{513}

THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER

[Transcriber’s Note: This Table of Contents was not present in the original.]

GOOD NIGHT.
THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.
HOW TO CONTRIVE AND DECORATE A COFFER OR LINEN PRESS.
SHEILA.
VARIETIES.
THE FAIRIES.
A POOR NEEDLEWOMAN.
SELF-CULTURE FOR GIRLS.
HOUSEHOLD HINTS.
A GAME OF MEMORY.
“OUR HERO.”
THE GIRL’S OWN QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

GOOD NIGHT.

By SARAH DOUDNEY.

“SLEEP, SISTER, SLEEP.”

All rights reserved.]

{514}

THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.

By ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO, Author of “Other People’s Stairs,” “Her Object in Life,” etc.

CHAPTER VII.

THE ROOTS OF HOSPITALITY.

ucy paid no heed to
her sister’s words,
being diverted by
another bit of by-play.
“Jessie
Morison’s” keen
grey eyes had fallen
on little Hugh, and
her face had instantly
broken into
a smile. Could this
superior, experienced,
well-trained
woman really want
a general servant’s
place?

“Yes, ma’am,”
said Jessie Morison,
“I’m wanting
a quiet place that
I could keep nice
and comfortable.”

“But I have hitherto had quite a
young woman,” urged Mrs. Challoner.
“There are only myself and the little
boy—until my husband comes home from
a voyage,” she explained.

Jessie Morison pondered.

“That will suit me nicely,” she said.
“Did the girl do the washing, ma’am?”

“Yes,” answered Lucy; “but——”

“I’m a capital washer,” said Jessie
Morison, “and I dress well, too. I
shouldn’t need help, ma’am—no, not
for such a small family. I don’t like
strangers coming about my kitchen, they
make more work than they do.”

“We dine early,” said Lucy. “There
are but few visitors. But you would
have everything to do in the house; and
while my husband is away, I shall not
be able to give much help, as I am
busy otherwise.”

“It’s not a very large house, maybe?”
asked Jessie, in a pleasant tone, suggesting
only that in her opinion a small
house was the proper thing.

“No, it is a small house,” said Lucy.
“Have you always been in service?”

“Well, ma’am, yes and no. I was in
service as a girl. Then I got married.
I’m a widow, ma’am. He only lived
three years. He was thrown from a
horse. I’ve been in service since.”

“How long were you in your last situation,
and where was it?” inquired Lucy.

“It was near Edinburgh, ma’am—between
Edinburgh and Berwick—and
I was there twenty years.” She said
this quite simply, as if she had no idea
of effect.

“Twenty years!” echoed Lucy.

“Yes, ma’am. I was with the lady
and gentleman first, and when he died,
I lived on with the mistress. She died
last year.”

“What made you come away from
all your friends to London?” Mrs.
Challoner asked.

“Well, I hadn’t many friends to
leave—we’d lived terrible quiet-like—and
I had a cousin and his wife with a
nice home near London, and they asked
me up for a visit, and now I’d sooner
stay here than go back.”

“From whom shall I get your references?”
asked Lucy, putting the question
almost reluctantly.

“Well, you see, the family I’ve been
with is all gone, ma’am. And the poor
mistress she was bed-rid for nigh ten
years, and few folks came about her.
When I left the North, I hardly knew
what I was going to do—I half thought
of a little shop, ma’am—but I thought
I’d keep on the safe side in case I
decided on another place. So I got
lines from the parish minister and from
my mistress’s lawyer. There was
nobody knew me better as woman or
worker than them two. There’s the
papers, ma’am, and they said they’d
answer any other inquiries; but they
couldn’t well say more than they’ve said
there.”

Mrs. Challoner took the manuscripts.
She read the shorter first. It was from
the lawyer. The paper was stamped
with a good Edinburgh legal address,
and the handwriting was professional
and educated. The missive was in note
form.

“Mr. McGillvray has known Mrs.
Jessie Morison for many years as the
sole household help and personal attendant
of a lately deceased lady, Mrs.
Bruce of Ashfield. She was much
valued and trusted by her late mistress,
and so far as Mr. McGillvray had opportunity
to observe, she was attentive and
punctilious in the discharge of all her
duties.”

The minister’s testimonial was longer
and stronger. The Rev. John Black,
of the Established Manse, Mickleton,
addressing the unknown as “Dear Sir
or Madam,” said that he had very much
pleasure in recommending Mrs. Jessie
Morison to anybody who would appreciate
faithful service such as she had
rendered for twenty years to employers
who had owed most of their comfort and
security to her diligence and devotion.
He also knew Mrs. Jessie Morison to
be a kind and helpful neighbour. He
sincerely hoped that she might find a
new sphere in which her capacities and
qualities might prove useful to others
and beneficial to herself.

“These seem very satisfactory,” said
Lucy.

“If you don’t think she is too old,
you should be satisfied,” murmured
Florence, who had looked over the
testimonials while Mrs. Challoner read
them.

“Only it is more satisfactory to have
a personal reference,” Lucy went on.
After what she had recently seen and
heard, this seemed so much too good to
be true that it flashed across her mind
it might be a case of personation. Yet
when she looked up at the douce, middle-aged
face, she rebuked herself for the
suspicion.

Jessie Morison did not resent the
hesitation.

“I know it’s awkward,” she admitted;
“but you might write to the gentlemen.
I tell you they promised me they would
answer any question.”

Lucy reflected. She did not see how
that would help her. If there was
anything unsound in the matter, more
written testimonials would thicken the
plot rather than clear it. Yet how
natural and inevitable the circumstances
seemed! How wrong it would be to
let this nice woman slip through her
fingers merely for the sake of a mere
convention!

“Is there nobody within reach who
can say a word for you?” she suggested.

“Well, ma’am,” said Jessie Morison
anxiously, “of course, there’s my
cousins; but I didn’t like to mention
them, because most ladies would think
relations don’t count for much. They’re
highly respectable. He’s got a shop,
and they’ve lived in the same house for
years, and everybody knows them.”

“I think that will do,” Lucy conceded.
After all, it seemed only a question of
identity, and this inquiry would surely
settle that.

“Very well, ma’am, thank you kindly.
There’s my cousin’s business card,
ma’am, and the dwelling-house is along
with the shop. When will you likely
call, ma’am?”

“Some time in the course of to-morrow,”
Lucy answered. “Is there
any particular time more suitable than
another?”

“Oh, no, ma’am, they’re always at
home at work—him in his shop, and her
in her house. I only wanted to hear that
you’d come at once, ma’am, for I’m so
eager to get settled.”

“It shall be settled by to-morrow
evening,” Lucy promised. “Good
morning, Mrs. Morison.”

“Good morning, ma’am, and thank
you, and I think you’ll find everything
all right.”

Lucy was already joyfully gathering
up her possessions. As for little Hugh,
he sprang forward and danced a jig with
delight at the prospect of departure.
His mother turned to take courteous
leave of the knitting lady, who looked
up with an inscrutable smile.

“I congratulate you,” she remarked.
“I suppose you think you have got off
easily?”

“I think I am suited,” Lucy said
with an air of triumph to the registry
clerk, when she found her. “When
ought I to pay my fee?”

“You can pay it now, ma’am. Five
shillings. Oh, do you think it expensive,
ma’am? Remember that for the same
fee, if you choose, you can come here
every day and all day long till you do get
suited! We arrange so in case ladies{515}
are not fortunate at first. We make only
the same charge for hiring cooks or
housemaids, but then they are more
easily got than generals, and also they
pay a percentage on their wages when
they are hired. We charge the ‘generals’
nothing, poor things.”

“Fancy taking out your money’s
worth by sitting there ‘till one is
suited,’” cried Lucy, when they were
once more outside in the fresh air.

“And did you see, Florence, the cousin’s
address is at Willesden, and I shall
have to lose another whole November
day’s light in going there.”

“No, you needn’t,” said Florence,
“not if you’ll trust me. I’ve an acquaintance
at Willesden to whom I owe
a call, so if you like I’ll kill the two birds
with one stone. If everything is satisfactory,
I’ll engage this woman on your
behalf, and send you a wire that it is all
right, and naming the day when she can
come. You’ll be glad of her as soon as
possible. I promised you I’d see you
through this, Luce.”

Lucy was glad to feel that the said
promise had not been absolutely forgotten,
and she gratefully accepted the
offered help.

“Of course, she’s too old. I don’t
advise you to take her, remember that,”
Florence went on. “But your heart is
set on it.”

“I can’t bear to talk of such a woman
as being ‘too old,’” cried Lucy. “I
hope nobody will think me ‘too old’
when I am forty-five! Such years have
not reached the infirmities of age, and
if they have lost something, surely they
have gained more. She may not run
upstairs as quickly as a girl, but she
must have sense and experience, and
can be safely left in charge of the house,
which is most important when I have
outdoor engagements.”

“You being so determined to have her,
and she so eager to come,” remarked
Florence, “I think you might have
brought down the wages a little.”

“Why, you told me I should have to
offer more!” said Lucy, aghast.

“Yes; but people don’t care for servants
with grey hair. If she’d an ounce
of savoir faire, she’d have dyed it.”

“Oh, horrid, horrid, Florence!” exclaimed
Lucy. “I can’t bear to hear
you talk so. It was the grey hair which
helped her to look so nice.”

It was not far past Lucy’s early dinner-hour.
So she meant to hurry home.
She invited Florence to come also, but
Florence said no, she would get lunch
near at hand, and then go straight home
to dress for afternoon calls.

“I don’t see that you couldn’t do the
same if you came with us,” Lucy urged,
for she had a hospitable soul, and it
hurt her to part from her sister directly
she had used her, and when she was
willing to be useful again on the morrow.
On the other hand, had she gone
with Florence to a restaurant, she knew
that Florence would not only have refused
to be her guest, but would have
insisted that Lucy and Hugh should be
hers, and would have “treated” them
to all sorts of luxuries in a way which
always made Lucy wish she could set the
same money going in other directions.

But Florence was deaf to all persuasions.
To own the truth, she felt relieved
to get rid of her sister, for, as she
said to herself, “the worry and the bad
atmosphere of the last two hours had
made her feel so ‘exhausted’ that she
meant to recuperate with champagne,
and she knew Lucy would be shocked.”

Lucy too, on reaching home, found
herself more weary than she would have
been after a hard day’s work. However,
as the “light” had gone, there was
nothing very pressing to do, and she
went to bed early—very soon after
Hugh’s usual bed-time.

Next afternoon the promised message
from Florence duly arrived—

“Everything all right. She will enter
service to-morrow before noon.”

“Before noon” proved to be directly
after ten o’clock in the morning, when
Jessie Morison presented herself as
comely and comfortable as before. In
expectation of her arrival, Mrs. Challoner
had dispensed with the charwoman,
and had busied herself trying to give the
kitchen its former trim aspect, already
somewhat dimmed in the hands of the
muddling, untrained worker. After
giving a few necessary instructions, she
delivered up the lower regions to their
new ruler, and betook herself to her
sketching. After dinner she would devote
the rest of the day to household
explanations.

The simple midday meal almost
startled Lucy by the savouriness of its
preparation, and the daintiness of its
arrangement. It was evident that
Jessie Morison knew her business.
Under her touch the fire glowed into
genial brightness. Her skilful shake
gave the sofa cushions a tempting
rotundity. She received all her mistress’s
directions with the masterly
comprehension of one who knows
the ground already. By tea-time, it
seemed as if she had been in the house
for months, and when, before retiring
to rest, Mrs. Challoner went down
into the kitchen to ascertain whether
all outlets were properly fastened up,
she thought she had never seen a
pleasanter picture of middle-aged industry
and worth. Jessie Morison sat
in the arm-chair, over whose back she
had thrown a Rob-Roy plaid. She was
busily knitting a long grey stocking.
The lamp was drawn up beside her,
and its light fell full on the smiling face
she turned to her mistress. She wore
a grey woollen shawl pinned across her
comfortable bosom by a Scotch pebble
brooch, and the cap surmounting her
silvered hair was no frivolous fly-away
dab of mock lace, but an efficient affair
whose neat frills were the product of
honest laundry-work and goffering irons.
It actually came into Lucy’s mind that
she might almost be thankful that
Pollie had departed in quest of personal
happiness, since Charlie might be easily
assured that his dear ones and his home
were safer than ever in the charge of
this matronly, motherly person.

The days passed on. Lucy found
herself free to work with an unencumbered
mind. The new servant proved as
pleasant as efficient. She was not a
woman who talked much, but when addressed,
she always responded cheerily,
expressed herself nicely, and frequently
made shrewd remarks, well set off by her
Scottish dialect. Lucy was especially
touched by the real right feeling she
showed in any observation which glanced
towards the absent “master” whom she
had never seen. She felt that it was
a comfort to have in the house this
experienced woman, who had known
a wife’s love and a widow’s loss. There
seemed a human bond between them
in the thick clumsy little Bible with the
Scotch metrical Psalms, which lay on
the kitchen dresser, its fly-leaf inscribed
“To Jessie Milne, from her respectful
friend Alex^r. Morison,” with a date of the
courting days five and twenty years ago.

Christmas drew near. Lucy had
wondered a little over Christmas. She
felt sure the Brands would invite her
and Hugh to their festive board, but
she did not want to go there. She knew
well enough how the Brands kept Christmas,
for she and Charlie had dined with
them on one or two Christmas days
when they were first married. There
would be a great dinner-party—a chef
hired for the occasion. With the
exception of one or two fawning familiars
of the Brand household—and especially
obnoxious to Lucy—the guests would
be anybody who was in special favour
at the time, many of them financial
or fashionable acquaintances of the last
twelve months. These people would
pick over and waste the delicious food
placed before them, they would drink
much costly wine. There would be
toasts, which would range from the
last “Company” in which Jem Brand
was interested, down to our “Absent
Friends,” which he would certainly
propose if Lucy were there. There
would follow a little confused music in
the drawing-room, overmastered by
everybody talking at once and yet saying
nothing. Then before the party broke
up, they would all stand round with
linked hands, and these people, who had
not a memory, an outlook, or even an
interest in common (unless it might be
in a “Company”), would ask in London
tones, “Should auld acquaintance be
forgot?” singing—

No, Lucy felt that it would be impossible
to endure all this just now. It
would be too much for her nerves. It
would cut her to the quick, tempting
her to tears or laughter, both alike of
cynicism and bitterness.

Yet Lucy feared that Florence would
make a sad fuss if Lucy chose to sit at
home alone—but for little Hugh—while
a place at her sister’s table was ready
to welcome her.

Of late years the Challoners had kept
Christmas after their own fashion. They
had often been joined by one or two
stray young people, teachers or students,
who were living in lodgings. But they
had had two regular guests. One of
these, Miss Latimer, had been governess
to Florence and Lucy in their girlhood.{516}
She used to go to the Brands for Christmas
when they were first married and
were not quite so showy as they had
since become. Then Florence Brand
had turned her over to Lucy, saying
that she thought their “crowd” was
too much for the old lady, “it only tired
and excited her—she was such an intellectual
person, there was much more
enjoyment for her in a quiet talk with
just one or two thoughtful people.”
That was true, and Miss Latimer was
delighted to get Lucy’s invitation, and
to accept Mrs. Brand’s excuses and
explanation. But the shrewd old lady
knew well enough that it was a truth
which Mrs. Brand would not have discovered
if Miss Latimer’s dresses had
been newer and richer, and if she had
driven up in a brougham instead of
coming to the street corner in a humble
’bus.

The other regular visitor was he whom
Lucy had once named to Florence as
“Charlie’s great chum, Wilfrid Somerset.”
He was a man of about Charles
Challoner’s own age. They had been at
school together. Then Charlie had
gone, brave and bright and winsome, out
into the world, and Wilfrid Somerset had
retired to a hermitage in the heart of
London. For he had been afflicted
almost from birth with one of those dire
disasters which set a sufferer apart from
his fellows. His walk was a writhing
struggle and distortion; his sad, worn
face, though pathetically fine when in
perfect repose, was convulsed even by
the effort of speech. Yet a beautiful
soul and a noble intellect dwelt in his
wrung frame. Providentially he had a
small independency, and was free to
work only for pure love’s sake. He had
made a high mark in philology, and was
a poet of no mean order, though neither
those who profited by his researches nor
those who sang his songs had ever heard
his name or seen his face. Not unnaturally,
he was morbidly sensitive. He had
apartments in an old house in a deserted
corner of the older London, and was
rarely out of doors by daylight save when
he took an early-morning stroll in the
sunlight, which fell subdued on the
dreary little square where he lived—a
square where nobody else ever walked.
He had many correspondents, but few
visitors, and he visited absolutely nowhere
but at the little house with the
verandah. His visits were generally
evening visits. The eyes of his fellows
seemed to burn his very soul. Lucy had
understood how to measure his great
friendship when he dared to face the
crowd at the docks that he might say
good-bye to Charlie on board the
Northern steamer.

When, during the first days of her
loneliness, any thought of Lucy’s had
strayed towards Christmas—prompted
perhaps by some question from little
Hugh—she had wished she could go on
with what Charlie and she had begun,
since that would surround her with those
who loved him and whom he loved, and
would save her from any jar with the
Brands or any reproaches from them.
Had Pollie been with her, she would
certainly have done this. She knew
that Charlie, trustful of Pollie’s fidelity,
had inferred this would be so. Now,
with this reliable woman on the scene it
was again not only possible but quite
easy. So Lucy called on Miss Latimer
and delivered her invitation personally,
getting it accepted with tears and
embraces.

“If you had not felt equal to inviting
me I should have gone nowhere else,”
said the little lady.

Lucy wrote to Wilfrid Somerset, and
by return of post came his reply, thanking
her for “the sacrifice she was making
for her friends,” and adding, “I had
expected to sit alone this year.”

Then Lucy remembered a young lad
of fifteen or sixteen whom some country
friend had introduced to Charlie, who
had found him employment in the office
of his firm. He had had no friends
when he came to London, and he had
now been in London only three or four
months. So she sent him an invitation,
and got a prompt, prim little reply. He
was a shy boy and did not much care
for the thought of a dinner-party, but he
had been thinking “it would be very
dull at Christmas,” and he knew, too,
that his mother in Lancashire would
spend a happier Christmas if she knew
he was made welcome in a friendly
house.

Florence did not put in an appearance
at her sister’s house till two days before
Christmas, when she came to say that,
of course, Lucy and Hugh were coming
to her, and she had only called to mention
that dinner would be half-an-hour earlier
than it had hitherto been. She cried
out with deprecation, and even anger, to
find that Lucy had already made her
own arrangements. Who would have
thought of such a thing? She had not
sent her invitation earlier simply because
she thought it would be understood as a
matter of course. She had told two or
three of her expected guests that they
would meet her sister. What would
they think? And what a queer creature
Lucy was to wilfully choose the
depressing society of a superannuated
teacher, a deformed pedant, and a
country bumpkin. There was no accounting
for tastes.

Lucy was glad to divert her sister’s
ire by thanking her for her expedition to
Willesden.

“It was you, Florence,” she said,
“who have helped me to do what Charlie
and I used to do together. Unless I had
secured that nice Mrs. Morison, I could
not have ventured on my little dinner-party.
You have not told me yet what
sort of interview you had with her
people.”

“Oh, well enough,” answered Mrs.
Brand evasively. “It was a poor little
place. I should not say they are well
off. If they asked her for a visit, I expect
they got something off her.”

“I believe she had a little legacy,”
Lucy replied. “So if she wanted rest
and change, nothing would be more
natural than to visit relatives to whom a
little board money would be helpful.
But you seemed quite satisfied, Florence.
You thought they were respectable.”

“Oh, yes, for working people. He is
a plumber, as you know by his card, but
in a very small way. He’s this woman’s
cousin, you know. I didn’t see him, I
saw his wife. She told over again what
the woman herself told us at the registry
office; and when I asked one or two
questions about the woman herself, she
seemed hesitating, and I began to get
suspicious till she said, ‘I shouldn’t like
you to think we were wanting to get rid
of Jessie, poor body.’ Then I understood
why her assurances were not too
gushing. She said, ‘Jessie, poor body,
had just set her heart on coming to the
nice young lady with the pretty little
boy.’ Oh, it’s all right. Don’t expect
too much. Then you won’t be disappointed.”

“Well, she has been with me nearly
two months now,” said Lucy, “and she
has come up to all my hopes.”

Mrs. Brand threw her sister a glance
of indulgent disdain.

“What did I hear you call her?” she
asked. “Didn’t I hear ‘Mrs. Morison’?
Is that so?”

“Yes, certainly!” Lucy replied.
“One would not call a middle-aged
matron by her Christian name.”

“Call her Morison, then,” suggested
Mrs. Brand.

Lucy shook her head. “She is a
married woman and a widow,” she
answered. “I am not going to take
her status from her because she is working
in my kitchen.”

Mrs. Brand laughed. “Oh, that’s it,
is it?” she said. “Well, she is so like a
respectable lodging-house-keeper that
I’ve no doubt strangers will give her the
status of landlady of your house, and
you’ll have the status of lodger!”

“What strangers think does not
matter to me,” returned Lucy. “She is
Mrs. Morison as I am Mrs. Challoner.
Who is in the kitchen and who is in the
parlour does not alter that.”

“No servant gets her name prefixed
with ‘Mistress’ except housekeepers in
great mansions,” asserted Mrs. Brand.

Lucy laughed in her turn. “Then,
instead of her being general servant of
my house,” she said, “we will say
she is the housekeeper in my little
mansion.”

Mrs. Brand took no notice of her
sister’s words, but went on: “And
those housekeepers themselves are called
‘mistress’ only by convention, not
because they have been married. They
are generally really ‘miss.’”

“I know that quite well!” cried
Lucy. “I know Miss Latimer has told
me that once when she was going
through a nobleman’s show palace, the
great Dr. Guthrie was there too, and
when he heard the housekeeper called
‘Mrs.’ Whatever-her-name-might-be,
he whispered to somebody that he
shouldn’t have thought she was a married
woman, and he was told she was not,
but she was styled so because she
was the housekeeper. Then said he,
‘Henceforth I’ll call her “miss,” for
these special fashions for domestic
workers are just badges of servitude and
relics of tyranny.’ And he kept his
word.”

“You are incorrigible,” observed Mrs.
Brand. But now she spoke dreamily,
her thoughts having gone elsewhere.
“Well,” she said, “as you won’t come{517}
to us, there’ll be two places empty, and
I’ll invite Mr. and Mrs. Forrest, our new
neighbours. They are being very useful
to Jem. I knew they ought to be asked,
but if you had come there wouldn’t have
been room.”

And she went off, leaving Lucy a
thankful woman that she had a home of
her own, where she needed no perfunctory
welcome and filled no place which
was wanted for other people.

(To be continued.)

HOW TO CONTRIVE AND DECORATE A COFFER OR LINEN PRESS.

It often happens that one gets an empty
case which one feels ought to be turned to
account, and yet the thing is to know what
to do with it. Here is one suggestion—make
it into a linen press. The case for preference
should be long rather than square (see the
proportions in sketch). You could get a new
one made for about 3s. 6d. or 4s.

The panelling is glued and bradded on.
The “stiles” (those parts around the panels)
should be got out of half-inch white wood
and should be planed. So should the portions
of the case where the panels are, if you intend
to decorate them in any way, but if you get
a case made, order it to be planed. Some
builder’s moulding forms the plinth at bottom
of chest, and a narrower moulding should be
nailed on to the edges of the lid if you want
to get a finished-looking article, but of course
all these adornments can be left out, though at
a sacrifice to appearance. We can sit on a
three-legged stool, but we prefer a chair.
Four casters should be screwed to the bottom
of the chest so that it can easily be moved about.
These can be purchased at any ironmonger’s.

The mouldings, stiles, top and sides of
chest would look well stained brown. Varnish
stain can be purchased, but I found that
permanganate of potash (Condy’s fluid) put
on with a brush stains the wood a nice brown,
and it sinks right into it. Buy the potash by
the ounce and dissolve it in warm water, and
to obtain a deep colour put on a second coat.
As it rots the hairs of a brush, use only a
cheap one. This when dry can be either
varnished with dark oak varnish (buy this
by the half-pint at some good oil-shop or
decorator’s supply stores) or can have beeswax
dissolved in warm turpentine rubbed on
and polished by friction. This is the old
housewives’ way of polishing, and those who
have seen chairs and tables in some country
cottage polished in this way will admit that
nothing can exceed the brilliance of the polish
thus obtainable, as it improves with time,
every rubbing
you give it increasing
the
brilliance. If
you use varnish
you will probably
have to
give it two
coats, as the
first one is
likely to sink
in. Use a flat
brush for putting
on the
varnish and
apply it evenly.

As I want to
cater for all
tastes and
pockets, I will
give another
suggestion
which will involve
very little
outlay, as you
can deal with
any suitable strong empty case you may have
by you. Get some patent size at an oil-shop
and melt it to boiling point by putting it in
a gallipot and this in boiling water. This
saves contaminating the saucepan and keeps
the size from burning. Give the case a good
coat, and when dry a second one. Now purchase
some Japanese gilt leather paper at
some good furniture warehouse or decorator’s.
It is very tough material, and will require
some good strong paste. That known as
“cobbler’s paste” (which you can get at a
leather-seller’s or of a friendly bootmaker) is
the best. It is too thick as it is, but can be
thinned with a little boiling water. Put
plenty on, as the paper will soak up a good
deal, and don’t attempt to stick it down on
the wood until the paste has been on some
twenty minutes or so.

In cutting the paper the right size, allow of
it being turned over the top and bottom
edges of the case, and should there be battens
on the box (strips of wood to strengthen the
case), I should not attempt to paste a long
piece of paper the length of the case, but
first of all cut strips to cover these battens
(be careful to get the paper well pressed into
the angles), allowing enough to come a little
way on to the case itself. You then cut
pieces to fit into the spaces, taking the edges
close up to the battens. The end pieces
should be put on last, and should be cut
just to fit the width but turned inside the
top of the box and underneath.

It would be a good plan to line the case
with good stout brown paper, previously sizing
the wood. The sizing, I may tell you, makes
the paper stick well.

If you like to put the mouldings at edge
of lid and at bottom, you can do so now,
previously staining and varnishing them.
Screw them on with long fine screws in preference
to nailing.

No end of useful articles can be made by
covering them with this Japanese gilt paper.
It is to be had in many patterns and with
colours introduced in some of them.

A word or two now as to the decorated
panels. You will see that they are of
an ornamental rather than a natural character,
and the designs can be repeated by reversing
them, which will save the trouble of drawing
fresh ones for each panel. They can be
carried out by outlining the design in vandyke
brown mixed with a little copal varnish and
a little turps to thin the colour, and a
background can be floated in transparently,
putting more varnish with the colour.
The plain wood will then show through the
design.

You can of course paint the designs in
simple quiet colours, but I think it would
look in better taste to treat the panels in one
tone of colour. It need not be brown; burnt
sienna with a background of raw sienna,
Indian red and burnt sienna for background,
Prussian blue with a background of that
colour and raw sienna to make it green, are
some of the combinations that suggest themselves.

Of course you will understand that you
must draw out the designs the size you wish
to reproduce them and transfer them to the
wood before you start the colouring.

The designs would look well carried out in
poker work. By that I mean not an ordinary
poker heated in a fire, but one of those
“pyrographers” sold expressly for the purpose,
in which a platinum point is kept red hot
by a spray of some inflammable liquid ejected
on to it. These instruments cost about 10s. 6d.
each, but the most intricate design can be
wrought with them, and most excellent decorative
effects produced; but I daresay most of
the readers of The Girl’s Own Paper interested
in art work, are quite familiar with
pyrography. It is not to be despised as an
art, as those who have seen good work can
testify.

{518}

SHEILA.

A STORY FOR GIRLS.

By EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN, Author of “Greyfriars,” “Half-a-dozen Sisters,” etc.

CHAPTER VI.

A SHADOWED HOME.

unt Mary, I am
so delighted to
see you! I have
been so looking
forward to this
visit!”

“And I too,
dearest! I would
have come to you
before, only I was
prevented by so
many things. I
fear you have had an
anxious winter. But Guy
is better, is he not?”

“Oh, yes, much better! He
is about again now,” answered young
Lady Dumaresq, with a smile in her
sweet hazel eyes. “Sit down by the fire,
Aunt Mary, and let me take your wraps.
Now we will be cosy together over our
cup of tea. I want to talk to you about
Guy before he comes down. He will
never be talked of when he is present. He
will tell you he is perfectly well. I wish
I could believe it myself!”

“You are anxious still, then?”

“I cannot help being. He keeps so
weak, in spite of all we do for him, and
he has still a great deal of pain, though
he never complains. His heart was
affected, you know; it is so often the
case in rheumatic fever. The doctors
think he will get over it in time; but it
is so hard to be patient!”

“Poor children!” said Miss Adene
softly. “I have been grieved for
you. But the little fellow is well, is he
not? You have no anxiety on that
score?”

The mother’s face brightened with a
soft, sweet smile.

“Oh, the little rogue is as well as
possible, and Guy’s great resource when
he is ailing! It amuses him by the
hour to watch the child at play. And
then Ronald has been so good, doing
everything indoors and out, so that
nobody, I hope, has suffered from the
absence of the master’s eye. I think it
is quite beautiful, the love between Guy
and Ronald! They are more than
brothers. Oh, yes, Aunt Mary, I have
a great deal to be thankful for!”

“And the summer is before Guy too,”
said Miss Adene. “He will make great
strides, you will see.”

“Yes, I think so truly; but there is
one thing that lies before us—all the
doctors say that he must not try another
winter in England just yet. I believe
now we should have done better to go
away in November, as some of them
wished; but Guy did not seem fit to
move and dreaded the thought so much;
and it seemed impossible, and our own
man was against it then. But what
they all say now is that, if he could get
three summers in succession by going
away for next winter, he might entirely
regain his health; and, of course, for
the sake of that we would do anything
in the world!”

“Of course! And Guy will probably
look forward with pleasure to the
thought of the flowers, and sunshine,
and blue skies, when he is a little
stronger. You know how much I have
travelled, and how I enjoy it! I declare
I will go with you myself, if you will
only ask me, when the time comes!”

Lady Dumaresq clasped her hands in
a pretty gesture of delight. Her eyes
were bright and sparkling.

“Oh, Aunt Mary, do you really mean
it? That would be just delightful!
You would be like a tower of strength
to us.”

“Only you must go to a nice place,”
Miss Adene went on, quite pleased and
interested by the idea. “I won’t have
the Riviera—I tell you that frankly. I
don’t like it, and I never did, and it’s
not a climate to take liberties in.
Everybody gets chills there.”

“Guy has suggested Algiers; he
does not care for the Riviera.”

“Algiers is better, but it faces north.
And you so soon lose the sun behind
Mustapha Supérieur in the winter
months. Now I should advise Madeira.
I was there once in November and
December, and you can’t imagine the
delicious softness and steady warmth of
the climate, and the glorious wealth of
flowers. And such nice hotels too, with
English proprietors. I shall talk to
Guy about Madeira. I always declared
I must go there again!”

At that moment there was a sound
outside, and Lady Dumaresq raised her
head with a listening gesture.

“There are the two Guys,” she said
softly; and the next moment the door
was opened and a beautiful little boy of
nearly three years old came rushing
into the room, making straight for his
mother. A little behind him, walking
rather slowly with a stick in his hand,
came a tall, thin young man, whose
pale face and deliberate movements
indicated recent illness. Miss Adene
rose quickly from her seat and advanced
to meet him.

“My dear Guy, I am so glad to find
you downstairs after all this long time!”

He smiled, and bent to kiss her, for
he was tall, whilst little Miss Adene
was short, though she was slim and
elegant both in her dress and figure,
and had the air of refinement and
breeding which goes so much farther
than mere good looks. Indeed, that
nameless air of distinction characterised
the whole party. It was very marked in
Sir Guy himself, and in his beautiful
young wife.

“We have been looking forward to
this visit, Aunt Mary. I am glad now
you did not come earlier. We have a
sort of make-believe summer just now,
though probably we shall get some cold
winds later on. You are well?”

“Always well, you know, Guy, and
very pleased to be here.”

“Where you will stay for quite a long
time if we can keep you,” said Sir Guy
eagerly. “It will do Violet a lot of
good to have you. She has been looking
pale and depressed lately. I am dull
company for her, and she ought to go
out again and see the world. She will,
now that she has you to go with her.”

“Well, I will stay as long as I can!
But I have other visits booked later on.
Do you remember, Violet, my old friends
the Lawrences? They had some money
troubles a year or two back, and they
had to leave Lakeside. They have got
a rather nice old house in the eastern
counties, where property is to be had so
much more cheaply. I don’t exactly
know where it is; but Isingford is their
post town, though they are right away
in the country. I have promised to go
and see them. They say the house and
garden are very nice; but, of course,
the society is nothing like what they
have been used to. There are a few old
families living within a drive; but most
of the better houses are taken up by
people who have made their money in
trade and retired. Some are quite
pleasant and possible, they say; though,
of course, they miss the old set! But
that sort of change is going on all over
the country more or less.”

“Yes,” answered Sir Guy, “we have
all of us to learn the lesson of tolerance,
I think—to be catholic in our sympathies,
in our religion and social life alike.
Some of our neighbours here, who
decidedly have not the stamp of Vere
de Vere, have been as kind and sympathetic
as possible to Violet these past
months when life has been rather dreary
for her. Hullo, here is the young rascal
wanting his Aunt Mary’s notice!
Hasn’t he grown a big, strong fellow?
He’s getting quite a handful for his
parents, I can tell you.”

Little Guy was a very charming young
man, as he ought to be with such
handsome parents and so much care
taken of his education, for Lady
Dumaresq had resolutely set her face
against having him spoiled, and had
got him an old-fashioned nurse, who
was quite one with her as to strict rules
of simple diet, early hours, and no undue
indulgence. So he did not interrupt the
conversation of his elders, nor intrude
his own wishes at every opportunity. He
had an engaging little way of creeping
softly up to the person whose attention
he wished to attract, and silently possessing
himself of a disengaged hand,
against which he would lay his soft
round cheek in an irresistible caress.

Miss Adene was charmed with him,
took him on her knee, and let him
prattle to her. In the midst of this talk
a step was heard in the hall, and little
Guy slipped down and ran towards the
door, exclaiming—

“Sat’s Uncle Ronald!”

{519}

The next minute Guy’s brother was in
their midst, shaking hands with Miss
Adene most cordially, and tossing the
boy upon his broad shoulder, as the
father had not done for many a long day
now. He was a very handsome fellow
twenty-four years old, two years younger
than the baronet, with the same well-cut
features and tall, manly figure; only he
was muscular and athletic-looking where
Sir Guy was thin almost to gauntness,
and there were no lines of pain in his
brown face, whilst the eyes seemed
always brimming over with fun and good
humour.

He seemed to bring with him a whiff
of fresh air and sunshine. He almost
lived out of doors, looking after the
estate for his brother, and enjoying his
favourite pursuits of shooting, fishing, or
hunting, according to the season.

“Yes, always killing something, Aunt
Mary,” he replied laughingly to her
query—“the typical Englishman for
that. I say, Rascal, what do you think
of having a professional murderer for
an uncle? Isn’t it a shocking sort of
thing?”

“I’ll be professional murderer too!”
cried little Guy, gulping a little over the
long words, whereat they all laughed,
and Ronald made such a raid upon the
teapot that it had to be sent out to be
replenished.

Miss Adene told her budget of family
news. She was one of those delightful
members of a family, popular with every
branch, who have leisure to go about
from house to house and act as a
connecting-link between those who can
seldom meet. She never had an unkind
thing to say, was never known to make
a particle of mischief, though such
persons have endless opportunities of
doing this if they have the disposition
for it, or are lacking in tact and
discrimination. Everybody was glad to
see her come, and sorry when her visit
ended. She was popular alike with
young and old, and had always an
interesting way of telling her news that
gave it a charm independent of the
subject.

After dinner, when Lady Dumaresq
and her aunt were alone together, she
eagerly asked for her opinion about Guy.

“He looks quite as well as I expected,
Violet; but, of course, one can see that
he will have to be very careful for some
time to come. An illness like that
leaves traces behind for a very long
time. Still, I don’t see any reason for
undue anxiety. He has a fine constitution,
and is a young man still. He has
everything in his favour, and I cordially
approve of taking him away next winter.
He will gain ground during the warm
weather, but he would very likely lose it
in the winter; whereas, if he can be out
in Madeira, or somewhere where he can
go on living out of doors, and then come
back again to another summer here, he
would probably get quite sound and
well.”

“I told him what you had said about
Madeira and coming with us, and the
idea quite took his fancy. It is the first
time he has shown any enthusiasm over
the thought of going away. If he can
be brought to like it that will be a great
step.”

“Oh, we will make him like it!”
cried Miss Adene brightly. “I will tell
him things about Madeira that will
make his mouth water. Such rainbows
hanging over the hills—such sunsets!
And everything so curious and semi-barbaric
in the town; and yet every
English comfort within doors. Oh, we
will make him take to the plan! And
it’s a fine place for children; they thrive
amazingly there! We can take little
Guy with us. But it will leave Ronald
rather lonely.”

“I expect Ronald will come with us—for
a month or two, at least.”

“What, in the middle of the hunting
season—or the beginning—for I should
not be later than October starting!”

“Well, I fancy Ronald will come out
with us. He is fond of travelling, and
is an excellent sailor; and living alone
would be a dreary thing for him. He
always likes company.”

“I wonder he does not marry. Is he
engaged?”

“No; we sometimes wish he would
choose a good wife for himself. Since
he came into that nice little property
and income from their eccentric old uncle
who died two years ago, he could very
well afford a comfortable establishment.
But he lets his house on a yearly tenancy
and stays on here to be with Guy; and
what we should have done without him
this past year I cannot imagine. Still,
if Guy gets back his health again, and
can take up his own work for himself, it
would really be better for Ronald to
marry and settle down on his own
property. But he has never shown any
disposition to fall in love.”

“He would have no difficulty in
getting a wife,” said Miss Adene with
a little laugh. “He is a fascinating
boy, and very good company, as well as
so good-looking.”

“I’m afraid that’s partly it,” said
Lady Dumaresq, laughing. “The girls
are all too willing and ready. He is
quite the catch of the county; and
perhaps they court him a little too much.
It bores him, and, though he always
makes himself universally agreeable and
popular, he takes very good care not to
be ‘hooked,’ or ‘booked,’ or whatever
you call it. He treats all the girls alike
in a provoking sort of way—provokingly
equal and friendly. It would do him
good, I think, to fall in love and feel a
little qualm of anxiety as to his fate.
He’s wonderfully unspoiled, all things
considering; but it’s never quite good
for a young man to feel he has only to
throw the handkerchief.”

Miss Adene nodded sagely.

“That’s quite true. It is a wonder
he has kept from growing conceited and
affected. But he’s a thoroughly nice
boy, and a good one too, I think. He
does not speak lightly or sneeringly of
women. I always think that is a good
test. In these days it is such a fashion
to sneer at everything.”

“That is not Ronald’s way,” answered
Lady Dumaresq thoughtfully. “Aunt
Mary, I was quite touched by what I
found out about Ronald when Guy was
so ill. You know he was prayed for in
the little church here close by the park
gates? Well, Ronald used to go there
regularly every morning all through that
time, to the little short eight o’clock
service. I never heard about it till long
afterwards; but he never missed unless
he were taking my place just then in
Guy’s room. I don’t think it would be
many young men who would do that.
He has never said a word, and I don’t
think he knows we know. But there
he was.”

“That is very nice,” said Miss Adene
softly. “I sometimes think, my dear,
that, if we had more real lively faith,
there would be less sickness and trouble
in the world.”

“Do you know, I have thought so
myself often?” said the young wife
earnestly. “I always thought Guy’s
life was given back as an answer to
prayer. You know, there was a time
when all the doctors had given him up.
That is why I feel a sort of confidence
that he will be fully restored. I think
God would not have given him back only
to linger on in more or less suffering,
and then be taken away again.”

“God sometimes tries us in ways
which we cannot understand,” said
Miss Adene in a low voice, “but I
think He wishes us to put our full faith
and confidence in Him. We must use
every means which He puts into our
hands, and then leave the rest to Him,
and wait calmly and hopefully for the
result.”

Lady Dumaresq took Miss Adene’s
hand and kissed it.

“That is what I mean to do, Aunt
Mary. I will not lose hope or faith.
We will do everything we can and leave
the rest. I am so happy and thankful
to have you here to help me!”

(To be continued.)

VARIETIES.

No Time to Play on it.—At a meeting
of a rural Board of Guardians in Devonshire
recently, it was proposed to give the Master of
the workhouse a honorarium, but one of the
members objected, on the ground that the
Master was so much occupied that he did not
think he would have time to play on it!

A Fatal Obstacle.—The greatest drawback
to the current of true love is the undertow
of selfishness.

A New Conundrum.

What is the largest room in the world?
The room for improvement.

Who makes the best Match?—It is
not the girl that fires up the quickest that
makes the best match.

The Narrow Mind.—The mind grows
narrow in proportion as the soul grows
corrupt.

{520}

{521}

THE FAIRIES.

A POOR NEEDLEWOMAN.

A DREAM OF FAIR SERVICE.—Chapter IV.

By C. A. MACIRONE.

A prison in a little seaport town in
England—a jail where criminals of every type,
sex, and class herded together.

The fresh sea air outside those locked and
barred doors inspired health and brightness to
the busy population, but within, instead of
the rush of the waves, the happy sounds of
passing people and children, the rattle of
coach and cart, and the cries of hawkers—within,
there were sounds indeed, but the vile
language of criminals, oaths and curses, whose
time was given to gaming, fighting, and
quarrelling—unemployed, uncontrolled, without
schoolmaster or clergyman, or any attempt
at reformation—without any divine worship;
it was a place where every wickedness was
roused and fostered, and there was neither
hope nor help for those inmates who were not
entirely lost.

“The place itself was fit for such inhabitants—cells
underground quite dark and unventilated,
suffocatingly hot in summer, and
unfit for the confinement of any human being,
the whole place unhealthy and filthy; the
prisoners were infected with vermin and skin
disease.”[1]

Into this pandemonium in August, 1819, a
woman was sent, committed for a most unnatural
crime. It was a mother who had
forgotten her sucking child! She had no
compassion on her helpless infant, but had
cruelly beaten and ill-used it.

The inhabitants of the bright little town
took cheerfully the accounts of the trial of
this woman, and went about their usual
avocations as quietly and busily as usual.

But one poor woman, a dressmaker, not
peculiarly gifted with any power or influence
beyond an intense love and sympathy, plain,
poor, and unknown—the horror of the thought
of this lost woman, of what she was, what
she would suffer, what yet it might be possible
to do for her, possessed her whole soul with
a mighty impulse to try what even she would
do in her Master’s strength and with His
blessing.

This young woman, Sarah Martin, lived in
the little village of Caistor, near Yarmouth,
with an old grandmother whom she tended;
she walked to and fro to her needlework,
passing the jail, and she had long wished in
some way she could help the miserable people
within it. If she could only read the Bible to
them, show them some love and sympathy, see
for herself if there could be any way of helping
them, of making them see the divine love and
compassion which was the life of her own soul,
if any prodigal son could be awakened to the
Father’s love—always ready to bless, always
glad to forgive—she thought she would die
happier. So in her sudden horror of the
condition of the condemned mother, all her
impulses sprang into active life, and she went
to the jail for permission to see her. Of
course her petition was refused at first, and
obstacles on all sides delayed her success,
but her patience and energy were equal to the
occasion, and as she cared nothing for herself,
and had a sublime faith in the help which is
never refused to His children when they ask
for it, she won her way at last. “By her
love she overcame.” At first, when that
mother saw her, she only wondered that anyone
would care to come to her. But when the
love and pity of real sympathy became a
reality before her, tears and thanks gushed
from her poor broken heart like the waters
from the rock in the wilderness, and the good
work was begun.

Once admitted within the prison, her quick
intelligence saw what could be done, and her
work grew and prospered. She began reading
to the prisoners, and that was gradually
valued as their greatest comfort. Then she
began to teach them reading, so as to improve
the hours of her absence; gradually she
taught them various works, and small sums
were given to her to buy materials. First,
(being a very expert needlewoman), she taught
the women to make sets of baby clothes,
and then these were sold, and made a
fund for prisoners after their discharge. The
men were taught to make straw hats, bone
spoons, and seats; even patchwork the men
would delight in, and learnt to sew gray
cotton shirts, while she begged for and got
materials from anyone who would or could
help, and contrived to make odds and ends
into materials.

Very gradually and steadily she made the
sacredness of Sunday a rest and a blessing—a
contrast to the employments of the week.
And she borrowed drawings and prints to
show and interest them, and one of these was
Retzsch’s sketch of “The chess-players,” a
young student playing a game for his soul,
an angel on one hand, and Satan on the{522}
other side. This interested some of the men
so much that they begged to be allowed to
copy it, and hours of happy study and improvement
passed in helping those prisoners
to develop powers they never knew they
possessed.

All these plans encroached more and more
on her own private earnings, but the service
of her Master was to her the greatest luxury
and privilege, and her own occupations became
less and less capable of giving her even the
very scanty needs of her own life. Also we
must remember that besides her attendance
at the prison, her readings and instructions,
her classes for needlework and other arts, she
had to prepare all her work, cutting it out and
arranging it, get together the books and
materials used, and on Sunday she managed
to get the prisoners together to a morning,
and even an evening, service, for which she
chose such prayers and Bible readings as she
found they could follow, and wrote the
addresses which were included in the services,
which were eminently suited to that very
peculiar audience.

For six or seven hours daily she was at the
prison, and converted that which at the best
would have been vicious idleness into a hive
of industry and order, and a good preparation
for a more useful and happy life when that in
the prison ended.

There is not on record a single instance of
failure in this life of complete self-devotion.
Those who at first were stubborn and saucy,
shallow and self-conceited, full of cavils and
objections, as time went on and her influence
made itself felt, became anxious to learn, to
be allowed to work, and to share in the busy
life around. Young men as impudent as they
were ignorant, beginning by learning one
verse to please her, went on to long passages,
and even the dullest found the interest and
refreshment of learning a few lines every day
and working to some useful purpose.

We must remember that this was accomplished
without any official authority whatever,
only the most overwhelming persuasion
on their part that her whole heart was set
upon doing them good, and making them
happier and better. And this was not all.
It involved many other claims on her time
and strength, inquiries for friends, care for
those who had begun a better life, and whom
she managed still to keep true to their new
resolutions and better lives.

On the few evenings she would be free to
see her own friends and those who were
interested in her work and would help in it,
she would take plenty of work with her, and
get all those present to help in carrying out
her plans. Old pieces of stuffs, paper, old
drawings, scraps that seemed mere litter
would, by her active and inventive mind, be
turned to some good use.

Her day was closed, after her exhausting
labours, by no return to a cheerful home
where rest and welcome and sympathy, food
and comfort, were waiting for her, but a
lonely locked-up room, fireless and cheerless,
dark and lonely, where all had to be done by
her own tired hands. Her account books,
her notes of her work, and the poor for whom
she was fighting all the powers of evil, had to
be written.

These account books, of every item of her
expenditure, are now in the public library at
Yarmouth. They record the name and career
of every prisoner she visited, her experience
of their character and development. And all
this time she was living in the most absolute
poverty, and yet of total unconcern as to her
temporal support. She said, “God was my
Master, and would not forsake His servant;
He was my father, and could not forget His
child.”

Meantime the Corporation had no expense
for a chaplain or a schoolmaster. She supplied
the place of both, but as time went on some
members of the Corporation wished to make
some pecuniary provision for her wants out of
the borough funds, but they desisted in
consequence of her most earnest opposition.

At last it was wisely intimated (as the
Edinburgh Review writes) to this high-souled
woman, “If we permit you to visit the prison,
you must submit to our terms” (in spite of her
earnest appeal, and her urging that her work,
being known to be a voluntary work, had
greater influence). And so these worshipful
gentlemen, who were then making use of
Sarah Martin as a substitute for the schoolmaster
and the chaplain, whom it was by law
their bounden duty to have appointed,
converted her into their salaried servant by
the munificent grant of £12 per annum.

Sarah Martin lived for two years in the
receipt of this memorable evidence of Corporation
bounty, but her health and strength
was failing fast, and it was with increasing
suffering and difficulty that she continued her
work in the prison until April, 1843, when a
most painful disease, increasing rapidly,
prevented all exertion.

It is a triumphant sequel to a life of incessant
self-denial and heroic exertion to find
that this brave woman would cheer the sacred
loneliness of her entrance into the dark valley
of the shadow of death with songs of victory
and triumph, and when the nurse told her
that she believed the time of her departure
was at hand, she, clapping her hands together,
exclaimed, “Thank God! thank God!” and
never spake more. It was once truly said, “A
little faith will take you to Heaven; but a
great faith will bring Heaven to you.”

Captain Williams, the Inspector of Prisons,
before quoted, says of her, “Her simple
unostentatious, yet energetic devotion to the
interest of the outcast and the destitute, her
gentle disposition, never irritated by disappointment,
nor her charity straightened by
ingratitude, presents a combination of qualities
which imagination sometimes portrays as the
ideal of what is pure and beautiful, but which
are rarely found embodied in humanity. She
was no titled sister of charity, but was
silently felt and acknowledged to be one by
the many outcast and destitute persons who
received encouragement from her lips, and
relief from her hands, and a higher and purer
life from her influence, and by the few who
were witnesses of her good works.”

We remember, as who does not, the noble
faith of Mrs. Fry, who fought a like battle in
the walls of a prison. Mrs. Fry was a woman
of high education, of assured position, of
practised eloquence, and supported by influential
and important friends. But Sarah
Martin was a poor lone woman, plain and
little educated, endowed only by the magnificence
of her faith and love with the energy
of waging such a war.

The Edinburgh Review, in an eloquent
article on the Life and Poems of Sarah
Martin, closes with the following words:

“It is the business of literature to make
such a life stand out from the masses of
ordinary existences with something of the
distinctness with which a lofty building
uprears itself in the confusion of a distant
view. It should be made to attract all eyes,
and to excite the hearts of all persons who
think the welfare of their fellow mortals an
object of interest or duty; it should be included
in collections of biography, and chronicled in
the high places of history; men should be
taught to estimate it as that of one whose
philanthropy has entitled her to renown, and
children to associate the name of Sarah
Martin with those of Howard, Buxton, Fry,
the most benevolent of mankind.”

SELF-CULTURE FOR GIRLS.

PART IV.

e have discussed the
question why, and
how, reading should
find a place in the
daily scheme of life,
and have now to inquire
what shall be
chosen for the culture
of the mind and
heart. To inveigh
upon the necessity of
reading, for a would-be student, and never
suggest what shall be read, would be about as
sensible as to inveigh on the necessity of food
for a growing child, without reference to the
sort of nourishment that is to build up the
physical frame. On its proper quality, health
and strength in great measure depend.

It is easy enough in these days to know
what foods are nutritious, if anyone chooses
to take the trouble to find out, and those suitable
for the growing child are comparatively
few in number. But alas, for the multitude
of books! Who shall discriminate among
them? “It is of the greatest importance to
you,” says Ruskin, “not only for art’s sake
but for all kinds of sake, in these days of book
deluge, to keep out of the salt swamps of
literature, and live on a little rocky island of
your own, with a spring and a lake in it, pure
and good. I cannot, of course, suggest the
choice of your library to you, for every several
mind needs different books; but there are
some books which we all need.”

And first it may be said that no kind of
culture is possible without a knowledge of the
great literature of the Past. You must, therefore,
read and study what has survived through
centuries of time. Have you ever reflected on
the immortality of books, and what it means?
Written in the most perishable of materials,
nay, at first not written, but handed down by
word of mouth, they have outlasted the
triumphal arch, the mighty column, the
impregnable city of old; have continued, while
empires have tottered to their doom, and while
one civilisation has risen upon the ruins of
another. The shocks of contending armies
have affected them not: they have endured,
from generation to generation, the same, while
all else has changed. What respect, then, and
reverence should be paid to the books of
olden time!

First, of course, comes the Bible. We are
not accustomed to study this Book for literary
reasons, and rightly think its claim to our love
and reverence rests upon other grounds. But
we must never forget that the sublimest poetry,
the most beautiful simplicity of diction
mingled with grandeur, are to be found in the
Old and New Testaments.

“Intense study of the Bible will keep any
man from being vulgar in point of style,” said
Coleridge.

{523}

Also, if anyone anxious for self-culture
could take the Bible as a starting-point, and
follow up all the different allusions to the nations
of the earth—study the early civilisations of
Egypt and Assyria, going on to Greece,
Rome and Asia Minor, for example—he
would find himself well educated in ancient
history before he was aware of it.

The influence of Bible study upon the
character, even in the way of culture, is very
wonderful. Take, for instance, the Scotch
peasantry of a generation or two ago. Devout,
versed in the Scriptures and probably little else,
what a fine mental type many of their
children have exhibited! One could name
novelists, philosophers, divines, who have
traced their power of thought and charm of
diction to the influence of the home where
riches were not, but a sturdy, simple, religious
faith, based upon a daily study of the Bible,
prevailed.

“Every several mind needs different books,”
but every mind needs the Book of books.

Apart from the Bible, there are two books
of which you should know something: the
Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer.

This possibly sounds far too learned to
many girls who read this page. They have a
vague idea that they must know Greek before
they can approach what their schoolboy
brothers regard as a task. And if they never
hear of these names in the daily run of life,
they feel all the more reluctant to attack what
sounds repellent and incomprehensible.

If any girl with an average amount of
intelligence can get Butcher and Lang’s
translation of the Odyssey, she will doubtless
be charmed, and any such ideas of repulsion
as we have mentioned will be swept quite out
of her mind. This translation reads like a
romance or fairy tale of old. Jebb’s Primer
of Greek Literature, published at one shilling,
will be a help to its full comprehension, and a
Greek History may also be useful. Smith’s
Smaller History of Greece is very good.

The Iliad and the Odyssey are probably at
least twenty-seven centuries old; and they still
appeal to the human heart. Mr. Gladstone
said he felt himself “in heaven when he was
breathing the pure atmosphere of Homer.”
And a child also can delight in their pages.
The present writer will never forget the charm
to her, as a little girl, of Pope’s version of
the Odyssey, with outline illustrations by
Flaxman.

Although the Iliad and the Odyssey are
poems, the translations that will appeal most
strongly to English girl-readers, we think, are
the prose versions by Andrew Lang and his
colleagues. These are written in an exquisitely
simple style, nearer to the original than the
sonorous lines of Pope, Chapman, Lord Derby,
Worsley, and many others.

Besides the Iliad and Odyssey, which treat
of the very dawn of history, there are other
works of which you should know something.
One might write a volume on the subject of
Greek literature, but it is inopportune here to
mention more than a few books. The
Apology, Crito and Phædo of Plato, are
translated in Dean Church’s Trial and Death
of Socrates. They are dialogues telling that
immortal story. The plays of Æschylus are
issued in English in Morley’s Universal
Library, published by Routledge at a shilling.
The Alcestis of Euripides has been beautifully
translated by Robert Browning in
Balaustion’s Adventure, which tells the
fascinating story of the capture of a Rhodian
girl by the Syracusans, and the way in which
she won her liberty by reciting the play
Alcestis. The plays of Euripides as a
whole are well translated by Arthur S. Way,
M.A. (Macmillan); and the plays of Æschylus
by Dean Plumptre. Miss Anna Swanwick
has rendered the Agamemnon of Æschylus
into charming English.

The student of this literature will find the
same names recur again and again. She will
soon come to understand its scope, and live in
a world of her own—not a forlorn, dry-as-dust
world of ruins and ashes, but a bright glad
world, which recalls Browning’s words:

This world is peopled with noble men and
fair women, and all they do and say is
chronicled with a sweet, majestic simplicity
that appeals to the heart. Sin there is, and
its resulting sorrow and doom; but the lesson
is that which echoes from the recurrent words
in the chorus of the Agamemnon:

And when we come down to the story of
Socrates, who literally died because he strove
to teach that which he knew to be right, we
feel that we tread on sacred ground:

Space forbids, or it would be possible to
write pages on the delights of Greek literature.
But to any girl who has leisure and inclination,
the study of the Greek language itself is most
strongly recommended. Translations abound,
and are excellent, but the best translation
cannot give the beauty of the original. The
study of the lovely, flexible language is in itself
an education; it is surely an inducement that the
New Testament is written in comparatively
easy Greek; and the wealth of literature to
which Greek constitutes a title-deed may
well repay hard labour.

“Can a girl learn Greek quite alone and
unaided?” it may be asked. Well, it can
possibly be done, but a little help is invaluable,
and there are correspondence and other classes
of which anyone who is in real earnest can
ascertain particulars and avail herself, if she
cannot get individual tuition. The task is not
easy, but it is worth while to attempt it.

There is a book which, perhaps better than
any other, can help the young to enter into the
Greek spirit: The Heroes; Greek Fairy
Tales for my Children, by Charles Kingsley.
If all the other advice of our chapter proves
unpalatable, surely this may be accepted, as
the legends are told in the most fascinating
and simple way. Nathaniel Hawthorne, in
Tanglewood Tales, has embodied olden
legends, but in a less charming manner.

Dean Church has recounted for boys stories
from Homer, Herodotus, and the Greek
tragedians, also from Livy and from Virgil.

The works of Virgil, in Dryden’s translation
from the Latin, are published in Morley’s
Universal Library for one shilling.

Some knowledge of Latin is more frequently
found among girls than a knowledge of
Greek, but it seldom extends so far as to afford
the enjoyment of reading the classic lore they
have learnt with difficulty to spell out at school.
And it must be acknowledged that the
fascination of Greek literature is altogether
different.

Two small books published by the Society
for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge,
Epicureanism, by W. Wallace, M.A., and
Stoicism, by Rev. W. W. Capes, are very
useful to those who wish to understand a little
about the chief philosophies of the ancient
world. To older readers the Meditations of
Marcus Aurelius, and the Discourses of
Epictetus, will be valuable.

The subject is so vast, it is impossible to
deal with it here, and it would be absurd to
suppose that one brief article could be a
comprehensive guide to Greek literature. But
that is not needful, or intended. This point
alone we wish to emphasise: that culture is
altogether impossible without some idea of the
mighty Past. And even the busy and the poor
may in the present day obtain a glimpse into
its beauty and wonder, by means of the
translations we have mentioned. One such
glimpse will lead on to another.

The Heroes of Asgard, by A. and E.
Keary, if still in print, is almost as fascinating
in its way as Kingsley’s Heroes. It treats of
the Scandinavian mythology in a very
attractive form, telling of Baldur the Beautiful,
of Loki, Thor, and many other names that
should be familiar. No one can plead ignorance
of ancient lore, when the stories that
embody its mythology are within the mental
compass even of a child.

One benefit of the study of olden literature
is this; that the mental prospect receives a
background as it were. The thoughts found
in Greek literature are the thoughts that now
influence society; the eternal longings and
aspirations of the heart of man were expressed
in those days of old; while the gladness of the
childhood of the world—a gladness that we
know now in youth and the soft spring days,
and the beauty of the earth—finds expression
in immortal verse. So that of the names
already mentioned, and of many others, it may
well be said, in Mrs. Browning’s words:

Lily Watson.

(To be continued.)

HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

A rag steeped in turpentine will usually stop
severe bleeding of a cut.

Stains on bedroom basins come off easily if
rubbed with a little Brooke’s Monkey Brand
soap on a damp flannel.

Bedroom and sitting-room fires should be
always kept laid and ready to light at a minute’s
notice in case of an emergency, accident, or
illness.

Water-bottles in bedrooms should be
completely emptied each day and refilled with
water that has been boiled.

There should be a cupboard in each house
containing simple remedies for wounds, burns,
and cuts, and simple drugs for immediate need;
also some lint, linen bandage material, and a
pair of sharp scissors with blunt points. This
cupboard should, however, be placed beyond
the reach of little children.

The little wooden rollers round which unmounted
photographs are sent out are valuable
for preservation of face-veils. When these are
taken off, they should at once be rolled round
one of these smooth rollers in order to preserve
the shape.

If you wish to keep the feathers of any
bird that has been shot, be sure and cut off the
ends of each quill before you use it, as that
contains matter which decomposes.

{524}

A GAME OF MEMORY.

“Let me teach you another game,” said
Aunt Louie, “and it shall be a game of
memory.”

“I hope it is not a dreadful game of forfeits,”
cried Carrie.

“Well, for a lapse of memory you forfeit
your seat and descend to a lowly one on the
floor.”

“Just this amendment I must plead:
mothers must be exempted from penalties,”
said I, “and may remain in their easy-chairs.”

“Conceded, for dignity’s sake,” replied
Aunt Louie.

“Please declare the rules of the game and
let us brace ourselves to our task!” cried
Cecil.

“Well, we give a tea-party, and as each
names the guest to be invited, the names of
the first-mentioned guests must be repeated
in exactly the same order as given.”

“If that is the case,” said Phyllis, “there
must be no flitting from seat to seat, you
restless young people. Choose your seats
and keep them as long as you may.”

“Are the living only to be invited, or may
we summon the illustrious dead?” asked
Harry.

“The illustrious dead may be invited,”
answered Aunt Louie.

“Now then, Aunt Louie, please lead off!”
cried all.

“I shall give a tea-party and invite the hero
of Kartoum.”

“And I,” said Eva, “shall ask Lord Kartoum
and Major Marchand.”

“I’ll have Lord Kartoum, Major Marchand
and Rider Haggard,” said Cecil.

“And I,” said Carrie, “am determined to
have Lord Kartoum, Major Marchand, Rider
Haggard and her Majesty the Queen.”

“My invitations,” said Phyllis, “shall be
sent to Lord Kartoum, Major Marchand,
Rider Haggard, the Queen and General
Gordon.”

“I’ll have Lord Kartoum, Major Marchand,
Rider Haggard, the Queen, General Gordon
and Barnum,” added Jessie.

Harry gave “Dreyfus,” and two of the
young people added the names of “Nansen”
and “Clifford Harrison,” while I contributed
“Herkomer,” thus completing the first round.
So far no lapse of memory had occurred, and
all remained in their seats.

“Now,” said Aunt Louie, “we try another
round, and yet another, still repeating the
names and keeping each round perfectly
distinct.”

At the second round two of our party broke
down and subsided on the ground. At the
third round two more fell out, and at the
fourth round only Cecil remained on the field,
so to speak, victor of the game.

Clara Thwaites.

“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 XXXII.

MOORE’S LAST VICTORY.

In an instant Sir John Moore half raised
himself, gazing still with concentrated
earnestness, as if nothing had happened,
towards the Highland regiment now
hotly engaged. Not a sigh was heard.
Not a muscle in his face quivered.

Hardinge had sprung down, and
Moore’s right hand grasped his firmly.
When Hardinge, seeing his anxiety as
to the 42nd, exclaimed, “They are advancing!”
a flash of joy lighted up
Moore’s features.

Then Colonel Graham hurried to the
spot. So placid and unchanged was
the General’s look that for a moment he
hoped it might be no more than an
accidental fall from the horse. The
next moment he saw—and he rode off at
full speed for a surgeon.

It was an awful wound. Almost the
whole left shoulder was carried away;
the arm was all but separated from the
body; the ribs over that intrepid heart
were broken; the flesh and muscles
were fearfully torn and mangled. Hardinge
made an attempt with his sash to
check the rush of blood; but with so
extensive an injury little could be done.

Sir John was then gently lifted upon a
blanket, and all the while he still
intently watched the struggle, as if his
own state were a matter of very secondary
importance.

For a moment his attention was recalled
from the front. His sword became
entangled, as the soldiers moved
him, and the hilt went into the wound.
Captain Hardinge began to unbuckle
it, but he was at once checked, Moore
saying in his usual voice, with calm
distinctness—

“It is as well as it is. I had rather
it should go out of the field with me.”

So extraordinary was his composure
that Hardinge began to hope, even
against hope, that the wound might
after all prove not to be mortal, that the
General might even yet be spared to his
country. He faltered something of the
kind, and Moore turned from gazing at
the battle, to inspect gravely his own
injuries.

“No, Hardinge, I feel that to be
impossible,” he replied. “You need
not go with me. Report to General
Hope that I am wounded and carried to
the rear.”

He was slowly borne towards Coruña,
a sergeant and ten soldiers of the
Guards and the 42nd being told off for
this service. Hardinge’s sash was
arranged so as to give him support.

Two surgeons came hastening to meet
him. They had been engaged with the
arm of his next in command, Sir David
Baird, which was badly shattered, but
on hearing what had happened to his
Chief, Baird hurried them off, and they
left his arm half-dressed. Moore, who
was losing blood rapidly, observed—

“You can be of no service to me.
Go to the wounded soldiers. You may be
of use to them.” But this unselfish
order could not be obeyed.

Again and again in their sad progress
he desired a halt, that he might
watch what was going on, and might
listen to the fainter sound of the enemy’s
musketry, as the French were driven
back.

Presently they were overtaken by a
spring waggon containing a wounded
officer, Colonel Wynch, who asked,
“Who was in the blanket?” On
hearing that it was General Moore, he
suggested his removal to the waggon.
Moore did not refuse, but he looked at
one of the Highlanders and asked
his opinion—would the waggon or the
blanket be best? The man advised the
latter.

“It will not shake you so much, sir,”
he said; “and we can keep step, and
carry you more easy.”

“I think so, too,” Sir John quietly
said, and they went on their way as
before. By this time the hardy Highlanders
and Guardsmen who carried him
were one and all in tears.

It was nearly dark when they reached
his lodgings in Coruña. Colonel Anderson,
his devoted friend and comrade
during twenty-one years past, met the
mournful cavalcade, and was speechless
with distress. This was the third time
that he had seen Moore carried wounded
from a field of battle; and it was the
last.

Moore pressed his hand tightly.

“Anderson, don’t leave me!” he
murmured.

Then, as his faithful French servant,
François, appeared, in blank horror,
with falling tears, he smiled.

“Mon ami, this is nothing,” he said.

The surgeons examined the wound,
only to find that no hope of recovery
existed. By this time the agony had
become so overwhelming that Moore
could hardly speak, and his face was
deathly pale. Yet, after a while, he so
far mastered the torture as to utter one
sentence and then another at intervals.

“Anderson, you know that I have
always wished to die in this way,” came
first. And, as the officers of his staff
appeared, one by one, he put the same
question to each—“Are the French
beaten?”

Next, with unconscious pathos, read
now in the light of after-misrepresentations—

“I hope the people of England will
be satisfied. I hope my country will do
me justice!”

{525}

Now there was the thought of his
own relatives.

“Anderson—you will see my friends
as soon as you can. Tell them—everything.
Say to my mother——”

For the first time self-control failed.
His voice broke, and his features were
strongly agitated. The love between
that son and that mother had been of no
common kind. He was utterly unable
to speak what he wished, and he turned
to another subject.

“Hope—Hope—I have much to say
to him—but—cannot get it out? Are
Colonel Graham[2] and all my Aides-de-camp
safe?”

Anderson hastily signed to others not
to tell him that one of the latter had
been dangerously wounded, knowing
well the strong affection which existed
between Moore and his whole staff. The
question was evaded.

He then mentioned that he had made
his will, and had in it remembered his
servants. “Colbourne has my will—and
all my papers,” he said. And
when Major Colbourne[3] came in, Moore
greeted him with exceeding kindness,
turning then to Sir John Hope, to say
with difficulty, “Hope, go to the Duke
of York, and say he ought to give
Colbourne a regiment.” Upon Anderson
too he urged the same.

He asked again, “Were the French
beaten?” In every direction, he was
told. “It’s a great satisfaction for me
to know we have beaten the French,”
he remarked. “Is Paget in the room?”
Colonel Anderson, who throughout remained
close by his side, supporting
him as he lay, replied in the negative.
“Remember me to him. It is General
Paget I mean. He is a fine fellow.”

A little later came the words, “I feel
myself so strong—I fear I shall be long
dying. It is great uneasiness—it is
great pain.”

This was the only approach to a
complaint which passed those patient
lips. But the strength of which he
spoke was that of the indomitable will,
not of the shattered body, for already
life was ebbing fast, and the shadows
were closing around him.

Yet, surely for him, beyond the
shadows, waited a Light Divine.

He met the last enemy as he had met
his earthly foes, as indeed he had ofttimes
faced the former, with unshaken
composure and without dread, no more
startled by the summons than if he had
been called upon to cross the English
Channel. And, as always, his thoughts
were for others, not for himself.

“Everything François says—is right,”
he told them. “I have the greatest
confidence in him.”

Some grateful words were addressed
to the surgeons, thanking them for
their efforts to give him ease. He
spoke kindly to two more of his Aides-de-camp
who came in. One of these
was Captain James Stanhope, brother
to Charles Stanhope, killed that day,
and to Lady Hester Stanhope, Moore’s
friend. Stanhope’s eyes met those of
the dying soldier, and Moore said
distinctly—

“Stanhope—remember me to your
sister.”

This was his last utterance. He sank
into silence, pressing the hand of Anderson
closely to his side. A few minutes
later, calmly and without a struggle,
the grand spirit triumphed over death,
and passed away.

And in that still chamber might be
heard the sound of smothered convulsive
sobbing. The younger officers
present broke utterly down, while the
elder men looked on with bowed heads,
scarcely better able to restrain their
anguish. Colonel Anderson still knelt,
supporting the lifeless head, gazing,
with blanched and parted lips, into
the quiet face, which for twenty-one
years had been the centre and the
illumination of his being, his look of
woe being beyond the power of words
to describe. On the other side of
the mattress, one in sorrow with all
these mourning Englishmen, was the
faithful and devoted François. French
by birth, he cared for little in the
world besides this idolised master, over
whom he despairingly hung, his hands
wrung together, his face matching in
pallor those placid features.

For one of the noblest of men was
gone from their midst that hour; and a
heavy shadow fell upon the victorious
British Army.

Upon this sad scene came another
Aide-de-camp, George Napier, too late
for any of those last words which would
have been to him a lifelong treasure.
Twenty years afterwards, when describing
what he had seen as he entered, he
wrote in still unconquered pain—

“That eye which was wont to penetrate
the inmost soul was glazed in
death. That manly graceful form, the
admiration of the Army, lay stretched,
a lifeless corpse. The great spirit had
quitted its earthly habitation. All
around was sad and gloomy. Moore
was dead!”

(To be continued.)

THE GIRL’S OWN QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

The Examiners Report on the Third and Last Twenty-four Questions.

Our useful and interesting competition is
now at an end, and we give here the answers
to the third and last instalment of questions.
In this final march few competitors have
fallen out of the ranks, and it is gratifying to
have to record that the quality of the papers
has steadily improved in almost every case,
as, indeed, was to be expected from the
painstaking and enthusiasm displayed at the
start. It only remains now to say a few
words about the competition as a whole, and
to intimate who are the prize-winners and
certificate-holders, and for that our diligent
girls will not have long to wait.

49. What epidemic in Italy in the
sixteenth century was cured by means
of music?

To illustrate the proverb that a bad beginning
makes a good ending, many failed to
answer. But it was by no means out-of-the-way
information that this epidemic was what
is known as tarantism, which prevailed in
South Italy to an extraordinary extent during
the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries,
being at its height during the sixteenth
century. It was a sort of hysteria, and the
different forms taken by the disease were cured
by means of different airs, to which the
patients were forced to dance till they often
dropped down with exhaustion. Bands of
players used to go through the country to
provide the medicinal music, the melodies
they played being spoken of as tarantellas.

50. What is the mother-tongue of
Queen Victoria?

It depends, says a competitor, on what you
mean by mother-tongue. If you mean
mother’s tongue, it is German; but if you
mean the language of her native land, it is
English. This is a sensible reply. The
Queen was born at Kensington Palace on{526}
May 24th, 1819, her father being the Duke
of Kent, the fourth son of George III. Her
mother was the daughter of the Duke of
Saxe-Coburg. When she came to England
shortly before the birth of her child, the
Duchess could speak hardly any English, and
German was thus a language with which our
Queen was familiar in her earliest years. One
girl suggests that we should settle this
“puzzling question by saying that ‘her
Majesty has two mother-tongues.’”

51. What is the best time at which
to water indoor and outdoor plants?

The best answers to this question pointed
out that it depends on the season of the year.
In spring and autumn plants should be
watered in the morning, whilst in summer
the proper time is the evening; and in
winter what little water is needed should
be given in the middle of the day. Mrs.
Loudon’s Plain Instructions in Gardening
were quoted by three or four to the effect
that, though some people object to watering
plants when the sun is upon them, this is not
at all injurious so long as the water is not too
cold, and is only given to the roots. To give
water over the leaves when the sun is on them
makes the leaves blister and become covered
with pale brown spots.

52. Is abundant hair an indication
of bodily and mental strength?

Here many girls showed their good sense by
giving their own personal observations, and in
this way some odd facts were brought forward.
The general drift of the answers is pretty well
summed up in the following quotation—

“Abundant hair is neither an indication of
bodily nor of mental strength, whatever it
may be supposed to be. The story of Samson
has given rise to the notion that hairy people
are strong physically; but the fact is that the
Chinese, who are the most enduring of all
races, are nearly bald. And as to the
supposition that long and thick hair is a sign
or token of intellectuality, all antiquity, all
madhouses, and all common observation are
against it. The easily-wheedled Esau was
hairy; the mighty Cæsar was bald.”

One girl, in a spirit of fun, says, “If the
brain is over-worked, the hair comes out,” and
draws very neatly two pictures of herself, one
with a fine head of hair as she was “before
answering these questions” and the other
with the scantiest of scanty locks showing
how she looked “after they had been all
replied to.”

53. How many ways can be named
of profitably using broken bread?

“Some notable housewives,” says Miss
Florence Stackpoole, “make the ignominious
confession that, in the manner of using up
broken bread, they are, in schoolboy slang,
fairly ‘stumped.’ How to get rid of it they
do not know.” They may now be recommended
to consult our numerous band of
competitors, who in their replies to this
question showed much practical housekeeping
sense. “About forty-five ways,” says one
girl, and we are inclined to think that we
could nearly make up that number by taking
all the different ways suggested, beginning
with the various uses to which broken bread
can be put in cookery and ending with its
employment in cleaning pictures, wall-papers,
and felt hats; feeding the birds, “who are
very glad of it, especially in cold weather”;
trapping birds, “for which, no doubt, they
are not so thankful”; furnishing bait for
fishing, and feeding pigs, chickens and cats.

54. Was public money ever raised
in England by encouraging the spirit
of gambling?

The right answer to this question is that
public money was at one time raised in this
country by means of lotteries. The first
public lottery in England, so far as can be
ascertained, was drawn in 1569, and had for
its object the repair of harbours and other
useful public works. “From that date in the
reign of Queen Elizabeth,” says Dr. Robert
Chambers, “down to 1826 (except for a short
time following upon an Act of Queen Anne),
lotteries continued to be adopted by the
English Government as a source of revenue.
It seems strange that so glaringly immoral a
project should have been kept up with such
a sanction so long.” A good many girls did
not answer this question at all, and several,
without referring to lotteries, ran off into
particulars regarding the famous South Sea
Bubble.

55. Who was the religious poet so
beloved by the parish of which he was
rector, that many of his parishioners
would stop their ploughs when his
bell rang for prayer, that they might
offer their devotions to God with
him?

This beautiful example of the influence that
may be exerted by a godly pastor appeared to
be well known. The poet was the saintly
George Herbert, rector of Bemerton, in Wiltshire,
who was born in 1593 and died in 1632.
And when he died, says Izaak Walton, who
wrote his Life, “he died like a saint, unspotted
of the world, full of humility, and all the
examples of a virtuous life.”

56. How did the leek come to be the
emblem of Wales?

As was to be expected, for the answer is
not to be looked for in well-authenticated
history, a good many different explanations
were given. According to some this national
device of Wales, commonly worn by Welshmen
on St. David’s Day, March 1st, was
selected for its high position because it
possesses the old Cymric colours, green and
white. Others had it that it was in memory
of a great victory over the Saxons, when the
Welshmen, obeying the command of St.
David, put leeks into their hats, to distinguish
between themselves and their foes. A good
many said that it was dated from the battle
of Crecy, and backed up their opinion by
quoting Shakespeare. One girl we noticed
said it was because the Welsh think the leek
a lucky plant, and grow it on their cottage
roofs to bring good fortune. And a few
unromantic competitors said it was all on
account of the prominent place occupied by
the leek in Welsh cookery.

57. What famous outlaw has a conspicuous
place in ballad literature?

Many outlaws have a place in ballad literature,
but one stands head and shoulders
above all the rest, and that is Robin Hood.
The numerous and spirited ballads of which
he and his companions, such as Maid Marian,
Friar Tuck and Little John, are the leading
characters, are favourite reading with all who
love adventure and romance. Towards the
close of the Middle Ages, says a competitor,
quoting a well-known authority, Robin Hood
was the people’s ideal as Arthur was that of
the upper classes. He was the ideal yeoman
as Arthur was the ideal knight.

58. Where can a married couple,
after a twelvemonth of matrimony,
lay claim to a flitch of bacon after
proving that, during the whole time,
they have never had a quarrel and
never regretted the marriage?

This whimsical custom, about which nearly
everybody seemed to know, is connected with
the priory of Dunmow in Essex, and dates
as far back as the reign of King John. The
earliest instances of the awarding of the flitch
have not been recorded: the first we have
particulars of is dated 1445. After 1763, the
custom fell into the background, but a revival
of it was effected in 1855, by Mr. Harrison
Ainsworth, the novelist, and since then several
have applied for and gained this strange
matrimonial prize.

59. Has anyone ever tried to count
the stars?

“Look now towards Heaven,” we read in
the Scriptures, “and tell the stars if thou be
able to number them.” Many observers,
however, including the two Herschels, have
made the attempt. The stars visible to the
naked eye are only a fraction of the whole,
but according to the estimate of the distinguished
German astronomer, Argeland, the
number seen by the unaided vision in the
latitude of Berlin is 3,256, and for the whole
heavens may be put at about 5,000. Another
German astronomer makes out the naked-eye
stars in the whole heavens to be about 6,800.
When the telescope is introduced the number
is enormously increased. The larger the
telescope the more stars we see. The
number has been run up by authorities
worthy of respect to as high as twenty
million stars, and more, within the grasp of
an 18-inch reflector! Some girls, in answering
this question, mentioned that there was
an International Photographic Survey of the
Heavens now going on which is sure to throw
light on this interesting problem.

60. What English Earl once got a
box on the ear from a great Queen?

All competitors were right who said that
the receiver of this royal box was the Earl of
Essex, and the giver Queen Elizabeth. It
was on an occasion when the two had begun
to dispute on the subject of an assistant in
the affairs of Ireland, to which the earl was
going as Lord Deputy. The dispute ended
in the earl’s receiving from her majesty a
box on the ear, with, we are told, the
encouraging addition of “Go and be
hanged!” The fall of Essex is generally
dated from this circumstance, and it is
thought that he never forgave it.

61. Is what is known as the poisonous
upas tree of Java a fact or a
hoax?

It was right to say that it is partly the one
and partly the other; about an ounce of fact,
however, to a pound of hoax. The name upas—a
Javanese word meaning poison—is given
by the Malays and people of Western Java to
the poison obtained from the gum of a tree
that used to be employed in Celebes to envenom
the bamboo shafts of the natives.

The famous description of the upas tree,
with its effluvia killing all things near it, is a
pure fiction, the invention of George Stevens,
the Shakespearean commentator, who seems
to have had a special turn for mystifying and
befooling the public. According to him the
tree destroyed all animal life within a radius of
fifteen miles or more, and when the poison was
wanted it was fetched by condemned criminals,
of whom scarcely two out of twenty ever
returned.

Several girls mentioned that the upas tree
is to be met with in botanic gardens in this
country and, says one, “not doing a halfpennyworth
of harm to anybody.”

62. What is the best way of treating
a fainting fit?

Almost all seemed to have an intelligent
idea of what to do. They had grasped the
fact that the direct cause of fainting is
diminished circulation of blood through the
brain, and that, therefore, in trying to restore
a person who has fainted, the first thing to
be done is to alter that condition. The
patient, they said, should be laid down quite
flat, “so that the feebly-acting heart may{527}
not have to propel the blood upward, but
horizontally”; tight clothing should then be
loosened, cool fresh air admitted, cold water
sprinkled down the face, volatile salts, or other
stimulant vapours, held at intervals to the
nostrils; and a little cold water, either by itself
or having in it a teaspoonful or two of sal
volatile, or the same quantity of spirits, being
given as soon as the patient is able to
swallow.

63. What public punishment was
once in use in England for scolding
women?

Women who made free use of their tongues
were punished in an original way in old
England. They were submitted to the correction
of the ducking stool, a chair at the end of
a plank which moved up and down over a river
or pond—it was a sort of see-saw arrangement.
The scold was fastened in the chair, the other
end of the plank was lifted up, and down she
went into the water, the number of immersions
being in proportion to the vigour of her fiery
tongue. It was an old institution: we find it
mentioned in the Doomsday Survey. In the
seventeenth century, the ducking stool was
superseded, to a certain extent, by what was
known as the branks. This was a scold’s
bridle, the chief part of which entered the
mouth and pressed upon the tongue, thus
forming an effectual gag. “Ducking stools
and branks, however,” one writer sadly
remarks, “with all their terrors, seem to have
been insufficient to frighten the shrews of
former days out of their bad propensities.”

64. What was the origin of the
phrase, “The wise fools of Gotham?”

A good number of competitors had been
unable to discover how these Nottinghamshire
worthies obtained their unenviable notoriety.
According to tradition, King John once
intended to pass through Gotham on his way
to Nottingham, but the inhabitants prevented
him, for some reason or other best known to
themselves. The king, in a rage, sent some
of his servants to inquire why they had been
so uncivil, and the Gothamites, hearing of
their approach, thought of an expedient to
turn away the monarch’s displeasure—they
pretended more stupidity than really belonged
to them. When the messengers arrived they
found some of the inhabitants endeavouring
to drown an eel in a pool of water; some
were employed in dragging carts into a large
barn to shade the wood from the sun, and
lifting horses into lofts to eat hay; and others
were engaged in building a hedge round a
cuckoo which had perched in a bush. In
short they were all employed in some ridiculous
task or other, which convinced the king’s
servants that Gotham was a village of fools—a
reputation it has ever since maintained. Such
is the story, but its truth is another matter.
In one paper we find a good word for Gotham
quoted from Fuller, to the effect that “Gotham
doth breed as wise people as any which causelessly
laugh at their simplicity.”

65. Is length of life greater now
than it used to be?

The best answer to this question will be to
quote some interesting statistics given by Mr.
Holt Schooling, who takes for the basis of his
statements the three official English life-tables
(for 1838-1854, 1871-1880, and 1881-1890).
These tables show an increase in the second
period over the first of 1.44 years expectation
of life at birth to every male, and 2.77 to
every female; and in the third period over the
first of 3.75 to every male, and 5.33 to every
female. In other words, 3¾ years of life have
been added on the average to every male child,
and 5¹⁄₃ years to every female child. Thus the
children born in any one year in England and
Wales will in the mass live more than four
million years longer than at the beginning of
the period dealt with in these tables.

Girls who puzzled over such old examples
as the Countess of Desmond, who is said to
have died at 145, Thomas Parr, credited with
152, and Henry Jenkins, who is reported to
have died at 169, should take note that the
ages of these persons are generally allowed to
have been much exaggerated, and that, even if
the figures were authentic, it does not do, from
a few isolated instances, to infer a general
conclusion.

66. Of what literary work has it
been said that it is “perhaps the
only book about which the educated
minority has come over to the opinion
of the common people?”

The book was the Pilgrim’s Progress, by
John Bunyan, and he who said it was Lord
Macaulay. The general rule, Lord Macaulay
points out, is that when the educated minority
and the common people differ about the merit
of a book, the opinion of the educated minority
finally prevails. The Pilgrim’s Progress, of
which the numerous early editions were
evidently intended for the cottage and the
servants’ hall, the paper, the printing, and the
plates being all of the meanest description,
furnishes a notable exception. A wonderful
book! “One of the few books,” says
Coleridge, “which may be read repeatedly at
different times, and each time with a new and
a different pleasure.”

67. Who was the young Fellow of
Oxford who, during the latter half
of last century, eloped with a banker’s
daughter, and came in the end to be
Lord Chancellor of England?

“When on a visit to Newcastle,” writes a
competitor, “I was taken to see the window
through which Bessy Surtees came when on the
18th of November, 1772, she eloped with Jack
Scott, who afterwards became Lord Eldon.
He was the Lord Chancellor referred to in the
question.” Yes, that is so. By the aid of a
ladder and an old friend, “this adventurous
young man,” as one girl calls him, carried off
the lady from her father’s house, and away
they went across the Border to Blackshiels in
Scotland, where they were married. It proved
a happy and fortunate union, but the example,
we need hardly say, is not recommended for
general imitation.

68. What plant was introduced
early in the seventeenth century into
this country as an ornamental plant,
but is now a favourite vegetable?

We had in view the scarlet-runner bean,
which is a native of South America, and was
introduced into England in 1633, when “it was
at first only cultivated in the flower-garden as
an ornamental plant, and it is treated as such
by all the early writers on flowers.” Several
other plants were named by competitors, and
in some cases with a considerable show of
reason, but the one we have named is perhaps
the most striking example.

69. Who was the father of English
cathedral music?

Amongst the musicians named by girls as
bearing this honourable title were St. Ambrose,
Palestrina, Orlando Gibbons, Henry Purcell,
Handel, Haydn and Bach. These were given
in error. He who is justly called “the father
of English cathedral music” is Thomas Tallis,
or Tallys, as he himself spelt his name, who was
born about 1515 and died about 1585. “His
genius,” says Mr. W. S. Rockstro, “has left
an indelible impression upon the English school,
which owes more to him than to any other
composer of the sixteenth century, and in
the history of which his name plays a very
important part indeed.”

70. What may justly claim to be
the greatest work of imagination in
the world?

This was a question giving an opportunity
for considerable difference of opinion. It
drew forth many intelligent answers, and gave
a good deal of insight into individual taste.
We give here the seven principal works
named by way of answer, placing them in the
order of frequency:—The Arabian Night’s
Entertainments, Don Quixote by Cervantes,
Gulliver’s Travels by Dean Swift, the Divine
Comedy of Dante, Spencer’s Faerie Queen, The
Pilgrim’s Progress of John Bunyan, and
Milton’s Paradise Lost.

71. What Scottish sovereign, looking
out of the window of the prison
in which he was once confined, caught
sight, for the first time, of the lady
whom he afterwards married?

The captive monarch was James I. of Scotland.
He had fallen into the hands of the
English when, a youth fourteen years old, he
was on his way by sea to France, and remained
a prisoner for about eighteen years. One day
he happened to be looking out of his window
in the great tower of Windsor Castle, when
Lady Jane Beaufort, the daughter of the Earl
of Somerset, was walking in the garden below.
The charms of her person, and the gentleness
of her character won his heart, and they were
married with great splendour shortly before
James set out for the north to take up his
crown. Lady Jane happened to be a cousin-german
to Henry IV. of England, “and thus,”
remarks John Hill Burton, the historian of
Scotland, “romance found the very match
which policy would have dictated.”

72. How many different kinds of
clouds may be seen floating in the
sky?

Few failed in this question, the answers
going as a rule to show that an observer of
cloudland, about a hundred years ago, classified
the clouds, and proposed a series of names for
them, since very generally accepted. He
divided them into seven kinds; three being
simple, and four intermediate or compound.
The three simple forms are the Cirrus, the
Cumulus, and the Stratus. The intermediate
or compound forms derived from these three
are the Cirro-cumulus, the Cirro-stratus, the
Cumulo-stratus, and the Cumulo-cirro-stratus,
the last named most often being called the
Nimbus.

{528}

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

MEDICAL.

GIRLS’ EMPLOYMENTS.

MISCELLANEOUS.

[Transcriber’s note—the following changes have been made to this text:

Page 523: Arther to Arthur—“Arthur S. Way”.]