{529}

THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER

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

THE SEA AND THE ROCKS.
SHEILA.
OLD ENGLISH COTTAGE HOMES.
LETTERS FROM A LAWYER.
GIRLS AS I HAVE KNOWN THEM.
EMBROIDERY WITH CHENILLE.
“OUR HERO.”
OUR LILY GARDEN.
THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

THE SEA AND THE ROCKS.

By WILLIAM LUFF.

THE OTHER SHORE.

All rights reserved.]

{530}

SHEILA.

A STORY FOR GIRLS.

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

CHAPTER VII.

IN RIVER STREET.

“Well, Oscar, I’ve just this one bit of
advice to give you,” said North, as the
pair walked homewards from the works.
“Don’t you be too easy-going.”

“Am I too easy-going?” asked
Oscar with a smile. “How?”

“Well, I think you are a bit. It’s
easier to see that sort of thing than to
define it. You don’t stick sufficiently
tight to your own work. No, no, don’t
think I mean you idle; you don’t, but
you’ll do the other fellows’ work for them
when they are larking, and let them
take a turn at yours when you want
to be off to the electrical works. The
office was always a bit too free and easy,
and we wanted to stiffen it up by putting
you in. But if anything it’s got worse.”

Oscar laughed a little. North’s
friendly manner relieved him of the
fear that he had given dissatisfaction
with his own share in what was required
of him. He had been really doing his
best, and had learned a great deal
during the past months.

“It seems friendlier, somehow,” he
said. “They are all nice fellows, and
we work amicably together. I didn’t
know it mattered sharing the work.
They seemed used to it.”

“It doesn’t matter in moderation,”
answered North. “We’re not fussy,
my father and I. But don’t be too
easy-going, Oscar. As you are one of
the family, they will look up to you, and
take their cue from you more or less.
Business is business all the world over,
and you’d do well to keep that fact
sternly in mind.”

“I’ll try,” answered Oscar readily,
“and I hope you’ll always tell me,
North, if you see anything in which I
fail. I want to justify your father’s
opinion that I should do for the business,
and I’m quite sensible of his kindness
in taking me on.”

“Well, he’s glad enough to give you
the sort of berth Cyril would have had
if he’d not turned out too much the fine
gentleman,” said North with one of his
grim smiles. “My father never seriously
thought of putting Cyril into the business,
he was always thought to be a cut above
it. But he often said he wished he had
another son. You have come to fill
that place, Oscar.”

The youth’s face flushed with pleasure.
It was not often that North spoke with
so much friendly unreserve. In the
main he was a silent, self-contained
man, though friendly enough to his
younger cousin. But to-day his reserve
seemed to have evaporated, and the next
minute he spoke again.

“Don’t let Cyril get you too much
into his set, Oscar. I know, of course,
that you must have a good deal in common,
being University men and all that.
But I’m not always best pleased with the
sort of fellows Cyril takes up with. I
think they make him extravagant, and
teach him expensive habits. It’s all
very well for him. He manages to get a
large allowance from the governor. But
it wouldn’t suit your pocket or mine.”

“I don’t think I care much for Cyril’s
friends,” said Oscar slowly. “Only
when he asks me to go with him it seems
churlish to refuse, when I’ve nothing
else I want to do.”

“Well, I’d not mind seeming a bit
churlish sometimes,” said North.
“Indeed I’ve put up with the accusation
myself, though I was never a fine
enough gentleman for Cyril to care
much for my company. But I wouldn’t
let him take you up and drag you about
too much if I were you. It won’t pay
in the long run.”

They were by this time approaching
the house in River Street, so there was
no time for more discussion. It was
Oscar’s temperament, as it was Sheila’s,
to float with the stream of life, and take
things easily. Perhaps it was this
temperament in their father which had
led to such disastrous results at last,
but it was not quite easy for Oscar to
realise this, though he was not ungrateful
to North for his hint.

“What a hullabaloo!” exclaimed
North, as he put his key into the latch
and opened the door; and indeed there
were sounds of very animated discussion
going on in the drawing-room, the door
of which stood open. The Cossart voices
were rather loud when their owners were
excited, and it seemed as though something
of an exciting nature must be
going on.

“What’s up?” asked the elder
brother, pushing his way into the room,
and both sisters began talking at once,
so that it was not altogether easy to
make out what either was saying.

“Oh, such a delightful plan! It’s
the Bensons who are really getting it
up—no, I should call it Mr. Ransom’s
doing. But we are all to help. It will
be no end of fun. I hope there’ll be
acting! Anyway we shall have tableaux
or something. And a bazaar, oh, yes,
and some music. It’s to last for three
days—perhaps a week even. And everybody
will come. Oh, it will be the
greatest fun! And we are to help in
everything! We are to be on the
Committee. I was never on a Committee
before. I do feel so grand!”
and Ray danced round her brother and
made him a low curtsy, saying:

“We shall expect a great deal of
patronage from Mr. Cossart, junior, of
the Cossart works!”

“What’s it all about?” asked North,
taking her by the shoulders and giving
her a brotherly shake. “I can’t make
head or tail of all that gabble. Now,
mater, give us a cup of tea, and tell us
quietly what all this means. Ray’s off
her head, and Raby looks almost as
demented. Some tomfoolery in the
town, I suppose.”

“Well, that is rather a hard name
to give it,” said Mrs. Tom with a smile.
“It is like this. The new clergyman,
Mr. Ransom, has, it seems, very proper
and sound ideas about debt upon a
church. I am sure your father would
approve his views there. He thinks
that debt is a wrong thing, and ought
never to be contracted, especially over
a house dedicated to the worship of
God. He is quite shocked that in a
prosperous town like this, there should
be a heavy debt on the church, and that
the mission chapel started two years ago
should be almost entirely unpaid for.
He spoke very seriously to his churchwardens
and some of the leading men
in the town, and he has so stirred them
up to his view of the case that they are
going to make a great effort to wipe out
the whole debt immediately.”

“Good!” said North nodding his
head. “I think that’s a very right way
of looking at things. A man who lives
in debt is considered to be doing a
wrong to his creditors, and why not a
church too?—or at least the people
who build and use it.”

“That is what Mr. Ransom feels.
He says he does not think that we can
expect the same blessing upon the{531}
work of a church if the apostolic precept,
‘Owe no man anything,’ is deliberately
broken. Well, a subscription list
has been opened, and some really
handsome sums have been already
promised. But you know what people
are. They want a little excitement and
fun. And the Bensons have taken the
matter up, and are canvassing all the
town for a big bazaar and some entertainments
in connection with it. The
Corporation will give the Town Hall
gratis for the purpose, and they are
full of plans for making things go off
with great éclat. They have been here
talking things over with the girls this
past hour. Mr. Benson is against
having anything but local talent for
whatever is got up. He says, ‘Why
pay professionals from a distance when
people would be much more interested
in hearing their own young people sing,
or seeing them act a little play, or
perform in tableaux?’ And really I
think he is right. I know I am dreadfully
bored by hearing second-rate
professionals. But if one knows the
performers, why that’s quite a different
matter.”

“And it will be such a nice chance
for the glee club!” cried Raby. “And
for some of us who have been having
lessons. We did talk about getting up
a concert at Christmas; but somehow it
did not come off. Now, this seems the
very thing, and everybody will come and
hear us!”

At that moment there was a clatter of
horsehoofs outside the door, and Ray
exclaimed—

“Why, here is Cyril, with Sheila and
Effie in the new phaeton! Don’t they
cut a fine figure! What a pretty girl
Sheila is! But she puts Effie altogether
in the shade, don’t you think? If Aunt
Cossart finds that out, she won’t be best
pleased!”

The Stanhope phaeton was Effie’s last
new fancy. It was discovered that
Shamrock and the new cob would run
together nicely in double harness; and
Sheila, who had driven all her life,
managed the pair with much skill.

Effie really preferred these drives in a
carriage, recognised as her own, to the
rides, where she was conscious of
timidity and a lack of the ease and
grace which distinguished Sheila’s
horsemanship.

Cyril liked well enough to accompany
his pretty cousins, as he called them;
and Mrs. Cossart was better pleased
when he was there, as well as the
youthful tiger who always went with the
carriage.

Raby and Ray had heard of this new
turn-out, but had not seen it before.
They ran to the window to look and
admire; but in a few moments Effie and
Sheila were in the room, Cyril bringing
up the rear.

Sheila made a rush at Oscar first,
but was quite ready to be affectionate to
all. She was in gay, happy spirits, and
brought with her an atmosphere of
sunshine. Her sombre black was just
lightened by ruffles of white at the
throat and wrists; and the soft bloom
upon her cheeks seemed set off by the
darkness of her attire.

Somehow Effie seemed a quite secondary
and insignificant figure when
Sheila was present, though the best
seat was given her, and her aunt asked
with interest after her well-being. But
the girls could not wait to hear Effie discourse
upon herself and her symptoms,
improved though they might be.

“Oh, Sheila, have you heard? Cyril,
have you heard anything about the
bazaar and fête? We are to have such
a time of it! Sheila, you will have to
help us! We shall all be as busy as
bees!” and the girls plunged into a
recital of the coming excitements, to
which Sheila listened with all her ears.

“Oof! Won’t it be fun!” she cried,
with her favourite little interjection
which always made her cousins laugh.
“I’m not a bit clever. I can’t sing or
play or do anything like that; but I’ll
help all I know. I shall be awfully
pleased to!”

“But if we get up some tableaux you
can perform,” said Cyril. “You could
manage to stand still for two minutes at
a stretch, could you not, Sheila?”

“Oof, yes! I could do that, only I’m
afraid I should laugh in the middle!
Effie, do you hear? There are to be
such goings on. You’ll have to sing, I
expect. Perhaps I’ll play for you, if I
don’t get too frightened.”

“Are you taking up your music again,
my dear?” asked Mrs. Tom. “That is
right. It will be a pleasure to you, I am
sure.”

“Yes, perhaps it will. I used to be
fond of it, only I’ve not been able to do
anything for so long; and if you can’t
practise, I don’t think you ought to
sing. I’ve been trying again these last
few weeks. I think I shall get my voice
back in time. But my throat is so weak
still; I can’t do much at a time. I
suppose it comes from being weak. If
I were to get stronger, I should have
more voice. I don’t care to make an
exhibition of myself; but, of course, I’ll
do anything I can to help the girls. I
think people used to like to hear me
sing.”

“And they’ll like to hear you sing
again. It would be a good opportunity
for you to appear in public after being
shut up so long,” said Mrs. Tom;
“and you could work for the bazaar at
any rate. We must all try to help as
much as we can for a good cause such
as this.”

“Oh, I’ll try to do a little; but I
never can settle long to anything. I
suppose it’s the state of my nerves. I
must always be jumping up and going
off after something else. I have such a
funny restless feeling. If I were to sit
long over anything I should get quite
wild; and then I should have an attack
directly. That’s the worst of it. I
can’t make myself do things like other
people. I get ill directly. Not that I
care so much myself; I’ve made up my
mind not to care about anything; but
just to take what comes. But it worries
mother, and I must think of her; so I’ve
got to take care of myself, though I do
get very sick of it!”

Cyril had got Sheila into a quiet
corner where Oscar had joined them in
response to the summons of her eyes.

“All this will be rather a bore,” he
began; but Sheila interrupted gaily—

“I don’t think it will at all! I think
it will be great fun! I like things to be
lively! Sometimes I wish I lived in
River Street. It’s rather dull some days
up there!”

“Poor child! I expect it is,” said
Cyril; “but what I was going to say
was that it would probably bring some
of the better people into touch with us,
and they’ll be sure to take to you,
Sheila. The Bensons are nobodies—he’s
the Mayor this year, and they have
plenty of money, and give themselves
airs over it. But if the thing is taken
up by the county—as I expect it will be,
for Mr. Ransom is a well-born man,
and has come with introductions to a
good many of the best families—we shall
get other volunteers of a different sort,
and that will be a good thing for you
and Oscar.”

“Why for us more than other people?”
asked Sheila, whilst Oscar’s face seemed
to cloud over a little.

“Oh, don’t you see! They will see
the difference at once; and I shall see
you are introduced. I know these
people—most of them—though they
don’t visit much in the town, except in
quite a perfunctory way. But they are
very good to me; and they will be sure
to take you up; and then things will be
different.”

“I’m not sure that Sheila and I wish
any distinction made between ourselves
and our cousins,” said Oscar a little
stiffly; but Cyril laughed in his good-humoured
way.

“Oh, you needn’t be as straight-laced
as all that, Oscar. People can’t help
knowing the difference between—what
shall we call it?—the real thing and the
imitation! There are some really nice
people I should like Sheila to know.
Their name is Lawrence, and they do
call here. They bought or took a place
about five miles away some little time
ago, and the mater was induced to call.
They don’t come often; but most likely
the girl would be glad to help in these
goings on. Mr. Ransom knows the
Lawrences. You would quite like them
if you once knew them.”

Sheila was interested at once, and
asked a good many questions. Her life,
though pleasant and easy, was rather
monotonous, and, so far, she had made
no friends except her cousins, who,
though very good-natured and kind,
were not particularly congenial to her.
So the prospect of a possible girl friend
of a different stamp was not without its
attractions.

“I shall try to bring that off,” said
Cyril to himself as the carriage drove
off at last. “I often think that May
Lawrence would be a very good second
string to my bow; for though Effie is an
heiress, I sometimes think I should soon
be sick to death of her ‘I,’ ‘I,’ ‘I,’ and
should chuck up the whole thing in
three months, if it ever got as far as an
engagement!”

And perhaps Cyril never paused to
ask himself how large a place in his own
vocabulary the “I” took, nor the ego in
his scheme of life!

(To be continued.)

{532}

OLD ENGLISH COTTAGE HOMES;
OR,
VILLAGE ARCHITECTURE OF BYGONE TIMES.

PART VIII.

In the first number of these papers we pointed
out the fact that the cottages and small
houses in fortified villages exhibited a totally
different character from those in open and unwalled
villages. Owing to the space being
confined within the walls, any increase in the
number of inhabitants had either to be provided
with accommodation by adding to the
height of the existing habitations or by setting
up dwelling-houses in out-of-the-way places.
Our sketch of Lyme Regis shows the outlet
of a river which here flows into the sea; the
fortified walls are continued along the banks;
the principal street of the village is carried
over the river by a bridge consisting of a
lofty and elegantly proportioned Gothic
arch, evidently of thirteenth century date.
Cottages or small habitations cling to the
walls supported upon wooden corbels, and are
bracketed out from the parapets of the bridge,
giving the latter more the effect of a gateway
than of a bridge. The whole scene is strange
though very picturesque, and those who are
accustomed to the ordinary English village,
with its detached cottages, surrounded by
gardens, are naturally surprised at the singular
effect brought about by such changed conditions.
Those, however, who know the
fortified villages of Germany, France, and the
Low Countries, are quite familiar with such
scenes, and regard them as usual in villages
prepared for war, as contrasted with the ordinary
villages of our country where peace was
the normal condition.

GEORGIAN COTTAGE, AMERSHAM.

It is indeed a matter of congratulation that
our English ancestors were able to live in
abodes unsurrounded by fortifications, and to
pursue their humble avocations without the
dread of invasion by some foreign foe; but as
it does not seem to be the design of Divine
Providence that man should pass this life
without troubles and anxiety, civil wars were
not unfrequent, even in this happy isle. And
even when this affliction was absent, our towns
were visited by pestilence, for our historians
tell us that in the neighbourhood of Warwick
alone thirty villages were depopulated and
allowed to fall to ruin during that fearful
visitation called the “Black Death.” Their
very sites cannot now be traced, and their
names are mere tradition. Even where they
were partially spared, the population of many
villages was so reduced as to cause a very
singular arrangement. We refer to the distance
between the church and the village. Now
there can be no doubt that parish churches in
the country were nearly always in former times
erected in the villages or towns they were intended
to serve, and the only way of accounting
for their now being at a distance from one
another is by supposing that some great
pestilence has at some period swept away the
population of that part of the village which
adjoined the church. That the pestilence
should attack that particular portion of the
village more than another is highly probable,
because its proximity to the church and churchyard
would render it more liable to infection.
This, however, is a very gloomy subject to
contemplate, and we refer to it only to account
for certain peculiarities which it has introduced
into old villages.

Our other sketch represents a cottage or
village house of much later times, probably the
Hanoverian period, built of various coloured
bricks, in some places arranged in patterns.
The great peculiarity of the design, however,
is its diminutive scale. Were it not for the fact
that the presence of any human being near to
it immediately dwarfs it, the front might be
that of an important house. This is a well-known
fact in architecture. There is nothing
for bringing down the scale of a building like
a very tall girl. An architect we know built a
beautiful little church on a small scale, but he
was shocked to find that a very tall, and it
must be confessed graceful, girl sat close to
the first column of the nave. Our friend said,
“Really that girl completely dwarfs my columns.
I shall have to speak to the clergyman and see
whether she can be prevailed upon to take a
seat in a less conspicuous place.” He suggested
this idea to the reverend gentleman, who
seemed a little confused.

“Well,” said he, “I fear that can scarcely
be done, as that young lady will in all probability
become more closely connected with the
church. The fact is, we are going to be married
next month.”

It is rather a strange thing that a tall
man does not “bring down” the scale of a
building to the same extent as a tall woman.
Probably the dress of the latter is accountable
for this.

The diminutive scale of the house at Amersham
has its counterpart in many Georgian
buildings—Hamper Mill and the old school-house
at Watford, for instance. Yet we can
scarcely charge the architects of that time with
an attempt to give a false scale to their buildings,
as they seem so well suited to their
surroundings.

{533}

COTTAGES AT LYME REGIS—A FORTIFIED VILLAGE.

{534}

LETTERS FROM A LAWYER.

PART VII.

The Temple.

My dear Dorothy,—It is perfectly astounding
to me that people not absolutely
devoid of common sense should be taken in by
the so-called confidence trick, a device so
transparent that it seems incredible that any
sane man could be deceived by it. I am
bound to say in justice to your sex that I
have never heard of a case when a woman
was a victim to the confidence trick. I
suppose it does not appeal to them in the
same way that it seems to do to some
men.

Perhaps the true explanation of the gullibility
of mankind was that given by a rogue
who was had up and convicted at the Old
Bailey. When asked what he wished to say,
why he should not receive punishment for this
offence, he replied that he ought to be treated
as a great moral teacher, because the confidence
trick could only succeed with people
who were covetous and desirous of acquiring
other people’s money without giving an
equivalent for it, and that when they found
that they had lost their money, it taught
them to be more cautious and less grasping.

There was some truth in what this “great
moral teacher” said, but unfortunately for
him he had also a lesson to learn, and the
Recorder gave him several months in which
he might give it his careful consideration.

The “Free Portrait” scheme is a bait
which allures a good many people. They
cannot resist the temptation of getting something
for nothing. A man calling himself A.
Tanquerey or F. Schneider, and giving an
address in Paris, is, I believe, the author of
this ingenious system of extracting money from
the unwilling pockets of the public. He
professes in his circulars and advertisements
to send you a crayon enlargement of any
photograph you send him “absolutely free of
charge.”

After you have sent him the photograph,
which is generally one of special value to
yourself, being, we will suppose, the only
portrait you possess, of a deceased parent,
friend or relation, you receive a letter stating
that the portrait is ready and will be forwarded
to you on the receipt of two or three guineas
for the frame.

If you decline to purchase a frame, and
write telling him to return your photograph,
you receive no reply to your letter, and finally,
to recover the photograph which you value,
you send the money for the frame, and receive
a fairly good crayon enlargement of your
photograph in a frame which has cost you as
many guineas as it is worth shillings.

There is a class of advertisement which may
be seen in almost any weekly paper which just
borders on the fraudulent. Even if they are
genuine in themselves—and some undoubtedly
are not—they open the door to fraud. I refer
to those advertisements offering articles for
sale in connection with monetary prizes to
every purchaser and winner in a competition
which can be guessed at a glance.

Every purchaser is told in the advertisement
that he will be entitled to receive a prize of
£10 if he guesses rightly; but when he has
made his purchase and sent in his solution, he
will find that either only the first letter opened
gets the prize, or that every competitor having
guessed correctly, he is only entitled to receive
a halfpenny for his share of the money. In
this last case, of course, the thing is a swindle
because no one would have purchased the
article and answered the competition if they
thought the money was going to be divided
amongst the winners.

I tried one of these competitions myself, not
because I thought it was genuine, but because
I wanted to see how it was worked. The
task I had to accomplish was something like
the following:

“Give the names of the fruits and flowers
mentioned below—Soer, Reap, Liput, Cepah,
Socruc, Ragone.”

Well, you can see at a glance they are rose,
pear, tulip, peach, crocus, orange. I sent in
my answer and a shilling and a penny stamp,
and in due course received a puzzle worth
about twopence.

Later on I received a letter stating that my
solution of all the words was correct, and
enclosing my share of the prize—a halfpenny
stamp.

In a similar competition I saw it stated in
the papers that 6,000 answers had been
received, which shows that the game must
be a very paying one for those who issue the
advertisements.

What a number of young women there must
be waiting to get married! In answer to an
advertisement which appeared the other day
in the Exchange and Mart, in which a lady,
“disappointed in love, offered her trousseau
at an enormous sacrifice,” over 1,400 replies
were received.

But the lady “disappointed in love” disappointed
also the 1,400 ladies who wanted a
trousseau, for her advertisement was a bogus
one, and was merely another trap to catch the
unwary.

One has to be very sharp, but the sharpest
of us are sometimes taken in, including even

Your affectionate cousin,
Bob Briefless.

GIRLS AS I HAVE KNOWN THEM.

By ELSA D’ESTERRE-KEELING, Author of “Old Maids and Young.”

PART VI.

THE ATHLETIC GIRL.

So run certain familiar advertisements. They
are cited here as containing the descriptive
words which have a particular applicability to
the athletic girl, who, to state the general case
in regard to her, is tall, good-looking, steady;
neat, respectable, with no fringe; good, plain.

The
athletic
girl

This fact notwithstanding, the average
athletic girl would not make a successful
groom; still less would she give satisfaction
as a housemaid; and least of all has she in
her the makings of a good cook. Some hold
that she has in her the makings of a good
pianist, but that is a mistake, for she has no
adagio. “I call a girl like that a fortist, not
a pianist,” was said of her the other day.

Not always, but very often, the athletic girl’s
is the prosaic type of mind, concerning which
Lowell writes—

“The danger of the prosaic type of mind
lies in the stolid sense of superiority which
blinds it to everything ideal, to the use of
everything that does not serve the practical
purposes of life. Do we not remember how
the all-observing and all-fathoming Shakespeare
has typified this in Bottom the
Weaver? Surrounded by all the fairy
creations of fancy, he sends one to fetch him
the bag of a humble-bee, and can find no
better employment for Mustard-seed than to
help Cavalero Cobweb scratch his ass’s head
between the ears. When Titania, queen of
that fair, ideal world, offers him a feast of
beauty, he says he has a good stomach to a
pottle of hay!”

The athletic girl easily thus runs to prose.
Sometimes her prose is very funny. She
looked up lately from a novel with the speech—

“There’s one thing I do want to know most
awfully, Daddy—how people ‘gnash’ their
teeth. Is it anything like this—or this—or
this?”

Each question was accompanied by a facial
illustration. Daddy is a serious man, but he
laughed heartily.

Sometimes, however, Daddy shakes his
head. The following is a case in point.

“Do you know, my dear,” he asked, “the
difference between a soprano and a contralto?”

“Why, of course, Dad,” was the answer.
“The one’s a squeak and the other’s a
squawk.”

Such a girl has some
knowledge, but she lacks
some grace. Very often
the athletic girl lacks both
knowledge and grace.
Sometimes, too, she lacks
brains. The outward
marks by which you shall
know her in that case are
that she has large ears and
a little forehead. There
are exceptions to this rule, but they are not many.

Of accomplishments the average athletic
girl has few. All the French she
knows she puts into a smile, and
that smile is the one with which
she meets any references to customs
of the good old time. It
says—

Nous avons changé tout cela.

Her ancestress

Twenty years ago this girl was
the girl who wished she was a
boy. It is one of the changes
which time has wrought in her
case that she no longer wishes
that. She is happy and proud to{535}
be a girl of to-day, believing, as she does,
that girls and women never had a chance to
distinguish themselves in feats of strength till
to-day. Remind her of Joan of Arc, and she
will reply that that was an isolated case; draw
her attention to the passage in Motley’s Rise
and Fall of the Dutch Republic, referring to
the garrison of Haarlem in 1572, and she will
stare. The passage in question runs—

“The garrison at least numbered one
thousand pioneers or delvers, three thousand
fighting men, and about three hundred fighting
women. This last was a most efficient corps,
all females of respectable character, armed
with sword, musket, and dagger. Their chief,
Frau Kenau Hasselaer, was a widow of distinguished
family and unblemished character,
about forty-seven years of age, who, at the
head of her Amazons, participated in many of
the most fiercely contested actions of the siege,
both within and without the walls.”

Elegance of speech is not, as a rule, a
primary characteristic of the athletic girl, and
it has been noticed that, while she prefers the
use of any name to that of the baptismal or
family one, she usually goes to the brute
creation for a substitute, selecting—in so far
merciful—the names of the pleasantly associated
animals commonly called domestic.
Thus ass, goose, duck, pig, cart-horse, cow,
and—lately at the zenith of its popularity with
her—hound, are all of her word-treasure. It
is to be expected that she will add to this list
in the course of time “barn-fowl,” and some
other, and that, when she has exhausted the
names belonging to the domestic animals, she
will have recourse to those placarded at the
Zoo. It does not seem probable that she will
ever be guilty of the banality attaching to the
use of Christian names alone.

As a letter-writer the average athletic girl
does not shine. First, as for her handwriting,
it is perhaps best described in some words
which Goldsmith gives to Tony Lumpkin—

“Here are such handles and shanks and
dashes that one can scarcely know the head
from the tail.”

The speed at which she writes, too, is productive
of direful blunders of the kind of Dear
Madman for “Dear Madam”; and the “burst
of speaking,” to use a phrase from Shakespeare,
which characterises her vivâ voce
manner, has its effect upon her epistolary
style. It lacks repose. Another detracting
feature of it is connected with the fact that
this type of girl affects insensibility just as her
ancestresses of a hundred years ago affected
sensibility. There is scarce a whit to choose
between them in their affectations.

It is not that the athletic girl has no heart.
There follows here her description of a parting
scene in which she was one of two.

“I made an owl of myself, got the gulps,
and could not even say good-bye.”

In other words, the athletic girl broke
down.

Books enter little into the life of this girl,
yet she—may—belong to a reading society.
The following (writer, an athletic girl) bears
witness to that fact—

“Our next Shakespeare reading is next
Tuesday. Last year I never took part in them,
but am going to this year, though I rather
hate them. Twelfth Night is the play chosen,
and I have been given two rotten parts where
I have to say every now and then, ‘Good my
lord,’ and ‘Prithee, tell me.’”

The same girl writes—

“I have just read a most frightfully good
book, The Prisoner of Zenda. It is simply
the thrillingest thing that ever was written.”

In another letter she writes—

“Do you know the poetry of Gordon? An
Australian man. All about horses. First-class.”

The margin-note style is in peculiar favour
with the athletic girl.

The personal note is one seldom struck by
this girl, and the elegiac note is one scarcely
ever struck by her. Even when she has a
grievance she keeps a high heart. Who but
she could write—

“For some extraordinary and unknown
reason my head is aching.
It is such a novel sensation
that I rather like it.”

A
Novel
Sensation

Her letter-endings take
their colour from her character,
real or assumed.
“In haste” is much in
favour with her, and I
have letters from her ending
“Bye, bye!” and
“Ta, ta! Yours affec.”

I will close this paper
with a true story. In it will be shown how
a lady, late an athletic girl, was wooed and—not
won.

Her admirer was a widower, with one child.
His home overlooked the school of which this
lady, young as she was—for she was only six-and-twenty—was
head-mistress. The widower,
on re-marrying bent, sent in his card on what
was called “office day.”

The name on the card was Colonel Hewson.
The young head-mistress, whose name was
Alice Joyce, read it, and gave the conventional
order, “Show him in.”

Alice Joyce had some slight acquaintance
with Colonel Hewson, and had also some
slight inkling that he admired her. She did
not admire him, and would have liked to deny
herself to him, but she was not authorised to
do this on “office day.” Perhaps he had
come to place a pupil. His only child was a
boy, but, perhaps, he had girl-relations.
“Show him in,” said conscientious Alice
Joyce, and Colonel Hewson was shown in.

“I thought you’d be surprised to see me,”
he said crisply, on entering.

Alice smiled, and requested him to be
seated. Then she left it to him to open the
talk, occupying herself with a revolving bookcase,
which she gently agitated.

Colonel Hewson was a bronzed man of
travel, who, according to rumour, had penetrated
into Asiatic jungles, and seen tigers and
other undomestic animals eye to eye without
blenching. He had, however, never before
entered a lady’s school, and a terror the like
unto which he had never experienced now
held him tongue-tied.

Alice Joyce, good-naturedly racked her
brains to think of something that would set
him at his ease, and ultimately put the young
head-mistress’s stock question—

“Would you like to see our gymnasium?”

Colonel Hewson expressed himself as not
unwilling.

The gymnasium was empty, save of apparatuses,
of which, movable and immovable, it
had a great number. Alice Joyce had considerable
skill in showing these off, and handled
weights and bars with a facility which impressed
her visitor. Up and down the gymnasium
they went, swinging dumb-bells. Suddenly
Alice Joyce pulled up short—

“As you are so much interested in all this,
Colonel Hewson,” she said, “do come and
see the girls at it.”

Entertaining a dumb beau with dumb-bells

“Can anyone come?” was asked.

“No, no; only parents and anyone whom I
may happen to invite. I shall be pleased to
see you, though you’re not a parent.”

Colonel Hewson expressed his deep sense of
obligation with a rather blank face, adding, in
mild protest, that he regarded himself as a
parent. Here was one result of Alice Joyce’s
having become a head-mistress. She had
come to narrow the meaning of some words.
She was startled herself to find that things had
come to this pass, and said apologetically—

“When I say ‘parent,’ I mean the person
in that relationship to girls—my girls. It is
stupid of me, because, of course, there are”
(her voice paused on a higher note) “other
parents.”

Colonel Hewson’s face remained rather
blank, and he put his hand on an iron ring
suspended from the roof. Alice Joyce the
while had stationed herself beside a trapeze
bar. Colonel Hewson in a lady’s gymnasium
was not the most valiant man in the world,
but he now took heart of grace and proposed
marriage to Alice Joyce.

The end of the story is perhaps best told in
the words of the heroine—

“Of course I
said ‘No’ to him.
Really men are
very tiresome.
Fancy a man’s
proposing when
you’re showing
him the gymnasium!”

CRUSHED

(To be continued.)

{536}

EMBROIDERY WITH CHENILLE.

Chenille was, in days past, a popular
material for fancy needlework. It has recently,
after a period of disuse, been restored to
favour under somewhat different conditions.
Modern chenilles are obtainable in many more
soft and carefully shaded tints, and though
coarse makes are still used, some of the finer
qualities are no thicker than a strand of rope silk.

FIG. 1.—PENWIPER.

Chenille can be used as a working thread if
passed through the eye of a chenille needle, or
it can be caught down in the desired curves by
couching it in place with finer silk.

In the little penwiper shown at Fig. 1 both
these methods are employed. The small
branching pattern within the scrolls is executed
in actual stitchery with chenilles, while for the
curves and along the top some of the same
materials are sewn down with stitches of
silk. As to colouring, the background is
green and the chenilles are brown, blue, pink
and green in tint; the brown and green details
are secured with stitches of bright yellow
crewel silk, which give little touches of brightness
at intervals. Two hints may be gleaned
from this penwiper. Firstly, that for workers
with whom felt-work, on account of its easiness
of execution, is still popular, chenille has
a better appearance than flat silk embroidery;
and, secondly, that on such small articles as
the one before us scraps of various colours
remaining over from larger undertakings can
be profitably utilised.

FIG. 2.—HANDKERCHIEF SACHET.

FIG. 3.—HINGE.

Work upon single thread canvas is almost as
inexpensive as that upon felt. Many shops
show a large stock of sachets, such as that
figured here, and of other trifles; mats, chair-backs,
cushion-covers, and so on, similarly made,
stamped with a design and bordered with satin.
To embroider these in any but a commonplace
manner might be thought impossible.{538}
Yet they can be improved and made more
important-looking by working with chenille.

FIG. 4.—RETICULE.

FIG. 5.—SASH-END.

The handkerchief sachet at Fig. 2 is worked
in brown, green, pink and light and dark blue.
There is no couching here, but the chenille is
used to make actual outline and satin stitches
according to the necessities of the pattern.
The velvet-like surface of the chenille is quite
satisfactory, and the colour and substance of
the canvas are repeated, or at least suggested,
in the lace edging of the sachet. This is in
reality crochet, worked with cream-coloured
cotton of a rather coarse size.

Setting aside now such materials as felt and
canvas, we come next to consider the suitability
of chenille on richer backgrounds; silk, velvet,
and so on. Here the finer qualities especially
are to be seen to full advantage. One of the
newest forms of the work has been introduced
by Mrs. Brackett of 95, New Bond Street, W.,
and is remarkable as including imitations of
ancient Roman coins. These are of various
sizes and designs and found in two colours;
gold and “vert-de-gris,” the latter suggesting
the effect of centuries of ill usage. These
“coins” are of course thin and light, and
pierced with holes at the edges so as to be
easily sewn to the background.

The designs of which they form a part are more
or less in character with them and often suggest
antique metal-work. For instance, Fig. 3
shows a specimen of such Roman embroidery
where the pattern bears a certain resemblance to
a heavy hinge, the effect being lightened with
a coiled spray of highly conventional foliage.

Attention is always paid to the colouring of
this work. The foundation material is heavy
cream-coloured, or rather dark ivory moire,
shot with gold, and on this all the outlines of
the pattern are followed with gilt tinsel varying
from a fine cord to the most delicate
passing. The main portions of the pattern
are further emphasised within this boundary,
with fine silk chenille of several shades of dull
olive green sewn down with invisible stitches
of filoselle or horse-tail. French knots in
tinsel (passing) and in shades of green
embroidery silk are employed as fillings, the
silks being carefully chosen to assort with the
tints of the chenilles. All the scroll-work is
worked with the passing, the leaves being
outlined with the green silks.

The subject chosen for illustration here is a
cover for a blotter, which being raised displays
the pad, while at the back of the embroidery,
which is stiffened with stout cardboard, are
pockets of pink and grey-green silk to hold
letters, or paper and envelopes. The work is
finally finished off with a border of dull gold cord.

Similar designs appear on various other
articles. Blotters and book-covers form an
appropriate background, and so also do small
caskets with slightly domed tops.

The reticule at Fig. 4 is made on quite a
different principle throughout. The front and
back are formed of shield-shaped panels of
wood or strong card, covered with chenille
embroidery and with brocade respectively.
The front section only concerns us here. The
fabric chosen is dark blue velvet, and on this is
worked in tones of brighter blue a very conventional
flower. Long and short stitch is
used for the shading, the stitches being made,
of course, with a large-eyed needle threaded
with chenille. The colouring is darkest in
the centre, round a pink circle, from which start
three “stamens” of brown chenille edged with
fine tinsel. Some of the same Japanese tinsel
is used for veining the flower, and a few gilt
sequins are introduced to give a little additional
brightness. The stem is of green chenille.

To make up the reticule, the panel covered
with embroidery as well as the opposite one of
pale terra cotta, blue and gold brocade were
lined with thin silk of a dull, brownish terra-cotta
colour. A two-inch wide band of some
of the same silk was sewn round the curves
(but not along the tops) of both sections, thus
forming the frame-work of the bag by hinging
the two parts of it together. A similar band of
some of the same silk was laid over the first one
and gathered along both edges that it might
set rather fully. Above the shields a strip
nearly as high as they (four to five inches) of
some of the same silk, was sewn on. This was
made of double material, that it might not be
too limp, and two lines of stitches two inches
from the top formed a running for the blue
suspension cords. These were finished off
with a cluster of shaded-blue baby ribbons.
Lastly an edging of gilt gimp edged the shields
and concealed their junction to the silk beyond.

The three principal colours used, terra cotta,
blue and gilt, proved more successful than a
medley of many carelessly chosen tints such as an
amateur embroideress is but too apt to display.

It cannot be too often repeated that materials
to be used together should be first arranged
and selected together, not merely worked up
because each in itself is bright or pleasing.

As a general rule the more shades and the
fewer colours, the better will be the final effect.

Tones of willowy green and of pink are the
only colours admitted in the sash-end seen
in the illustration (Fig. 5). Here, again, is{539}
yet another way of using chenilles, quite
different from those previously mentioned. In
working the first thing to be done is to trace
upon the material, pink watered silk ribbon in
this instance, the outlines of the design. The
bow and loops are formed of real ribbon folded,
gathered, and coaxed into the desired form,
and secured lightly and firmly with tacking
threads. Along both edges of the ribbon, just
within the selvedge, is couched a line of
chenille of a slightly darker shade of green.
This couching secures the green ribbon to the
moire, and the tacking threads can be cut and
drawn out at once, before they have had time
to mark the material. The nine oval pendants
issuing from the lowest loop of ribbon are
worked over with chenille of graduating
shades of green, the material being simply
laid across and across the space to be covered,
and caught down with stitches of silk at the
sides. These stitches sink into the chenille
and are covered, and are further effectually
concealed with a line of Japanese tinsel, carried
round each pendant and serving to keep it in
a good shape. The chenille when taken from
side to side in the manner described does not
in itself define the form sufficiently clearly.
The showers of sequins, pinkish and green in
colouring, must on no account be overlooked.
They are graduated in size and may vary in
form, according to the worker’s convenience,
but should not be omitted altogether.

Leirion Clifford.

“OUR HERO.”

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

CHAPTER XXXIII.

A WARRIOR TAKING HIS REST.

The rapid fall of darkness made it difficult
to pursue the enemy, who at every
point had been worsted. General Hope,
knowing that large reinforcements might
be expected to arrive soon in the French
camp, decided to carry out Sir John
Moore’s plan of immediate embarkation.

At ten o’clock that night the march
began, brigade after brigade leaving
the field of battle and silently going on
board one transport after another. So
complete had been all previous arrangements
that, by morning light, almost
the whole British Army was on board.

Meanwhile, anxious consultation had
taken place as to what should be done
with the beloved remains of the Commander.
Colonel Anderson settled the
question by stating that Moore had
often told him his wish—“if he ever fell
in battle, to be buried where he had
fallen.” It was decided that a grave
should be dug on the rampart of the
Coruña citadel.

At midnight the body was reverently
borne into the citadel by Colonel Graham,
Major Colbourne and the Aides-de-camp.
For a few hours it lay in Colonel Graham’s
room.

In the early morning firing was heard.
It was then determined not to put off the
funeral any longer, lest a fresh attack
should be impending and the officers
be compelled to hasten away before
paying the last honours to their Chief.

Somewhat strangely, it fell to Roy Baron
to be present at this mournful ceremony.

It so happened that, in the early
morning, Roy was sent by the Colonel
of his Regiment with a message to one
of the Aides-de-camp; and as he
arrived on the spot just when the funeral
was about to begin, he was allowed to
be one of the party in attendance.

Not at dead of night, but at eight
o’clock in the chill morning of a January
day, and in the grave prepared by his
own men, Sir John Moore was laid. No
coffin could be procured. The body had
not been undressed. He wore still the
General’s uniform in which he had fought
his last battle, and—

That same cloak, in which but a few
days earlier he had visited Roy in the
little hut,—had laid his kind hand upon
the boy’s arm,—had spoken never-to-be-forgotten
words of praise,—had smiled
upon him——

Roy dared not let himself think of all
this. Burning blinding tears forced
their way to his eyes—and not to his
only—as he gazed his last upon that
perfect face in its pale sublime repose.

Moore was carried by the “Officers
of the Family,” who would allow no
other hands to do for him these last sad
services. The Burial Service was read
by the Chaplain. And what was in the
hearts of them all has been told, in
words that cannot be improved upon, by
that noble elegy, which is Moore’s best
monument.

For every man in the Army had lost
a friend that day; and many a one felt
with passionate grief that the world,
without John Moore in it, would be for
him a changed world thenceforward.

Hard things were spoken of him after
he was gone, and upbraidings, indeed,
were uttered—not by his brave foe, who
honoured Moore, and wished to raise a
stone to his memory—but by an ungrateful
section of his own countrymen,
because, forsooth, with an Army of only
twenty-three thousand men he had not
met and crushed two hundred thousand.
We know better now! In the cold clear
light of history, such fogs are driven away.

Yet, even in these later days, have
we made enough of the name of John
Moore? Have we thought enough of
the man of whom Napoleon in the
zenith of his fame could declare that he
was the only General left fit to contend
with himself, and against whose twenty-three
thousand men he counted it needful
to bring in a fierce rush over eighty
thousand, failing even then in his
purpose? Have we thought enough
of the man under whom the future
Wellington wished nothing better than
to serve?—and about whose “towering
fame” the sober historian of the Peninsular
War wrote in terms of unstinted
praise? Have we thought enough of
the man who, while the bravest of the
brave, was also the most blameless and
the most beloved of men, against whom
Detraction had no word to utter, save
that he stood up almost too strenuously
for his country’s honour, and that he
did not accomplish impossibilities?

If not, it is surely time that his
countrymen should begin to “do him
justice!”

But for that fatal cannon-ball—who
can say?—would Wellington have become
the foremost man in Europe, or
would he have been second to Moore?
It might have been Moore, not Wellington,
who turned the tide of Napoleon’s
success.[2] It was Moore who stemmed
that tide, with his spirited countermarch
and splendid retreat, drawing
the Enemy after him, until he stood at
bay upon the coast, and hurled back the
onset of the flower of Buonaparte’s Army.

Of Moore’s personal valour, of his
indomitable courage, of his desperate
enthusiasm, no voice was ever heard
in question. To his consummate
generalship, his mingled audacity and
calculation, this marvellous Retreat
bore ample witness, but for many
years it was not rightly understood by
the mass of his own countrymen. Napoleon,
Soult and Ney gauged him far more
truly than did the average Englishman
of his day. Not even against the future
Wellington would Napoleon have poured
such an overwhelming force as he
launched against Moore.

(To be continued.)

{540}

{542}

THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.

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

CHAPTER VIII.

A FALL IN THE KITCHEN.

ucy felt wonderfully cheered
and strengthened as
Christmas approached.
She was working hard
and successfully. She
had completed her
sketches and had received
payment for them,
and she meant to give
herself a little holiday
from Christmas Eve until
after the New Year, so
that she might go fresh
and bright to take her
class at the Institute,
which would re-open on
January 3rd.

“Giving herself holiday”
only signified that
Lucy hoped to enjoy a
week of her old life as Hugh’s mother and
as general housewife. Like many who
have special gifts, Lucy really enjoyed
house-work and needlework. She intended
in this interval to so overhaul
book-cases, china cupboard and linen
closet, that she might afterwards apply
herself to her “professional” work with
the contented assurance that her household
would run on for awhile without
other care than the worthy Mrs. Morison
seemed able and willing to give.

Lucy felt that she had indeed found a
treasure! She had not yet despatched
any letter to Charlie, as the Slains
Castle would not touch at its first port
for fully three months, and it was not
yet quite time for the mail which would
take a letter there to await his arrival.
But though the letter was not despatched,
it was begun. It had been begun the
day after she got Charlie’s farewell telegram,
and a few lines had been added
every night.

Now the letter would soon have to be
despatched, and as Lucy sat down to
her desk on Christmas Eve, she felt that
she could safely tell the whole story of
Pollie’s departure, and of the blessing
which filled her vacant place. Mrs.
Morison had been in the kitchen nearly
two months, and every day she gave
greater satisfaction. She had thrown
herself with great zest into the idea of
the Christmas party, and Lucy began to
think that under this cook’s skilled
fingers her festive dishes would probably
achieve perfections at which she and
poor Pollie had never aimed. As she
sat writing to Charlie concerning the
domestic good fortune which had befallen
her, she felt her heart grow very
soft towards this middle-aged woman
who had once had a home of her own,
but who was now so contentedly and
worthily serving others. What life of
her own had she? She had paid no
visit since she had entered Lucy’s service;
she had had no visitor. Yes,
Lucy remembered she had had one—a
middle-aged woman, who had called on
her when she had been in her situation
for a month. She had volunteered to
say that this person was the wife of her
cousin, the plumber at Willesden. Lucy
had asked whether she had offered her
a cup of tea. No, Mrs. Morison said;
her cousin would not expect that; and
Lucy had rejoined that she hoped she
would show this little hospitality on
future occasions. Lucy remembered
now that Mrs. Morison had not seemed
brightened by this visit, nay, that for a
day or two afterwards she had even
seemed a little depressed. It occurred
to Lucy that perhaps this cousin had
come possibly seeking a little loan, or
perhaps pressing for the repayment of
some trifling debt. Lucy knew that
one or two of Pollie’s relatives had not
been inclined to spare her hard earnings,
and that Charlie and she had
intervened to protect the girl from the
weak soft-heartedness which can be so
easily wrought upon by the loafing or
the greedy.

What Christmas in any real sense
would there be for this woman in the
kitchen, whose presence there yet made a
social Christmas possible for the rest of
the household? If she had any old
friends they must be in the North,
beyond the reach of anything but the
struggling, slow letters of the uneducated.
Lucy wondered whether there
was anybody to whom Mrs. Morison
would like to send some “gift from
London in kind remembrance.” She
had taken quite a pathetic interest in
certain trifling gifts which Lucy had despatched
that afternoon.

“Eh, it’s bonnie!” she had said,
adding with a little sigh, “It’s a gran’
thing to gie pleasure to folk.”

Lucy had got a nice cambric handkerchief
with an “M” in the corner, tied
up with a piece of red ribbon, which
was to be Mrs. Morison’s own Christmas-box.
It was all that it was reasonable
to give to a servant who had been
only two months in the house, to say
nothing of the fact that Lucy was
anxious to spend little this year, and
had sent no Christmas gift save what
was taken out of her own stores or of
her own manufacture.

But Lucy wondered whether she could
not do something more.

A bright idea seized her. Mrs. Morison’s
next month’s wage would not fall
due till just after the New Year. Why
shouldn’t Lucy advance it to her now?
That would not impoverish Lucy, who
had the money in her purse, and yet it
might be a real neighbourly kindness.

She laid down her pen, sprang up
and hurried to the kitchen, which was
pervaded by festive smells of spice and
stuffing herbs.

“Mrs. Morison,” she said, “as your
month’s wages are due just after the
New Year, I should like to advance
them to you now. Most of us spend a
little extra at this season, and as you
haven’t been earning money for some
time, you may not have much cash ready
at hand. For one does not care to
disturb one’s little investments to buy
Christmas cards or comforters.”

She laid on the table a sovereign and
a little silver.

“Oh, ma’am,” cried Mrs. Morison,
“you’re far ow’re kind! You shouldn’t
ha’ thought o’ sic a thing. ’Deed, there
is a thing or two one would like to do,
though there’s no many carin’ for me
now. An’ you gave me my last month’s
money down on the vera day, an’ it
came in handy when my cousin’s wife
called. I was glad to have a bit to
help her with, poor body, for they’d
been kind to me, and they’ve got a
cripple child, and some of their customers
are slow in paying bills. There’s
a mighty differ between people, as I’ve
often heard my poor husband say.”

Lucy went back to her letter as light-hearted
and elate as we always feel
after doing a trifling kindness. She
confided it all to her letter to Charlie—told
him why she had interrupted her
writing, and how very pleased Mrs.
Morison had been, and how nicely
she always spoke about “the master.”
She added that she should finish her
letter on the evening of Christmas Day
after the visitors had gone, when she
could tell him how everything had
passed off. “So it will seem almost as
if we had had Christmas together after
all.” She had just written this when Mrs.
Morison came into the parlour, saying,

“Please, ma’am, you won’t mind if I
go out for a little? I sha’n’t be gone
more than half-an-hour. It won’t ill-convenience
you?”

“Certainly not,” Lucy answered cordially.
“She is off to buy something,”
she thought to herself, and added aloud,
“I’m afraid you are rather late for most
of the shops.”

“Some of them keep open late
on Christmas Eve,” said Mrs. Morison;
“not the shops you’ll know, m’m, but
quiet little places where working people
go.”

Mrs. Morison came back in about
a quarter of an hour. She had a parcel
under her shawl, and in her hand was a
little bright-coloured ball.

“If you please, m’m,” she said,
“I’ll make bold to drop that into the
stocking that I see you’ve hung outside
Master Hugh’s door. And I’m sure
I’m sending my good Christmas wishes
to the master, if the winds will carry
them. And please, ma’am, if you’ll
do me a favour, you won’t trouble
yourself a bit about kitchen things to-morrow,
but just trust to me. All is
ready now as far as it can be till it’s
fairly put on the fire.”

Lucy gratefully promised full confidence.
She had fixed her dinner-hour
carefully—two hours earlier than she
had ever had Christmas dinner. It was
to come off at four o’clock, because it
would not be nice for dear old Miss
Latimer to have to return home late,{543}
now there was no Charlie to escort her.
It would not have been kind to fix it
sooner than four, since Wilfrid Somerset
so much disliked being abroad before
dusk.

Next morning, after the Christmas
cards had been admired and arranged
gaily on the mantelshelf—after the
Christmas stocking had been emptied
of all its contents and Hugh had made
a right guess as to the giver of the
pretty ball—Lucy and Hugh went to
morning service. Of course, the familiar
hymns, even the fresh smell of the
“holly, bay and mistletoe” of which
the church was full, all had a pathos
for her, as indeed they do for everybody
except such as little Hugh, to whose
short experience it seems that all
Christmas Days will be as this one or
even more abundant. Yet Lucy reflected
that, looking forward, she could never
have foreseen herself so full of cheer
and patience and hope.

Kneeling in her pew, thinking of all
the happy festivals of her married life,
her mind went back to those earlier
days when she and Florence had looked
over one book while they warbled—

Then—as always happens with all
healthy, right-minded people, when their
nerves are emerging, quiet, after a
storm, and their hearts are full of thankfulness
for blessings already realised,
and for hopes brightening before them—Lucy
began to wonder whether she had
not been a little severe and unjust to
Florence—whether she might not have
blamed her for jars due rather to
Lucy’s own morbidly irritable condition.
She was glad she was to spend Christmas
Day in her own house—glad that
Miss Latimer and Mr. Somerset and
the country boy were to be her guests—but
possibly it did seem hard to
Florence that she had been set aside.
That last speech of hers about being
now free to invite other guests might
perhaps have been wrung from her by a
jar inflicted by Lucy herself. Lucy felt
that she would be the happier at her
own little festival, if she could feel quite
sure that all was right between Florence
and herself, and that she had made
due amends for aught she had done
amiss.

She and Hugh were to have a slight
lunch when they returned from church.
She resolved that they would hurry over
this, and then go to the Brands’ house,
just to wish them “A Merry Christmas!”
They could be back in the little
house with the verandah before Miss
Latimer and Mr. Somerset could arrive.

They had to knock twice before Mrs.
Morison let them in.

“She’s so busy with her cooking,
ma,” Hugh explained sagaciously. And
indeed when she did come, her face was
very red, and she was so pre-occupied
that, as Hugh lingered a moment to
knock snow from his boot, she actually
hurried back to her kitchen and left
them to close the door themselves.

“Don’t roast yourself as well as the
chickens, Mrs. Morison!” Lucy called
after her playfully.

Their nice little cold meal was
awaiting them on a side table in the
dining-room, the dining-table itself being
already occupied by the best napery,
crystal and cutlery, set out by Lucy
before she went to church.

Hugh was all eagerness to see his little
cousins and their Christmas cards and
gifts—they were sure to have so many,
and such beauties!

After all, the call, though satisfactory
in one sense, proved less so in another.
It convinced Lucy that her sister had not
been hurt or offended; it also convinced
her that the whole matter had been of
such slight interest to Florence that she
had forgotten all about it!

Jem Brand did not seem even to know
that Lucy had been invited to be his
guest! Said he—

“You ought to have been invited, and
anyhow, wouldn’t you stay on now?
There are a good many people coming,
but there would be room for you, never
fear.”

Even when he heard she was to have
guests of her own, he actually suggested
that he should send round a cab and
bring them all over!

It seemed to Lucy that Florence
spoke rather sharply to Jem, saying
significantly, that he had better not go
into the dining-room again till dinner
was served. She supposed Florence
was tired and cumbered. Florence
had sent out a hundred and fifty
Christmas cards—“Private cards, of
course!”—one conventional salutation
alike to oldest friend and newest acquaintance,
to the wise and to the
simple, the merry and the sad. And
Florence had received already two
hundred cards, and nearly one hundred
were from people whom she had overlooked,
and whom she would have to
“remember” at New Year. Also, the
cutler had not sent home her new fruit
knives with the agate handles, and she
would have to use her old ones. It was
enough to provoke a saint!

The two little Brand girls were whining
and fuming.

“Muriel is out of sorts,” said the
lady nurse, “because she has been
allowed to breakfast with her mamma
and has eaten too much cake, and
Sybil is out of temper because her
papa has given Muriel a mechanical
walking doll, and she does not think her
own gift of toy drawing-room furniture
so good.” She would have stamped
on it had not the lady nurse taken it
away.

“I must soothe them up somehow to
make a pretty appearance downstairs
after dinner,” she said. “And a nice
to-do I shall have up here when they
come back again.”

Well, at any rate, the comfort was
that Florence kissed Lucy almost
effusively.

“It was so sweet of you to come!”
she said. She might be sharp with Jem
and vexed about her children, but it
was evidently all right between her
and Lucy. “How well-behaved your
Hugh is!” she said, and clung on
to her sister, pouring out the story of
all the frictions working in her own
kitchen.

Lucy hinted gently that she must be at
home in time for her visitors; but she
remembered the mission which had
brought her, and shrank from seeming
unsympathetic. At last it was so late
that she had to say definitely that she
must go at once, or she would not be
back in her own house at four o’clock.

“Dear me”—Florence looked at her
watch—“you really must go! It’s well
you don’t have much dressing for dinner
to do, or you’d be late already. It has
been such a comfort to have a reasonable
creature to speak to. And you’ll take a
cab, my dear, or I’ll never forgive myself
for having kept you. You are to take a
cab, mind!”

Lucy smiled and hurried away. A
cab? No! A woman who knows what
it is to earn shillings cannot willingly
afford to spend them because another
woman’s whim delays her. Lucy, too,
looked at her watch. There would be
just time for her to reach home ere her
guests arrived.

When they got into the quieter streets
she shortened the journey by running
little races with Hugh. Nevertheless,
just as they came in sight of the house
with the verandah, they saw Mr. Somerset’s
cab drive up.

They all went in together. Of course,
Mrs. Morison opened the door. She
had on a fresh white apron as if she
were ready to serve up dinner. Mr.
Somerset had a big parcel to get out
of his cab, and that made a little delay,
during which Mrs. Morison hurried off
again downstairs.

Lucy was comforted to find that Miss
Latimer had not arrived yet, nor the
lad Tom Black. Mr. Somerset was such
an old and familiar friend that she could
easily leave him to the chattering ministrations
of little Hugh, while she hurried
to her own room to take off her walking
garb and add a few touches of lacy
brightness to her apparel.

While she was thus employed, she
heard Hugh give a shout of joy and go
leaping downstairs. From the drawing-room
window, he had seen Miss Latimer
approach. Lucy heard him and the old
governess exchanging rapturous greetings.
She went out and met Miss
Latimer, and led her to her own room,
where the old lady had some little
titivations to make, and a few private
inquiries to get answered, so that they
lingered there until another knock
announced Tom Black, and they went
downstairs to receive him.

They found the youth standing
awkwardly alone on the landing outside
the drawing-room door. He had
only just reached that spot, led thereto by
the sound of Hugh’s shrill pipe and
Mr. Somerset’s deeper tones. He was
vastly relieved to see Lucy, and to be
made welcome by her. Lucy herself
made the inward reflection that Mrs.
Morison was either less trained in
receiving guests than in other departments
of service, or that she felt her
devotion to the Christmas dinner must
justify any lapse in minor attentions.

They went into the drawing-room.
Tom Black was introduced all round,{544}
and a little conversation was got up
about the weather, about Hugh’s gifts,
and about Mr. Challoner, and how he
was possibly keeping his Christmas
day.

By this time it was fully half-past
four. Lucy did not feel at all nervous
on that score. If her husband had been
at home to remain with her guests, she
would certainly have stepped out of the
room and taken a housewifely survey.
But she did not care to leave her visitors
quite to themselves, since she had the
just idea that hospitality loses its sweetest
grace if it seems burdensome to the
hosts. It was natural, too, that dinner
should be a little deferred. Mrs.
Morison had probably thoughtfully retarded
matters when her mistress’s return
had been so late.

Lucy had not even begun to feel
anxious—when there came a sudden
heavy fall and a smash!

(To be continued.)

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

MEDICAL.

MISCELLANEOUS.