried out, and all through
the summer it has been so ornamental, and so
much admired that I have had it photographed,
and will now endeavour to describe
how it was made, so that, if desired, it can be
imitated, or at any rate the idea
can be adapted, with such variation
of size and shape as may be
thought desirable.
Fig. 1 gives a section view of
details. Fig. 2 shows the bed
finished, and ready to receive the
plants.
A tree stem about four feet
six inches in length was firmly
sunken about
eighteen inches in
the ground; upon
it was placed
half of a butter
tub, obtained
from the grocer.
When this was
nailed to the tree-stem,
the outside
of the tub was
covered with pieces of bark and small rustic
branches, which concealed its plebeian origin.
A young larch tree was cut into lengths of
three feet six inches, and these were pointed
at one end and driven firmly about eighteen
inches into the soil.
The bark being left on these logs gives
them a rustic
effect, but of
course any wood
can be used and
some bits of bark
nailed on will answer
almost as
well. Inside the
ring of logs good
soil should be
filled in and strips
of turf inserted
in the joinings of
the logs to prevent the earth from falling
through.
Half logs, with the bark on, should be
placed round the outer edge of the bed in
order to keep the soil in its place, the earth
being filled in to form a sloping border for low
growing plants and shrubs.
In the centre tub the photograph shows the
rice paper plant (Aralia Sieboldii), which is
hardy and handsome at all seasons of the
year.
The pretty Ivy-leaved Toad-flax and Creeping
Jenny droop over the edges of the rustic
work, and the other plants, of which I subjoin
a list, are as varied as possible in form
and colour.
Golden Privet and Juniper, the silvery leaves
of the variegated periwinkle and veronica,
the silver carex, and the flowers that supply
other colours make the bed an extremely
pretty feature in our garden throughout the
year, all the plants I have
mentioned being perfectly
hardy.
One advantage of such
an arrangement in small
gardens is, that it affords
the opportunity of growing{422}
a large variety of plants in a comparatively
small space of ground. Another advantage is
that the gardening work can be done without
much stooping.
Although my flower-bed had to pass
through the test of an exceptionally dry
summer, not a single plant died; on the
contrary all grew luxuriantly and gave me the
pleasant feeling that they were vigorous and
enjoying the warm sunshine which brought
out the rich tints of their leaves and flowers.
THE RAISED BED.
List of Plants in Raised Flower-Bed.
Abelia Rupestris, and Rice Paper Plant,
Hypericum Calycinum, various Ivies, Golden
Privet, Variegated Periwinkle, Fuchsia
Elegans, Dwarf Retinospora, Thujopsis
Dolabrata, Cedronella Cana, Golden Juniper,
Cotoneaster Buxifolia, Bambusa Fortunii-Variegata,
Silver Carex, Yucca Filimentosa,
Crucianella Stylosa, Linum Perenne, Ivy-leaved
Toad-flax, Creeping Jenny.
Eliza Brightwen.
ABOUT PEGGY SAVILLE.
By JESSIE MANSERGH (Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey), Author of “Sisters Three,” etc.
CHAPTER XXVI.
few days
later Peggy was
driven home to
the vicarage, and
stood the drive
so well that she was
able to walk downstairs
at tea-time and
sit at the table with
only a cushion at her
back to mark her out
as an invalid just recovering
from a serious
illness. There was a
special reason why she
wished to look well this
afternoon, for Arthur was expected by
the six o’clock train; and the candidate
who had come out first in his examination
lists must not have his reception
chilled by anxiety or disappointment.
Peggy was attired in her pink dress,
and sat roasting before the fire so
as to get some colour into her cheeks.
If her face were only the size of the
palm of a hand, she was determined
that it should at least be rosy; and if
she looked very bright, and smiled all
the time, perhaps Arthur would not
notice how thin she had become.
When half-past six struck, everyone
crowded into the school-room, and
presently a cab drove up to the door, and
a modest rap sounded on the knocker.
“That’s not Arthur!” cried Mrs.
Asplin confidently. “He knocks straight
on without stopping, peals the bell at
the same time, and shouts Christmas
carols through the letter-box! He has
sent on his luggage, I expect, and
is going to pounce in upon us later on.”
“Ah, no, that’s not Arthur!” assented
Peggy; but Mr. Asplin turned his head
quickly towards the door, as if his ear
had caught a familiar note, hesitated
for a moment, and then walked quickly
into the hall.
“My dear boy!” the listeners heard
him cry, and then another voice spoke
in reply—Arthur’s voice—saying, “How
do you do, sir?” in such flat, subdued
tones as filled them with amazement.
Mrs. Asplin and Peggy turned towards
each other with distended eyes. If
Arthur had suddenly slid down the
chimney and crawled out on the hearth
before them, turned a somersault in at
the window, or crawled from beneath
the table, it would have caused no
astonishment whatever; but that he
should knock at the door, walk quietly
into the hall, and wait to hang up his hat
like any other ordinary mortal—this was
indeed an unprecedented and extraordinary
proceeding! The same explanation
darted into both minds. His
sister’s illness! He was afraid of
startling an invalid, and was curbing
his overflowing spirits in consideration
for her weakness.
Peggy rose from her chair, and stood
waiting, with sparkling eyes and burning
cheeks. He should see in one glance
that she was better—almost well—that
there was no need of anxiety on her
behalf. And then the tall, handsome
figure appeared in the doorway, and
Arthur’s voice cried—
“Peggikens! Up and dressed! This
is better than I hoped. How are you,
dear little Peg?”
There was something wrong with the
voice, something lacking in the smile;
but his sister was too excited to notice
it. She stretched out her arms towards
him, and raised her weak, quavering,
little voice in a song of triumph.
“Don’t, Peg!” cried Arthur sharply.
“Don’t, dear!” He was standing by
her side by this time, and suddenly he
wrapped his arms round her and laid
his curly head on hers. “I’m plucked,
Peg!” he cried, and his voice was full
of tears. “Oh, Peg, I’m plucked!
It’s all over; I can never be a soldier.
I’m plucked—plucked—plucked!”
“Arthur dear! Arthur darling!”
cried Peggy loudly. She clasped her
arms round his neck, and glared over
his shoulder, like a tigress whose young
has been threatened with danger. “You
plucked! My brother plucked! Ho!
ho! ho!” She gave a shrill peal of
laughter. “It’s impossible! You were
first of all, the very first. You always
are first. Who was wicked enough,
and cruel enough, and false enough to
say that Arthur Saville was plucked in
an examination?”
“Arthur, my boy, what is it? What
does it mean? You told us you were
first. How can you possibly be
plucked?”
“My—my eyes!” said Arthur faintly.
He raised his head from Peggy’s shoulder
and looked round with a haggard smile.
“The medical exam. They would not
pass me. I was rather blind when I
was here before, but I thought it was
with reading too much. I never suspected
there was anything really wrong—never
for a moment!”
“Your eyes!” The Vicar pressed
his hand to his forehead, as if unable to
grasp this sudden shattering of his
hopes. “But—but I don’t understand!
Your eyes never gave you any trouble
when you were here. You were not
short-sighted. One knew, of course,
that good sight was necessary; but
there seemed no weakness in that
direction. I can’t imagine any cause
that can have brought it on.”
“I can!” said Arthur drearily. “I
got a bad knock at lacrosse a year
ago. I didn’t tell you about it, for it
wasn’t worth while; but my eyes were
bad for some time after that. I thought
they were all right again; but I had to
read a lot of things across a room, and
made a poor show of it. Then the
doctor took me to a window and pointed
to an omnibus that was passing.
“‘What’s the name on that ’bus?’
he said. ‘What is the colour of that
woman’s hat? How many horses are
there?’
“I guessed. I couldn’t see. I made
a shot at it, and it was a wrong shot.
He was a kind old chap. I think he
was sorry for me. I—I came out into
the street, and walked about. It was
very cold. I tried to write to you, but I
couldn’t do it—I couldn’t put it down in
black and white. No V.C. now, little
Peg! That’s all over. You will have
a civilian for your brother, after all!”
He bent down to kiss the girl’s cheeks
as he spoke, and she threw her arms
round his neck and kissed him passionately
upon his closed eyelids.
“Dear eyes!” she cried impetuously.
“Oh, dear eyes! They are the dearest
eyes in all the world, whatever anyone
says about them. It doesn’t matter what
you are—you are my Arthur, the best
and cleverest brother in all the world.
Nobody is like you!”
“You have a fine career before you
still, my boy! You will always fight, I
hope, and conquer enemies even more
powerful than armed men!” cried
Mrs. Asplin, trembling. “There are{423}
more ways than one of being a soldier,
Arthur!”
“I know it, mater,” said the young
man softly. He straightened his back
and stood in silence, his head thrown
back, his eyes shining with emotion, as
fine a specimen of a young English
gentleman as one could wish to meet.
“I know it,” he repeated, and Mrs.
Asplin turned aside to hide her tears.
“Oh, my pretty boy!” she was saying
to herself. “Oh, my pretty boy! And
I’ll never see him in his red coat, riding
his horse like a prince among them all!
I’ll never see the medals on his breast!
Oh, my poor lad that has the fighting
blood in his veins! It’s like tearing
the heart out of him to turn Arthur
Saville into anything but a soldier. And
the poor father—what will he say at
all when he hears this terrible news?”
She dared not trust herself to speak
again, the others were too much stunned
and distressed to make any attempt at
consolation, and it was a relief to all
when Mellicent’s calm, matter-of-fact
treble broke the silence.
“Well, for my part, I’m very glad!”
she announced slowly. “I’m sorry, of
course, if he has to wear spectacles,
because they are unbecoming, but I’m
thankful he is not going to be a soldier.
I think it’s silly having nothing to do but
drill in barracks, and pretending to fight
when there is no one to fight with. I
should hate to be a soldier in times of
peace, and it would be fifty thousand
times worse in war. Oh, my goodness,
shouldn’t I be in a fright! I should
run away, I know I should; but Arthur
would be in the front of every battle, and
it’s absurd to think that he would not get
killed. You know what Arthur is! Did
you ever know him have a chance of
hurting himself and not taking it? He
would be killed in the very first battle—that’s
my belief—and then you would be
sorry that you wanted him to be a
soldier! Or, if he wasn’t killed, he
would have his legs shot off. Last time
I was in London I saw a man with no
legs. He was sitting on a little board
with wheels on it, and selling matches
in the street. Well, I must say I’d
rather have my brother a civilian, as
you call it, than have no legs, or be cut
in pieces by a lot of nasty, naked old
savages!”
A general smile went round the
company. There was no resisting it.
Even Arthur’s face brightened, and he
turned his head and looked at Mellicent
with his old twinkling smile.
“Bravo, Chubby!” he cried. “Bravo,
Chubby! Commend me to Mellicent for
good, sound common-sense. The prospect
of squatting on a board, selling
matches, is not exhilarating, I must
confess. I’m glad there is one person
at least who thinks my prospects are
improved.” He gave a little sigh,
which was stifled with praiseworthy
quickness. “Well, the worst is over
now that I have told you and written the
letter to India. Those were the two
things that I dreaded most. Now I
shall just have to face life afresh, and
see what can be made of it. I must
have a talk with you, sir, later on, and
get your advice. Cheer up, Peggikins!
Cheer up, mater! It’s no use grieving
over spilt milk, and Christmas is
coming. It would never do to be in
the dolefuls over Christmas! I’ve got
a boxful of presents upstairs—amused
myself with buying them yesterday to
pass the time. You come up with me
to-night, Peg, and I’ll give you a peep.
You look better than I expected, dear,
but fearsome scraggy! We shall have
to pad her out a bit, sha’n’t we, mater?
She must have an extra helping of plum
pudding this year.”
He rattled on in his own bright style,
or in as near an imitation of it as he
could manage, and the others tried their
best to follow his example, and make
the evening as cheery as possible.
Once or twice the joy of being all together
again in health and strength conquered
the underlying sorrow, and the laughter
rang out as gayly as ever, but the next
moment Arthur would draw in his breath
with another of those short, stabbing
sighs, and Peggy would shiver, and lie
back trembling among her pillows. She
had no heart to look at Christmas
presents that night, but Arthur carried
her upstairs in his strong arms, laid her
on her bed, and sat beside her for ten
minutes’ precious private talk.
“It’s a facer, Peg,” he said. “I
can’t deny it’s a facer. When I walked
out of that doctor’s room I felt as weak
as a child. The shock knocked the
strength out of me. I had never
thought of anything else but being a
soldier, you see, and it’s a strange
experience to have to face life afresh,
with everything that you had expected
taken out of it, and nothing ahead but
blankness and disappointment. I’ve
been so strong too—as strong as a
horse. If it hadn’t been for that blow—well,
it’s over and it’s a comfort to me to
feel that it was not my own fault. If
I’d been lazy or careless and had failed
in the exam, it would have driven me
crazy; but this was altogether beyond
my control. It is frightfully rough luck,
but I don’t mean to howl—I must make
the best of what’s left!”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure you will. You
have begun well, for I think you have
been wonderfully brave and courageous
about it, Arthur dear!”
“Well, of course!” said Arthur
softly. “I always meant to be that,
Peg; and, as the mater says, it is only
another kind of battle. The other would
have been easier, but I mean to fight still!
I am not going to give up all my dreams.
You shall be proud of me yet, though
not in the way you expected.”
“I never was so proud of you in my
life!” Peggy cried. “Never in all my
life.”
Long after Arthur had kissed her and
gone to his own room she lay awake,
thinking of his words and of the expression
on his handsome face as the firelight
played on moistened eye and
trembling lip. “I mean to fight,”
“You shall be proud of me yet.” The
words rang in her ears and would not
be silenced. When she fell asleep
Arthur was still by her side; the marks
of tears were on his face. He was
telling her once more the story of disappointment
and failure; but she could
not listen to him, for her eyes were fixed
on something that was pinned on the
breast of his coat—a little iron cross with
two words printed across its surface.
In her dream Peggy bent forward and
read those two words with a great rush
of joy and exultation.
“For Valour!” “For Valour!”
Yes, yes, it was quite true! Never
was soldier flushed with victory more
deserving of that decoration than Arthur
Saville in his hour of disappointment and
failure.
(To be concluded.)
HOUSEHOLD HINTS.
For those who cannot drink tea without an
attack of indigestion to follow, there is good
news. Little tablets are now sold in boxes,
one of which added to each teaspoonful of tea
in the pot, corrects the tannin, and improves
the tea. Hundreds of people are now enabled
to drink tea who had been obliged to leave it
off, and these tablets are a most valuable discovery.
Boxes of these Tanocea tablets are sent
by the manufacturers, The Tanocea Tablet
Company, Bletchley Station, or can be got
from all Chemists and Grocers, price one
shilling per box.
To keep butter cool in summer is always
somewhat of a difficulty, but a butter-cooler is
easily improvised by turning a basin or clean
flower-pot over the butter on a plate. Place
that on a larger dish or basin in which there
is water, cover over the top basin with a piece
of flannel, the ends of which should rest in the
water, and the evaporation of the moisture will
keep the butter cool. The water must not be
allowed to touch the butter itself.
Be careful when you buy jam, bottled fruits,
pickles, or anything in glass vessels, to see
that there is no broken glass fallen inside.
Should the edge be chipped in any way,
examine the contents on the top of the jar or
bottle carefully, as broken glass has been found
in such, and it would be probably fatal if
swallowed. This caution is also necessary for
wine and beer bottles.
Children should all be taught to eat
salad olive oil. It obviates the necessity
of administering other oils as medicine,
and they get to like it very much. But
care should be taken that it is got from a
good maker, and that it really is olive oil.
With salad or even with cold potato and
a few drops of vinegar, this is most wholesome.
Gas-pipes that are not in use are elements
of danger, and great care should be taken not
to knock them in any way, or hang things
upon them so as to cause a leakage. This is very
easily done and is not always readily perceived,
so that there may be serious mischief before
it is discovered.
THANK GOD FOR MAY.
By HELEN MARION BURNSIDE.
A HAPPY HEALTHY GIRLHOOD.
(Dedicated to “The Mater.”)
By “MEDICUS” (Dr. GORDON-STABLES, R.N.).
he last quoted line
is, as you see, from
Johnson—Sam
Johnson the lexicographer,
Sam the
learned, and, if I
chose to be ill-natured,
I might add
Sam the sot. A man
of infinite jest and
“a stolid kind of
humour, but cuttingly
sarcastic”; a
man whom Scotland
delighted to honour, and did honour,
and treated with the greatest of kindness and
hospitality, which he rewarded by trying to
hold Scotland and the Scots up to ridicule
ever after. A man whose memory therefore
I cannot revere. But, giving him his due,
when he says “Wretched, unidea’d girls,” he
does not mean to insult young womanhood.
I think rather that, although his English
was like himself, too heavy and elephantine, he
meant to convey the impression that a girl who
has no ideas, no mind, cannot be truly happy.
And here I agree with Scotland’s foe. I pity
a poor lassie who has no mind of her own, or
who is possessed of a soul that is not firmly
anchored in herself, and ballasted with ideas
and convictions which are independent of
those of anyone else. A flighty soul like this
carries with it a nervous, silly, unhappy brain,
and a body that is too often feeble and far
from healthy.
I have met young ladies who confused Sam
Johnson with the rare Ben Jonson. Now
Sam was too obese and fond of the pleasures
of the table to understand and appreciate girlhood
and innocent beauty. Ben was a man
spiritual, not grossly corporeal. It was Ben
who wrote the lovely lines to Celia—
The idea, however, was not original, but
borrowed from the Greek. But listen, solid
Sam never could have penned such lines as
Ben wrote in his “Good Life, Long Life”—
Well, I believe I could preach a long, useful
and pleasant health sermon from the very
lines I have quoted. This is not quite my
intention, however. But nevertheless I like
to see a volume of poetry in a girl’s hand, and
some of our older poets really teach us many
a lesson, and these alas! are far too much
neglected. Fashions, even in poetry, change
as well as in music. Give me simplicity in
both, and keep your Browning and your
Wagner too. Many a lady in society pretends
to love both, who knows nothing about
either.
But, taking Gray as an example of a true
and simple poet, whose lines you can read
without racking your brain in wondering what
the poet means, is there not, think you, a
deal of truth in the verse that heads this
paper?
From work many a girl wins light spirits.
Work I mean, not the slavery which, alas!
is far too often the lot of poor shop lassies
and seamstresses, for whom my heart does
bleed. Work versus sauntering idleness.
This idleness means an open empty mind;
and parents may rest assured that, as Nature
abhors a vacuum, girls are not very old before
they get such minds filled with thoughts and
silly aspirations that tend neither to the
development of a healthy body nor a wholesome
mind. Young girls who have nothing
to do build themselves castles in the air and
people them with inmates that they themselves
are heartily ashamed of.
Indeed, I do not know anything more
likely to generate future unhappiness and
crabbed ill-health than graduation in the school
of idleness.
An idle body preys upon itself and eke an
idle mind.
I may be told that it is fashionable to be
idle. True, in certain ranks of life, but here
is my answer to that. Nature not only hates
a vacuum, but she is fond of evenness of
surface both as regards the material world
and as regards the immaterial. Nature even
levels the mountains, or is gradually doing so,
and fashion is a tool of hers. Fashion levels
down, education and honest work level up;
and, in time, Nature will thus see to it that
both shall meet.
It was, I think, Bulwer Lytton—one of the
heroes of my boyhood—who proposed an
“Aristocracy of Letters.” The notion has
not yet borne fruit, and the aristocracy we
have is certainly not very dignified, it being
constantly added to and adulterated by
parvenus of the lowest type, namely, men
who have made millions dishonestly, such as
quacks and patent nostrum men. So, in the
course of a few decades, we shall have little
reason to be proud of our “upper ten.” But
a true and pure aristocracy may yet arise in
this country from the ashes of the fading and
effete present. Nothing but wisdom, knowledge
and health can support this.
Well, every mater who wishes her girls to
grow up happy and healthy, as they ought
to be, has much to do and much to think
about.
It cannot be too strongly impressed upon a
mother’s mind that the first portion of a
child’s education is begun in the nursery.
Children are imitative to a degree, as much
so as the monkeys from which, some say,
we are evoluted. One cannot be too careful
then with the ethical management of the
nursery.
Servants allowed to enter there, or maids
who take a child out in its little carriage,
should be morally and physically pure. Even
baby may learn from a nurse things that will
never be forgotten. When she gets a little
older she may be corrected, and told that to
say this or do that is rude or naughty, and she
will refrain for fear of punishment—that is all.
The seed is sown, and nothing can eradicate
the mischief.
I look upon it as a crime for mothers to
give up their children wholly to nursery
training. The mother should be with her
darlings pretty nearly all the time; and if
she loves them, she will be. And a mother
has far greater influence over them than the
very best of nurses.
When babyhood merges into girlhood, one
of the first things to be checked is the
all-too-easily-learned habit of criticising—generally
spitefully—other children she has
seen out of doors. This is the first sign of
that spirit of tittle-tattleism which blossoms{426}
into verbosity, scandal, and all uncharitableness
in many full-blown old maids.
If charity and love for all who suffer life
cannot be taught by the mother or by a good
nurse, then never in this world can a child or
girl be truly happy or truly healthy. For a
sour and uncharitable soul always goes hand
in hand with a nervous or puny body.
Keep your girls busy. Be busy yourself,
mother. There is a dignity and grace about
household duties that put to the blush all
drawing-room airs and frivolities.
But I note that a real genuine young lady
is invariably natural and never ashamed to do
work that, a “wretched, unidea’d girl” would
deem infra dignitatem. I think that this is
lovely.
“’Pon honour,” as old military men used
to say, I’ve had earls’ or baronets’ daughters
in my caravan while gipsying, who have begged
of me to permit them to do something for me,
and they have hemmed my wind-ravelled
curtains, stitched my blinds, filled my pin-cushions—ay,
and some would have darned
my socks for me, had I permitted them!
Now, these were ladies, mind, in the truest
sense of the word, good God-fearing girls with
hearts full of sympathy and in perfect unison
with all the world around them.
Again, as to what some call “menial work,”
or household, the girl who learns to cook and
serve a dinner, or knows how a meal should
be served, or who is not ashamed even to bare
her bonnie white arms and help to wash up
the delf, the girl who knows even a little
medicine and surgery, the girl to whom the
gardener will come with a cut and bleeding
finger to be tenderly washed and dressed, the
girl who can get up betimes in the morning—she
is the girl who will make the best wife,
and the only wife really worth having.
And she will be healthy in body too,
because pure in thoughts and kind in nature.
The Girl of Commerce.
You find her everywhere almost nowadays.
She is not a natural production. She is got
up. She is forced and artificial. She cannot
be healthy, and has no more heart than a hen,
no more stamina or staying power than a
stalk of hemp. She is a resultant of the
inflexible law of supply and demand. Made
for the matrimonial market, grown to be sold,
and if—like a choice standard rose—she is
labelled with a title, she will go all the
sooner. Money will purchase a wife like this,
and, though marriage may change her and
love may come after, the man who has her
has speculated on the off-chance. And now
that wax dolls can be manufactured that can
both talk and walk, it seems to me that the
man might have done better with his money.
But, thank goodness, the majority of men
prefer the genuine, well-reared, healthy girl,
and the girl that has a heart.
But love is still a great factor—nay, the
very greatest—in this life, and, if that love be
real, oh, there is nothing it cannot do!
I must, as a medical man, go a little farther,
and tell the mater something that no scientist
will venture to deny. It is this: a loveless or
commercial marriage is not only followed by
a senseless and dreary monotonous life, but
children born in such wedlock are never truly
healthy in body, and very often they are
defective in mental qualifications, that is, in
brain power. Many a case of epilepsy is
congenital, and a child that is nerveless
is liable to future degeneracy, and apt to
fall into any kind of temptation. Doctors
have proofs of this every day.
But though ambitious parents may try to
alter Nature’s law, she herself is inexorable
and tells us sternly that the fittest shall
survive.
But, harking back to our poet’s lines—
I must give my medical testimony to the
truth herein conveyed. Work does give
exhilaration of spirits and enables a girl truly
to enjoy recreation and outdoor exercise, and,
moreover, the busy day results in calm
refreshing sleep at night.
Without sleep, without perfect exercise,
ventilation of rooms and fresh air everywhere,
no girl can grow up happy and healthful.
Coddling children and keeping them too
warm causes them to become fragile and
delicate, with no nerves worth mentioning,
except when they give rise to the tortures of
toothache and neuralgia, and no lungs good
enough to last.
There is, mother, but a sad future for that
girl who is ashamed to soil her fingers by
doing honest work, or ashamed to wear a
thimble and wield woman’s real weapon—the
needle.
But it is not natural for girls to hate work.
Do they not make the best of nurses, for
instance, and the most gentle-handed? It is
Scott who says—
And after many more years than I care to
recall—for fear of making me feel old—of
camp life and sea life, I can testify that girls
make the best of all gipsy folks. Amateur,
of course, I mean. But even in the management
of a picnic their abilities shine forth;
and in camp or on board ship, if one only
gives them credit for common sense, they can
do wonders.
The young lady who would not demean
herself—there is really no demeanment about
it—by doing cookery or kitchen work in her
own house often comes out strong in wayside
camp or caravan. She gets up to things as
if guided by instinct, can light fires, cook
plain nutritious meals, lay them out prettily,
and clear up afterwards with most amiable
and sweet-tempered dexterity, and, when all
is over, will take guitar or mandoline and
accompany your violin as if to the gipsy-manner
born.
However, I have no doubt that a good deal
of a girl’s willingness to work in this way,
depends upon the novelty and romance of her
surroundings, and very much also on the fact
that she is breathing the purest air that can
blow through dell or den, or balmy forest of
pine, or from the mountains themselves that
God built long before he made the poor puny
microbe man.
The Value of Health.
The value of health to any of us, whether
old or young, cannot well be over-estimated.
It is not, mind you, mater, that a deviation
from its paths may lead to death. Indeed,
many times and oft it would be far better if
it did so directly. Instead of that, however,
it may be, in girlhood, but the prelude to a
long life of untold misery and wretchedness.
Indeed, an ailing girl can never be anything
save an object of pity. It is spring-time with
her, but alas! it is a sad one—a spring that
brings not with it the promise of a gladsome
happy summer. The sun may shine, but it
shines not for her. She is unable thoroughly
to enjoy anything. There are times when
her very soul seems darkened, and when even
spiritual comfort brings no season of relief or
even forgetfulness. And at such moments is
it any wonder that she finds herself envying
her more happy sisters, and thinking that the
world is not only dark but cruel? Her companions
have health and happiness; they may
go anywhere and enjoy anything, and perhaps
they forget her entirely until their return.
What comfort shall I pen in these papers
for girls such as these? I think I can give a
little hope, and, with our Editor’s kind permission,
I shall continue this subject in my
next paper, and have something to say about
ailments and departures from the normal
standard of health, and hints for regaining
Heaven’s greatest blessing, that may prove
invaluable to many.
“THAT LUNCHEON!”
A YOUNG HOUSEKEEPER’S DILEMMA.
“Nellie dear,” said Mr. Vernon, the
principal solicitor in Riversmouth, to his
nineteen year old daughter and housekeeper,
“I have just run across to tell you that young
Squire Laurence is riding over to consult me
this morning, and I should like to bring him
in to lunch at half-past one. Can you
manage it?”
For a moment dismay ran riot in pretty
Nellie’s heart. Nearly ten o’clock already,
nothing to speak of in the house, and a smart
luncheon to provide, as well as the schoolboys’
early dinner! However, she must do her
best, and answered cheerfully to that effect.
“It need not be grand, you know,” added
her father encouragingly, “so long as everything
is nice and tasteful, as you so well
understand how to make it.”
Nellie had been on her way to practise, but
she now returned to the kitchen, and,
resuming her big apron, surveyed the larder
for the second time that morning. Ten
minutes earlier, yesterday’s underdone leg of
mutton re-roasted, with some vegetables, and
the remains of yesterday’s pudding, with the
addition of a homely roly-poly, had been deemed
sufficient for the one o’clock meal, and as Mr.
Vernon was dining out that evening, the butcher
had been dismissed without orders. Economy
was a stern necessity to Nellie, whose housekeeping
allowance was not unlimited.
Accustomed to making “something out of
nothing,” the cold remnants did not look as
hopeless to her as they might to some young
housekeepers. A cold whiting, the badly-roasted
mutton, and a bowl containing about
half a pint of tomato sauce, represented
absolute riches to Nellie’s mind at that
moment, and she quickly collected her
materials and set to work in the kitchen.
The menu she drew up was as follows:—
- Fish Scallops.
- Cold Salt Beef. Cannelon and Tomato Sauce.
- Potato Chips. Salad.
- Hot Apple Tart. Lemon Creams.
- Custards.
- Cheese. Biscuits.
The maid was despatched with orders for{427}
the milkman and greengrocer, and a basket in
which to bring back a pound of cold salt beef
in slices from the pastrycook’s, half-a-dozen
scallop-shells, and two lemons.
In the meantime Nellie began the creams,
which she knew must have plenty of time
to cool, and for this reason decided to make
them in cups. There was only a quart of
milk in the house; a pint of it she put into a
bowl with half an ounce of gelatine, and left
it to soak for half an hour, whilst she made
the rest into a custard, and stood the jug
containing it in cold water to facilitate its
cooling.
She next prepared a small bowl of breadcrumbs,
and finely flaked the whiting, removing
the bones. Then Mary having returned with
the things, Nellie peeled a small quarter of
one of the lemons very thin, and put milk,
gelatine, lemon-peel and five ounces of white
sugar into a lined saucepan on the fire.
During the time it took to bring it to the
boil, she buttered the scallop-shells and
proceeded thus:—A layer of breadcrumbs, a
layer of fish, salt and pepper to taste, a layer
of breadcrumbs, sprinkled with small lumps
of butter, and so on, taking care to heap the
materials well up in the centre of the shell,
and to scatter the last layer of breadcrumbs
liberally with butter; the scallops were then
placed on a baking-sheet ready for cooking,
twenty minutes being sufficient to brown them
nicely.
After boiling for five minutes, the contents
of the saucepan were strained into a jug with
a lip, and when sufficiently cool to prevent
curdling, the well-beaten yolks of two eggs were
stirred in. The directions, Nellie knew, were
to pour constantly from one jug to another till
nearly cold, but she had to content herself
with doing this occasionally, whilst making
the pastry for the tart.
A ring at the bell announced the arrival of
the greengrocer with the apples and lettuces.
As Mary was busy in the upper regions,
Nellie answered the door herself, returning
quickly to prepare the apples, which she
quartered and cored before peeling them, to
keep the pieces whole.
By this time the lemon-cream was cool
enough for her to add carefully the strained
juice of the lemons, stirring briskly the while,
after which it was poured into the cups, and
these were surrounded with cold water to set
the cream quickly.
“Now for the mutton,” said Nellie to
herself, proceeding to cut up the joint. “No
wonder the boys said it was like ‘old boots,’
and I fear its toughness isn’t entirely due
to under-cooking! Well, ‘cannelon’ is a
splendid way of using tough meat,” she
thought, first reserving several thick slices
to be converted into mock cutlets next day,
and then grinding the rest in the mincing-machine.
The minced meat was well seasoned
with salt, pepper, parsley, thyme, and a
dessertspoonful of Harvey’s sauce, adding a
soupçon of finely-chopped onion, half a cupful
of breadcrumbs and a well-beaten egg. She
made the mixture into balls rather larger than
a walnut, and placed them, wrapped in oiled
paper, on a tin, to be baked in a moderate
oven for half an hour. The tomato sauce was
put in a lined saucepan ready to be heated,
and the potatoes which Mary had peeled for
that “early dinner” she cut into slices to be
fried crisp and brown.
Mary was a tolerable plain cook; therefore,
after directing her, Nellie was free to arrange
fresh flowers in the dining-room, and to make
the necessary additions to her toilet, before
laying the luncheon, which she did herself, in
order to send the handmaiden up to dress at
a quarter to one.
The salad was soon made and prettily
decorated, the beef arranged tastefully on a
dish and garnished with parsley, and then
Nellie whisked the whites of two eggs with a
little sugar to a stiff froth, piling it in snowy
billows amongst the golden creams, previously
turned out into a glass dish. To this the
custards in dainty little cups made an excellent
vis-à-vis, the salad occupying a central
position on the table.
Mr. Vernon, entering the dining-room with
the guest, was abundantly satisfied with the
result of Nellie’s busy morning. Spotless
damask, bright electro-plate and glass, go far
to making up for costly dishes or priceless
silver, and the luncheon-table, decorated by
an old gold centre-piece, with sprays of fiery
Virginia creeper, and vases of citron chrysanthemums,
was a picture. He could not but
observe the quick look of admiration his
daughter called forth when he presented Mr.
Laurence.
She presided at lunch with a gentle dignity,
conversing with the visitor, her father and the
two boys, and betraying no anxiety about the
arrangements, which insouciance Mary tried
to deserve by changing the courses as deftly
as she could. Mr. Vernon, perhaps for the
first time, realised what a treasure he possessed
in one who, at such short notice, could
provide a luxurious meal, and have house,
servant, herself and her little brothers, looking
the pink of neatness to do honour to any
friend of his.
Possibly Mr. Laurence was clever enough
to read between the lines, for the lawyer’s
modest circumstances were well known; at
any rate, the luncheon-party, which Nellie
triumphantly assured her father had only
necessitated the outlay of four shillings, was
the means of introducing the Squire of
Templemeade to his future wife.
LETTERS FROM A LAWYER.
PART VI.
The Temple.
My dear Dorothy,—The leaving of perishable
articles at houses where they have not
been ordered is a very common trick, and one
which often succeeds, because people imagine
that they have incurred a responsibility by
taking them in—which they have not.
If tradespeople choose to leave butter, milk,
bread, meat, or wine, etc., which you have
not ordered at your house, they do so at their
own risk, and if you do not use the articles,
they cannot compel you to pay for them,
neither can they make you pay for them if you
do use the articles under the impression that
they were a gift; this last is only likely to arise
in the case of wine or game being left without
any indication of where it came from.
Servant girls are often inveigled into purchasing
rubbishy articles, which they do not
want, such as musical-boxes, silver watches,
etc., by men who go about selling these
things on commission, and who, refusing to
take “No” for an answer, leave the article
in question with the servant, saying that they
will take so much a month for it.
In a day or two the girl receives a letter
from the makers saying that they understand
she is prepared to purchase the article in
question by payment of instalments of so
much per month. The chances are that the
girl will be frightened into purchasing the
thing in this manner; but if she writes
declining to buy the article they will try to
bully her into taking it by threatening legal
proceedings, etc.
Girls who are treated in this manner should
at once inform their master or mistress. The
latter should then write to the firm, saying
that their servant has no desire to purchase
the article left at their house, and that if the
firm want their goods back, they must come
and fetch them.
Servant girls, especially Irish ones, are very
fond of joining burial societies. Such girls
should be careful to have a receipt for every
payment they make, and should not allow
themselves to be put off with vain excuses by
the collector. It is the duty of the collector
to give a receipt for every payment he receives,
and if he fails to do so, it can only
be because he is putting the money into his
own pocket and not paying it over to the
society.
What I told you in my former letter about
bicycles not being luggage has just been
confirmed by a decision of the High Court,
so that railway companies are entitled to
make a charge for carrying your bicycle by
train, although they would take a bag of the
same weight for nothing.
You cannot extend the time for paying a
life assurance premium by adding the three
days of grace on to the month’s grace already
allowed you by the company. The three
days of grace arise after the premium becomes
payable and are included in the extended time
given you by the company.
If you ever send in a withdrawal order to
draw money out of the Post Office Savings
Bank, and then find that you do not wish to
take out the money because you have received
some from some other source, be careful to
always draw it out when you get your order,
and, if you do not want to use it, pay it in
again the following day.
It is most important that you should do
this. If you do not do so, you leave the door
open to fraud, because a duplicate withdrawal
notice is sent to the post office named in your
order, and some dishonest official might make
use of it; and, secondly, it saves any confusion
which might otherwise arise through your
change of mind.
Of course I do not mean to say that the
officials of the Post Office are dishonest—I
should be sorry to make such a statement—but
there are black sheep in every flock, and
I do happen to know of a certain case in
which a girl lost all her savings through not
following the advice which I have just given
you.
The case which I have in my mind was a
particularly hard one, because the withdrawal
order was for the whole amount of her
banking account. And when she found that
after all it was not necessary for her to close
her account, it was only natural that she
should think that if she did not use her
withdrawal order, the money would still
remain to her credit in the bank—and so it
would have been if the postmaster of the
country office had been an honest man; but,
unfortunately for the girl, he was not. By
means of the withdrawal order he succeeded in
getting hold of her money and appropriating it
to his own use.
Therefore, my dear Dorothy, despise not
the warning of
Your affectionate cousin,
Bob Briefless.
THREE GIRL-CHUMS, AND THEIR LIFE IN LONDON ROOMS.
By FLORENCE SOPHIE DAVSON.
CHAPTER VI.
AFFORDS SOME
ENTERTAINMENT.
ere is a letter
from Basil,
Jennie,” said
Marion, as
they settled
down to
work after
dinner. “It
came the first
thing this
morning, but
you went
away without
noticing
it.”
“Thank
you,” said Jennie,
with great dignity,
“I saw the letter
quite well, but I
know better than to open an
epistle from a school-boy
brother on the first of April
before twelve o’clock. If he
thinks he is going to play his
tricks on me, he is vastly mistaken.
You see I have waited
until the witching hour of half-past
seven, so the joke turns against himself
now. I wonder the masters at Oundle don’t
keep him better employed.”
Marion suggested that it was more than
probable that this letter, if its contents were as
Jane suggested, had not been submitted to the
masters for their perusal. She added further
that perhaps the weight of advancing years
was having a sobering effect on his unruly
spirits, and that possibly the letter was only an
ordinary one after all.
“Open it, Jennie,” said Ada. “Brace
yourself up for the effort, and don’t keep us
any longer in suspense.”
So Jane opened it. The others watched
her face, and laughed heartily as they saw her
expression of triumphant indignation as she
read her mischievous brother’s letter.
“I knew what it would be,” she exclaimed.
“It is not a letter at all! Just a set of
nonsense rules for housekeepers.”
“Read it out,” laughed Marion. But now
Jane was laughing herself too much to do so.
So Marion took up the paper and began.
“‘Rules for the Guidance of Young Housekeepers.
“‘Rule 1. If you wish to chop suet but
have no chopper, go to the coal-cellar and take
the coal-hammer. A good housewife will
always do this.’”
“The idea!” cried Jane. “He once heard
me reading out the notes I had made on a
demonstration to working women that one of
the teachers at the cookery school gave to the
students. She was always telling us how to
contrive cleverly, but she certainly never said
that!”
Marion continued:—
“‘Rule 2. If a dainty savoury is required
at a short notice, carefully remove the jam
from some raspberry tarts of the first water, and
fill in the vacuum thus obtained with selected
portions of curry-powder mingled with lard.’”
“Is that another reminiscence of yours,
Jennie?” laughed Ada.
“No, certainly not. But it reminds one of
the sort of advice given in some of the ‘answers
to correspondents’ in the cookery columns of
a fashion paper. He must have bought one
and got the style without the substance. He
and Jimmy Spriggins must have concocted
this between them.”
Jimmy Spriggins was Basil Orlingbury’s
chosen friend, and was known as his companion
in mild practical jokes of this nature. Jennie
took the paper from Ada and read on.
“‘Rule 3. A highly cultivated Gorgonzola
cheese is a source of true ekonomy.’ (Oh, the
spelling!) ‘It is not necessary to eat it at all,
as the full flavour may be obtained by holding
pieces of bread on a toasting-fork before the
cheese for ten minutes.
“‘Rule 4. To make sure nobody does eat the
cheese, gum a notice on it: “You are requested
not to worry the Gorgonzola!!”
“‘Rule 5. It is quite time another cake
came this way. Please see that the plums in
it are well within shouting distance. The last
was rattling good.’”
“Is that the end?” asked Marion.
“I should think so, and quite enough,
indeed,” said Jane. “The impudence of those
two boys to wind up by calmly asking for
another cake! Why, it is not a month since we
sent them one.”
“Well, Marion did,” said Ada; “I don’t
know that you and I had much to do with it.
I think the hint is to us this time.”
“Well,” returned Jane magnanimously,
“I was young once myself, so I forgive the
young people. They shall have their cake and
eat it,” she added, with the air of quoting a
proverb. “I will make a cake between the
classes to-morrow, and let it bake during the
last class.”
Jane had from twelve o’clock until two
o’clock to herself, and her last class was from
two until four.
True to her promise she made a substantial
cake. We will copy the recipe out of her
note-book.
Basil’s Cake.
Ingredients.—1½ lb. flour, 1 lb. dripping,
¾ lb. currants, ¾ lb. raisins, 1 lb. sugar, 1
dessertspoonful of baking powder, 5 eggs,
½ gill of milk.
Method.—Work the dripping to a cream;
work in the sugar and cream that; beat in the
eggs one by one, putting a little flour with
each to prevent their curdling; stir in the
currants, washed, dried and floured, and the
raisins, stoned and chopped; mix in the flour
and baking powder, and lastly the milk.
Bake about two hours.
This cake was baked in a good hot oven, in
a tin lined with greased paper and standing on
a baking-sheet spread with a thick layer of
sand.
Jane left it in her class-room on a sieve all
night, and brought it home the next day when
it was cold; and she and Ada packed it up
and sent it to Basil at Oundle, where it was
received with much rejoicing, and where it
soon disappeared.
“It is just this, you know,” said Jane
meditatively, as she curled herself up in the
armchair, one evening after dinner. “It is
just this. I expect people are making jokes
about our housekeeping and wondering how
we are getting on.”
“I daresay they are, my dear,” remarked
Marion with equanimity, as she looked up
from her lace-work.
“No doubt many of our acquaintances are
quite confident that we live chiefly on bread
and dripping, with cold porridge as an
occasional variation,” said Ada, “but don’t
let that fact worry you, Jane. Think of the
delicious soup we have just had and be
thankful.”
“Oh, I would not care if they did say so,
of course. But don’t you think it would be
quite delicious to give a little luncheon party
and ask——”
“A very good idea, Jennie,” broke in
Marion. “Certainly we will have a luncheon
party, but it must be on a Saturday, so that
you can help me to cook.”
“We will ask Julia and Mary Holmes,
then,” said Ada, “I have not seen them for
an age, and I know they would like to know
how we are getting on.”
The Holmes were two school friends of the
Orlingburys, who had come to London to study
music and were living in a boarding-house in
Bayswater.
“Whom will you invite, Marion?” inquired
Ada.
“My cousin Madge, I think.”
“Yes, do,” said Jennie. “I want to hear
all about her visit to Brighton. Can I ask
Dora Hopwood? She is in town. I saw her
to-day; she came to my class to see me.”
Dora Hopwood had been in training at the
cookery school at the same time as Jane, and
the latter looked forward with a thrill of pride
to showing her prowess to “one who knew.”
“That will be as many as we can seat, then,”
said Marion. “If we invite any more, Abigail
will have too much to do, and get flurried.
Jennie, will you make a Charlotte Russe by way
of a sweet? It can be made the day before.”
“Yes, I can make that in the evening when
I get home, and during the day I can make
a Victoria sandwich—we shall want another
sweet.”
“Let me exhibit one of my few accomplishments,”
said Ada laughing, “and fry some
fish. Would sole be too dear, Marion? We
shall have to be very economical to make up
for this extravagance.”
Marion said she thought they might afford
sole for once, so that was settled, and she
suggested some fillet of veal by way of a
meat course.
“Yes,” said Jane eagerly. “Let us have a
nice little joint of fillet of veal, with mushrooms
and pretty little button tomatoes round it.”
Marion reminded her that pretty little
button tomatoes did not flourish in April, so
she must forego them, and be content with the
mushrooms, half a pound of which would
suffice to garnish the dish.
“If we have mushrooms round the dish, I
should think fried potato croquettes would be
nice to hand with them, and some French
beans,” said Jane.
“I did not know beans were in season,”
said Ada.
“Not English beans, of course. These are
foreign ones, at eightpence a pound. Half
a pound are enough for a dish.”
“I should think that from four to four and
a half pounds of veal would be sufficient for
the joint,” said Marion meditatively. “Now,
Jennie, here is our menu:”
- Fried Sole.
- Roast Fillet of Veal and Mushrooms.
- Potato Croquettes. Beans.
- Charlotte Russe.
- Victoria Sandwich.
- Custard in Glasses.
The last item was Ada’s idea, and she
undertook to make it herself.
The invitations were sent at once for the
following Saturday, and were promptly
accepted. On the Friday before, Jane made
some Victoria sandwich, and brought it home
in the evening. She also prepared a small
round cake tin ready for the Charlotte Russe.
This is her recipe for the latter—
Charlotte Russe.—Dissolve half a pint of
red jelly and pour a layer into the tin to the
depth of half an inch. Let this set. Cut
some finger sponge cakes to the depth of the
tin and arrange them round the sides, sticking
them together with jelly. Melt half an ounce
of gelatine in half a pint of milk, and when it
is lukewarm stir it into half a pint of sweetened
whipped double cream, with which two ounces
of crystallised cherries have been mixed.
Pour this into the prepared mould and turn
out when cold.
On the Saturday morning, Ada made her
custard. The fillet of veal was rolled and
stuffed with a forcemeat made by boiling six
ounces of calf’s liver and chopping it finely
and mixing it with half a pound of breadcrumbs,
two ounces of chopped suet, two tablespoonfuls
of parsley, pepper and salt, and binding
all together with beaten egg. The mushrooms
that surrounded the joint had been peeled,
rinsed and cooked separately in a little butter.
Marion prepared and cooked the joint and
dished it up; she also made the delicious
potato croquettes, not one of which burst in
the frying, and cooked the beans.
On the eventful day Jane had nothing to
dish up that was hot, so behold her dressed
in her best, welcoming the guests in the sitting-room,
which she had decked with sweet April
primroses, and which looked its brightest.
The table was laid for lunch, and in the
kitchen Ada was even now frying the soles
and Marion dishing the veal. In a few minutes
they took off their large aprons, gave the
beaming Abigail a few last directions, and
joined the party.
Abigail’s abilities had developed greatly of
late, and she was fast becoming an intelligent
waitress. On this occasion she served the
fish with great promptitude, before it had
time to get cold, and she contrived to keep
the joint perfectly hot and crisp until it was
time to carry it in, and the vegetables likewise.
The guests were delighted with everything,
and the Holmes said with enthusiasm that
they wished they could find a delightful third
to live with them and manage for them as
Marion did for the Orlingburys. Dora
Hopwood told Jane that she was going to
stay near Oundle in a few days, and she
promised to see Basil, and give him a full
and particular account of the feast, which
she did; but he declared that it was all
thanks to the directions given in “Hints to
Housekeepers,” without which they would
have known nothing.
We are glad to say that the lunch-party
did not prove too great a strain upon the
incomes of our three friends, as will be seen
from the following lists—
Sunday.
- Stewed Rabbits.
- Cauliflower. Baked Potatoes.
- Queen of Puddings.
Monday.
- Fried Plaice.
- Stew (rabbits and neck of mutton).
- Boiled Potatoes.
- Rhubarb Fool.
Tuesday.
- Tapioca Soup.
- Brown Stew of Beef.
- Apple Cheesecakes.
Wednesday. (High Tea.)
- Rissoles (made of remains of yesterday’s stew.)
- Brown Scones.
Thursday.
- Stuffed Haddocks.
- Tomatoes and Macaroni.
Friday.
- Mutton Chops.
- Boiled Potatoes.
- Sago Pudding.
Saturday. (Lunch Party.)
- Fried Sole.
- Roast Fillet of Veal with Mushrooms.
- French Beans. Potato Croquettes.
- Charlotte Russe. Victoria Sandwiches.
- Custard in Glasses.
Food List.
| £ | s. | d. | |
| Two rabbits | 0 | 2 | 6 |
| One pound of neck of mutton | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| One and a half pounds of chuck steak | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Quarter of a pound of ox kidney | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Three mutton chops at 5d. | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Four and a half pounds of fillet of veal at 1s. 1d. | 0 | 4 | 10½ |
| Plaice | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Fresh haddock | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Two soles (one and a half pounds at 1s. 2d.) | 0 | 1 | 9 |
| Rhubarb | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Half a pound of apples | 0 | 0 | 1½ |
| Small tin of tomatoes | 0 | 0 | 4½ |
| Half a pound of beans | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Half a pound of mushrooms | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| Potatoes | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| Finger sponge cakes | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| Half a pint of cream | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| One ounce of gelatine | 0 | 0 | 3½ |
| Twelve eggs | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Tin of corned beef (breakfast three days) | 0 | 0 | 11 |
| Quaker oats | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| Half a pound of tea | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Flour | 0 | 0 | 5½ |
| Milk | 0 | 1 | 9 |
| Bread | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Two pounds of fat for rendering | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| One and a half pounds of butter | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| One pound of castor sugar | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| One pound of loaf sugar | 0 | 0 | 1½ |
| One and a half pounds of demerara | 0 | 0 | 2½ |
| £1 | 8 | 0½ |
(To be continued.)
“OUR HERO.”
A TALE OF THE FRANCO-ENGLISH WAR NINETY YEARS AGO.
By AGNES GIBERNE, Author of “Sun, Moon and Stars,” “The Girl at the Dower House,” etc.
CHAPTER XXVII.
MORE ABOUT
SIR JOHN
MOORE.
nother
backward
glance
is needful
here
to bring
the
story
of Sir
John Moore
up to the
present date
of my tale.
In the year
1806 about twelve thousand British
troops, under the command of Sir John
Stuart, had in hand the task of saving
Sicily from the grip of Napoleon; but
the tortuous policy of their Sicilian
majesties, the lack of honesty and
of public spirit, and the underhand
cabals and oppositions there, hindered
far more from being done than was
done.
A short time after the English
victory at Maida, in which and in the
retreat following the French lost in
killed and wounded over five thousand,
while the English lost only about two
hundred and fifty, Sir John Stuart was
recalled, and old General Fox, brother
of Mr. Charles Fox, then Prime Minister
of England, was sent out. Why the
brave Stuart should have been thus set
aside does not appear, except that, as
quaintly remarked by one of Moore’s
brothers, “it was a strong proof of
fraternal affection” on the part of
Mr. Fox.
Sir John Moore, who superseded
Stuart, was appointed second in command
under General Fox. And at this
date occurred his one love affair.
Some mistaken reports on this subject
have gained currency. Even lately the
assertion has been freshly made that
Moore, when he died, was engaged to
Lady Hester Stanhope, niece of Mr.
Pitt. This was not the case. Lady
Hester was his friend; the most intimate
woman-friend—though by no means the
only one—that he had outside his own
home circle; but though he both admired
and loved her, it was as a friend
only, not as a lover. He seems never
to have thought of marrying her. On
the conclusive authority of General
Anderson, who for twenty-one years
was with him constantly in the closest
possible intercourse, and from whom
Moore appears to have had no secrets,
there was but one whom Moore ever
seriously wished to marry, and this was
Caroline Fox, daughter of the old
General in command at Sicily.
That the niece of Mr. Pitt should
have been his most intimate woman-friend,
and the niece of Mr. Fox his
one and only love, reads curiously in
the light of party politics. But Sir
John was no party man. The great
Minister, Pitt, had for him an unbounded
esteem and affection, on the one side.
And Fox, on the other, at a time when
a movement was in progress to make
Moore Commander-in-Chief in India,
sent for him, and frankly informed him
that “he could not give his consent” to
this scheme. “It was impossible for
him,” he said, “in the state in which
Europe then was, to send to such a
distance a General in whom he had such
entire confidence.” Moore stood outside
mere political warfare, grandly and
simply, as representative of his country.
Amid the fighting, the difficulties,
the perplexities, of Sicilian politics and{430}
struggles, he found time to fall profoundly
in love. And he did not marry.
He did not even let the girl know that
he loved her.
Why not?
Well, the matter stood thus. Caroline
Fox was very young—not yet eighteen.
And Moore was already in his forty-sixth
year. There was a discrepancy of
nearly thirty years between the two, and
Sir John did not think it right, at her
early age, even to give her the choice.
He was not of a nature to love lightly,
or to give up his wishes easily, and it
was a hard fight. Harder far this
conflict than all his battles with the
soldiers of Napoleon. Yet he conquered,
and to the young girl herself he spoke
not a word which might have opened
her eyes. To Anderson he explained
his reasons, with a frank and touching
simplicity, the echo of which comes
down to us now through ninety years
and more.
“She is so young,” he said. “Her
judgment may be overpowered. The
disparity of age is not perhaps at
present very apparent, and my position
here, my reputation as a soldier of
service, and my intimacy with her
father, may influence her to an irretrievable
error for her own future contentment.
My feelings therefore must
be suppressed, that she may not have to
suppress hers hereafter with loss of
happiness.”
Can anything surpass the quiet
grandeur of that “must”?
This surely is an ideal character—no
true flesh and blood—so somebody
may object. What! a man in the
prime of middle age, eminently handsome,
accomplished and fascinating,
the idol of his friends, the darling of his
country, well off as to worldly goods,
with still in all probability a magnificent
career before him—that such a man,
when deeply in love, should pause to
view the question simply and solely
with regard to the girl’s happiness, not
to his own—that he should humbly
question whether, though he might
fairly hope then and there to win her,
she might not in later years regret her
action and wish herself free! This is
such a hero, no doubt, as has sometimes
figured in fiction. An ideal hero—but——
But the whole is true. There is no
idealising at all here. John Moore,
actually and literally, without any varnishing,
less than one hundred years
ago, loved and decided thus, thought
and acted and was the same that I have
tried, however ineffectively, to picture for
the present generation.
Such a story of one in the first decade
of the nineteenth century may well serve
as an inspiration in unselfishness for
those who live in the last decade of the
same century. The grandeur of this
man was that he thought always of
others before himself—that he lived for
Duty. Where Duty pointed or seemed
to point down a pathway, no matter how
hard and thorny the road, there unhesitatingly
Moore walked.
Yet there is another side to the
question, which must not be ignored.
Grandly as Moore acted, in obedience
to his own convictions, it may well be
that he made a mistake here. His
very unselfishness and humility, both
of which are an example for us, may
none the less have led him into a
course of action which, while one admires
it, one dares not hold up for general
imitation.
For it is, to say the least, conceivable
that Caroline Fox might herself have
been by that time deeply in love with
Moore—that already the happiness of
her whole life might have hung upon his
speaking. True, he had not sought
her, and he did not seek her. But he
was intimate in the house; he was a
man of extraordinary attractive power;
and his personal fascinations might well
have taken captive her girlish heart,
without the slightest conscious effort on
his part. If things were so, or had
been so, how sad it would have been
that, from a sense of duty most nobly
carried out, he should have denied
happiness to her as well as to himself!
In such cases it does seem—at least,
from the woman’s point of view—that the
choice ought to have been given to her;
that she ought to have been allowed to
say for herself either Yea or Nay. If
he thought her too young to know her
own mind, he still might have simply
declared his passion, and have insisted
upon leaving her ample time for consideration.
He never did propose for that young
girl.[1] Moore was not a man to decide
one way and to drift another. Had he
lived, he might no doubt have spoken in
the end. But in 1806 he had less than
three years of his fair life remaining.
The Queen of Sicily, an odd fantastic
woman, took dire offence at him, finding
that she could not bend him to her will.
An attempt made by her to draw
General Fox into steps which could only
have resulted in disaster, was strongly
discountenanced by Moore, to whom the
General appealed for advice, and she
wrote a torrent of abuse of him to the
English Government.
At about this time General Fox, on
account of failing health, was recalled,
and the supreme command was given to
Moore. He soon after saw the Queen,
and explained to her the falsity of
certain reports which had been told her
about things he was supposed to have
said.
A little later, fresh Napoleonic successes
drove her to despair, and she
then sent for him again. He found her
weeping over a copy of the Peace of
Tilsit, just signed between France,
Russia and Prussia; and he stayed
nearly two hours, doing his best to raise
her spirits. When he took leave she
said, graciously enough—
“Great pains have been taken to
prejudice me against you, and not
without effect; but your plain frank
manners have removed every unfavourable
impression, and nothing shall
make me think ill of you again. For
I perceive, Monsieur Moore, that you
are an upright man who flatters nobody.
You are a little reserved, and do not
give confidence easily. I esteem you
on that account the more. I hope, however,
at last to acquire your confidence,
and I shall be flattered by it.”
This is all very well, but apparently
the Queen made no effort to undo her
harsh misrepresentations of him to the
English Government.
Early in 1808 Moore reached England,
and then he had his last holiday. Four
months of rest were granted to the hard-worked
warrior, who during thirty years
had held himself utterly at his country’s
service, fighting for her in all parts of
the world almost without intermission,
and being at least four times wounded.
At this date he was looked upon by
competent judges as the foremost man
in the whole British Army—as the one to
whom above all others England, in her
hour of need, would turn.[2]
The chief part of his holiday was
spent at the quiet Surrey home of his
brother, with his mother and sister, and
one is glad to know that he had that
peaceful break before the end.
It was towards the close of the four
months that Roy Baron reached the
Bryces’ London house, after his adventurous
escape from Bitche; and so soon
as the first excitement of his arrival was
over, his thoughts turned in the old
direction—towards the Army.
Those were not days of competitive
examinations or of lengthy preparation.
Boys were taken straight from school,
commissions were given to them, they
were put into uniforms and drilled—sharply
drilled too, if they happened to
be anywhere within touch of Moore’s
influence—and in the majority of cases
Nature was expected to do the rest.
On the whole, Nature did not perform
her task badly, with such material as
she had to work upon in these plucky
English lads.
Mr. Bryce took upon himself to act as
he knew that the Colonel would have
acted if able, and a very brief space of
time saw Roy being transformed into a
smart young subaltern, in the same
regiment of infantry where Jack had
lately obtained command of a company.
Meanwhile, at the close of Sir John
Moore’s holiday, he was sent off on
another expedition, this time to Sweden,
then an ally of England. He had over
eleven thousand men under his command,
all as eager as himself to help
the Swedes. But the expedition was
rendered abortive by the extraordinary
conduct of the King of Sweden, who
already began to show signs of the
madness, for which he was afterwards
deposed.
On the arrival of the English fleet, he
flatly refused permission to Sir John to
land any of the troops, unless they were
placed entirely under his own control, to
be used how and where he chose. This,
of course, Moore at once refused, and
for two months, while he waited for
directions from the home Government,
the eleven thousand soldiers had to
remain cooped up on board the vessels.
Then came an attempt on the part of
the crazy king to arrest Moore himself{431}
when on shore. Moore evaded the
attempt, and at once set sail with his
whole force for England. He wrote to
his mother, “This campaign in Sweden
has proved the most painful to me I
ever served. It is, however, now nearly
over.”
Many criticisms were passed on his
conduct by those who did not know the
ins and outs of the whole affair. But the
Duke of York expressed hearty approval,
congratulating himself and the country
on having sent a chief who could be
firm to resist such unreasonable demands
as those of the Swedish King.
In the autumn of 1807, when Italy,
Holland, Prussia, Austria and Russia
were one and all either conquered, or at
the least humiliated and helpless, Portugal
next fell a victim to the rapacious
conqueror, and was made a stepping-stone
to the conquest of Spain. In the
quaint language of one of Moore’s
brothers, “being wont to eke out his
martial feats with wily stratagems,”
Napoleon plotted himself into a position
of power there. Before the end of May,
1808, the French Army entered Madrid,
declaring the whole country subject to
the Emperor of the French, and proclaiming
Joseph Buonaparte king.
Then it was that the tide of Napoleon’s
successes reached their high-water
mark. From this date, it may be said,
the retreat of the waters began upon
land, as earlier their retreat had begun
upon the ocean, at first imperceptibly,
for a long while fitfully, yet with accelerating
speed.
Again and again the Spaniards had
fought on the side of the French against
the English. But now, at last, the spell
seemed to be broken; now, at last; their
eyes were opened. “As a man,” it
was declared, Spain had risen against
the Emperor, and a burst of enthusiasm,
of vehement sympathy, rushed through
the length and breadth of England.
The Army was mad to fight.
By the time that Moore got home
from Sweden, Sir Arthur Wellesley had
already been despatched to Portugal,
with a force of nine thousand men, and
the eleven thousand who had been on
this fruitless errand to Sweden were not
even allowed to disembark, but were at
once ordered to Portsmouth, Moore
being summoned to an interview with
Lord Castlereagh.
An evening or two later, Jack rushed
in upon the Bryce circle in hot haste.
“Jack! Hallo, man! What’s up
now? Something out of the common by
the looks of you,” declared Mr. Bryce,
as he sat near the open window; a
small and ugly and genial man, in
flowered waistcoat, velvet tights, and
silver-buckled shoes. “You’re just in
time, my good fellow. In three days
we’re off to Brighthelmstone.”
“And if I might but have had my
will, we should be there already,” added
his “better-half” discontentedly.
“How d’you all do? How do you do,
ma’am? Find yourself well, Polly?
Heard the news? I suppose not.”
“What news?” at the same moment
from Mr. and Mrs. Bryce, Polly and
Molly.
“Sir John Moore is ordered off to
Spain, and our regiment is under orders
too.”
“Oh!”—from Molly, under her
breath. “And if Roy should be taken
prisoner——”
“Or if he should not!” suggested
Mr. Bryce. “Nay, child, we’ll permit
no doleful foretellings. What’s up,
Jack? ’Tis no ill news to you to be
ordered to the seat of war?”
“Ill news? No!”—with sufficient
energy.
“Yet you look uncommon like to a
thunder-cloud—ready to burst. Hey,
what’s wrong?”
“Could wish nothing better than to
go, sir. Every man in the Army is wild
to be off. But I’m angry, I’ll admit.
’Tis inconceivable that such a man as
Sir John should have enemies, yet
there’s no other explanation.”
“Enemies where?”
“I’m not so bold as to say. But ’tis
a fact that, after serving in Sicily and
in Sweden as chief in command, he’s
now to be placed in a subordinate
position as third. I’ve heard Major
Napier declaim against the shame it
was that they didn’t make him from the
first supreme Commander in Sicily; but
this—why, ’tis infinitely greater shame.
The thing is beyond comprehension!”
“Yet the King and the Duke of
York are ever his friends,” mused Mr.
Bryce, passing a meditative hand over
his chin. “And Lord Castlereagh esteems
him highly.”
“So all say; but the chopping and
the changing that’s to take place—’tis
amazing! There’s Sir Arthur Wellesley
in command of one army gone to Spain,
and Sir John till now in command of
another, and both of ’em to be under
Sir Hew Dalrymple when he can get to
Portugal, and till he does, Sir Harry
Burrard is to act for him. Moore—the
foremost and most brilliant officer
England has ever owned—to be under
Burrard and Dalrymple! Has the world
gone crazed?”
“For what reason are the changes?”
asked Mr. Bryce.
“I know not, sir, and I care not! Sir
John has done nothing to merit such
treatment. ’Tis a base shame, and
that’s about all that can be said. But
he’ll rise to the top—small fear! When
the need arises, he will be the man whom
all will turn unto.”
“Jack, shall we see Roy?” inquired
Molly.
Jack had little doubt that Roy would
look in. Everything was to be done in
a terrific hurry, and he had come himself
to say good-bye there and then; but
Roy would certainly appear. A few
minutes later he called Polly away
into the girls’ little boudoir, and said
approvingly—
“That is a brave Polly! No tears
and no wailings. ’Tis as should be.”
“Dear Jack, I know well how glad
you are to be going, and I would not
hold you back.” Polly spoke courageously,
though she looked white.
“And when I come again—a battered
soldier, maybe, with some part of me
missing—— Nay, I did not mean to
make things harder for you, Polly. I
was but jesting.”
Polly had difficulty in controlling her
shudder.
“Come, come, that was nothing; that
was but a foolish jest. You will bid me
God-speed, I know; and you will think
of us. Roy is frantic to be off. Polly,
no letter from Verdun?”
She shook her head.
“If I were Denham—kept there all
these long years in a purposeless captivity—and,
it may be, never a letter
from Polly to cheer him——”
Polly looked sadly at her brother.
“I have not writ to him lately,” she
said. “I cannot tell how to write.
What should I do? I have none but
you to advise me, and you, too, will now
be gone. Tell me what I should do,
Jack?”
“Write again; write often. One
letter among many may get to him.”
“But if he should no longer care? If
he should by now have forgot me?”
“He is not that sort. Trust him,
Polly; be sure he is trusting you.”
Something of a gleam came to her
face.
“You think that? You think I may
trust him yet, and not be over bold? It
is so long—over five years!—and no
letter from him of later date than the
summer of 1806. May he not have
forgot?”
“He will not forget. Roy is convinced
on that point.”
“But does Roy know? Jack, sometimes
I wonder—if indeed Captain Ivor
loves me still, as once he did—I wonder
why does he not ask me to go out to
him there? If he asked me, I would go—I
would indeed! And he has never
from the first said any such word; and
I cannot say it. It is not for me to offer
to go; but sure, if he wished it, he might
send some words—by some private
hand——”
Jack was silent—thinking.
“And there is that French girl—whom
Roy is so fond of—always with
them as one of themselves—always near
Captain Ivor.”
“But trust him still, Polly dear,”
urged Jack. “I cannot know, neither
can you, how things are yet awhile;
only I do truly believe that Ivor is no
man to change, or to be fickle in his
likings. Whether you write or do not
write, trust him still.”
(To be continued.)
LENT LILIES AND DOCK LEAVES.
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
STUDY AND STUDIO.
K. Bartlett.—We have attentively read the verses
of your friend. It is always a difficult matter to
decide from two or three specimens whether a girl
should “give up writing altogether.” We cannot,
however, say that there are indications here of
poetic merit so great as to afford you the hope she
may one day become a poet. The phrasing is that
of a cultured woman, but there is no originality of
thought or expression, and the form needs improvement.
In “Springtime,” the best of the three
poems, the author uses the second person singular
and plural indiscriminately (“thee” and “your”).
In the third poem, the conjunction “under unkind”
is unmusical. “Flows” in the first poem, is not
an apt expression for the outburst of the song of
birds at dawn. No doubt the study of good poetry,
and practice, would do much to improve your
friend’s capacity for verse-writing, and there can
be no reason, if she has leisure, why she should not
persevere. While we cannot prophesy triumphant
success, we can at least say that a measure of
success in writing pleasant lyrics is fully possible.
Thistle.—Your lines are unequal, and the form is
incorrect. Compare these two extracts—
and
Both occupy the same place in the verse, and
should therefore correspond in metre. It is no
easy task to write verse that will find acceptance.
“Bill.”—1. Some friend of yours with a knowledge
of musical composition might set “Marie” to music
for you. The lines are very irregular, and would
need special treatment.—2. Your writing is vigorous
and distinctive, but you are inclined to write untidily,
omitting fragments of words and scrawling
now and again. If you never allowed yourself to
scribble, and were very careful, you would write
well by-and-by.
Sesame.—We advise you to write to the Secretary of
Girton College, Miss Shore Nightingale, 11, Queensborough
Terrace, Bayswater, London; and to the
Secretary of Newnham, Miss M. G. Kennedy,
Shenstone, Cambridge. From these ladies you will
obtain full particulars. With regard to scholarships,
we refer you to Mrs. Watson’s articles on
“What are the County Councils doing for Girls?”
in The Girl’s Own Paper for March, July, August,
and September, 1897.
INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE.
Marjory Ingle, aged sixteen, Denmark House, Ely,
Cambridgeshire, would like a French correspondent
about her own age. She would much prefer one
well educated and interested in study.
Miss A. Nicholls, Laburnum Villa, Leamington,
Miss L. Jones, c/o Morris Hughes, Castle Street,
Llangollen, N. Wales, Mademoiselle Désirée
Tuffli, Châlet à Monruz, Neuchâtel, Switzerland,
and Miss Marguerite Fitzroy Dixon, 19, IX
Florence Street, Ottawa, wish to correspond with
Miss Anice Cress, Mysore, S. India, and inquire if
that address is sufficient. Miss Dixon would also
like to write to Miss Marguerite Rahier.
Mademoiselle Vilma Tuffli, Châlet à Monruz,
Neuchâtel, Switzerland, would like to exchange
illustrated post-cards with anyone who collects
them.
Miss Mary Kleyntjens, Maastricht, Holland, wishes
to exchange view post-cards with O Mimosa San.
Edelweiss at Innsbruck would like to correspond
with a French girl of about her own age (19). She
knows French pretty well, but has not much opportunity
of writing French letters.
Miss Ruby Tizarel, Trosse House School, Neumark,
Germany, will be glad to write in French, German,
or English, and receive answers in either language
from a young lady of about her own age (17).
Miss Nelly Pollak, a German girl, wishes to correspond
with an English girl, aged about sixteen,
living in England, or any British colony. Her
address is Vienna, I., Reichsrathstrasse 3.
“Cintra,” aged sixteen, would like a French correspondent.
Miss Wynnie L. Moore Jones, Ladies’ College,
Portland Road, Remuera, Auckland, N.Z., and
Miss L. Salmon, c/o E. L. Thornton, Esq., Fonte
da Moura, Oporto, Portugal, would like to exchange
New Zealand and Portuguese stamps for others.
Violet M. and Florence Violet (not Voilet) Foster.—In
view of the increasing applications for foreign
correspondents, we cannot undertake to insert requests
from English girls for English correspondents,
unless some special reason is given for their
employing the medium of a magazine. F. V. Foster
must not be offended if we say she should try to
improve her writing and spelling. Violet M.’s
letter is a pleasant one, and if she is lonely through
circumstances and unable to find friends, we will
consider her application.
Geraldine wishes to correspond with a Swiss-French
or French lady of good family and education in
French. The latter writing in English will have
all letters returned corrected, and the correspondent
will require her French letters corrected and
returned also.
MISCELLANEOUS.
Japonica.—We do not see how “Japonica” can
require advice on such a subject. Most girls of
eighteen have some knowledge of the rules of propriety;
and if in doubt as to allowing stray young
men to kiss her, ignorance which we do not believe,
she can consult any older person—her mother, or
one of her brothers—as to how far it is permissible.
We often think that such letters as “Japonica’s”
are written by foolish and vain girls to show off,
not to obtain advice. There could be no other
motive in writing to us on the subject.
Winnie has probably not consulted her parents on
this point, or she might find that there is really some
very strong objection, of which she is in ignorance,
to the “good Christian young man” whom she
says “she has found.” Tell your parents all
about it, and do not try to persuade us to counsel
you to be disobedient to their wishes.
Esmeralda.—Why not take The Boy’s Own Paper,
56, Paternoster Row, E.C. You might purchase a
number and see how you liked it.
Puzzled.—The smell of which you complain arises
from the skins being only partially cured and not
thoroughly dried. Skunk, however, retains an
unpleasant odour in most cases. Drying the skins
in a brick oven for a little time, taking care not to
burn them, might do good. But we fear there is
little help for this trouble.
Threepence.—There is no royal road to handwriting.
It is an art which must be carefully acquired;
and if you wish to improve yours, you must
get some copies and set to work in a painstaking
way. Select a handwriting you admire and proceed
to copy it, letter by letter, word by word. If
you persevere, you will succeed in about a month’s
time in making a total change.
Chadband.—1. The Rev. Mr. Chadband is a character
in Dickens’s Bleak House. He was a religious
hypocrite. The word “Chadbandism” is a
novelty, applied as it has been lately, in the daily
press.—2. Chauvinism means a blind idolatry of
Napoleon I. Just now it seems to mean a warlike
spirit, a blind patriotism. The word Chauvin is
taken from Les Aides de Camp, by Bayard and
Dumanoir; and was made popular by Charet’s
Conscrit Chauvin. Conspuez, which is the word
most heard in Paris of to-day, is from the verb
conspuer, which means to spit upon or to despise.
A Bordereau is a memorandum, or account of
some occurrence, event, or conversation. Dossier
means a barrister’s brief, and also a bundle of
papers. In the way used, it means what we should
call “the case” against a prisoner. We do not
wonder that you are puzzled if you do not understand
French.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Caroline Fox became later the wife of Sir
William Napier, historian of the Peninsular War.
[2] “Then the most honoured military character of
the day.”—Sir W. Napier.
[Transcriber’s Note—the following corrections have been made to the text:
Page 426: dignatatem changed to dignitatem—“infra dignitatem”.]