THE GIRL’S OWN
PAPER

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

COTTAGES AND MILL AT AMERSHAM.

All rights reserved.]

As our papers upon “The Characteristic
Church Towers of English Counties” appear
to have interested our readers, it is possible
they may be willing to peruse these remarks
upon the old dwellings, and some other objects
which surround country churches.

We fear there can be no doubt that our
village architecture has deteriorated, and that
the cottage of to-day is scarcely, if ever, as
beautiful as that of former times.

Nor is this our only cause for regret, for,
unfortunately, our beautiful old village architecture
is disappearing so rapidly, that it is to
be feared there will be nothing left to convey
to the minds of those who come after us any
idea of its charm.

When one speaks of “English villages,” it
is advisable to point out that those small
country towns which are erected after the
same manner and method are included; that
is to say, those which are contained in one
single parish, and which possess houses of
small scale with rustic adjuncts, gardens,
orchards, farm-buildings, etc. There is
architecturally no difference between a village
and a town of this description. It makes no
difference whether the houses are built in rows
or are detached. The beautiful village of
Ayot St. Lawrence, in Hertfordshire, has
houses arranged in rows, and so had Eaton, in
Norfolk, before its rebuilding some years back.
The notion that country houses should always
be detached, or semi-detached, has led to much
injudicious arrangement in suburban building
estates. If there is land to spare, isolate your
houses, but if not, no good end is answered by
detaching them so as to leave wretched narrow
passages between them, which are always
damp, gloomy, and too frequently become{34}
receptacles for disused and broken articles,
which would be far better put on the fire or
given to the dustman. If houses are detached,
or semi-detached, there should always be a
space twelve or fifteen feet between them
(unless, of course, the houses are very low),
otherwise the rooms bordering upon the
opening are damp and cold.

At Fordwich.

English country towns differ completely
from continental ones chiefly for this reason.
On the Continent, towns were nearly always
fortified and surrounded by walls, though
often their population was that of a mere
village. These little fortified places are in
Germany called “dwarf cities,” to distinguish
them from the “dorf,” or “village.” In
England, however, small towns were rarely
fortified or walled, except when they were
situated upon the sea-coast, where they had to
be ready to resist the landing of some foreign
enemy. Lyme-Regis, Dorsetshire, is an
example of a small English fortified town, and
it is quite strange how much the place (of
course we refer to the old portions of it) impresses
one with its continental aspect, because
directly a town is “circumvallated,” every
building within it has to be erected upon a contracted
space, and the houses are consequently
developed in height, so that they in no way
differ from those of a city; in fact, the small
town might, architecturally, be a piece of some
large city.

Such English towns as Amersham, Lavenham,
Clare, Wheathamstead, etc., are, architecturally,
large villages, and probably originated
in the same manner—i.e., they were
dependencies upon some lordship or monastery.

The English word “village” is derived
from the Roman word “villa.” The villa
was the castle or manorial house of the proprietor
of the land surrounded by a series of
humble structures inhabited by his labourers
and “serfs.” This was the “village” or
dependency of the villa, and hence its inhabitants
were called “villains” (villani). Now
we are aware that some modern writers attempt
to derive these words from the German
“wealh” (a welchman), yet the old and
usually received idea seems so obvious that we
accept it.

How the meaning of the words “villa” and
“villain” have been changed, and yet how
singularly the old word “village” has retained
its meaning!

The modern stucco, semi-detached “desirable
residence,” with its four or six rooms,
with its “rustic porch” and gritty front
garden, is a strange parody upon the stately
villa of old, and the good, honest villager is
neither a “villain” nor “a Welshman.” He
may sometimes be the latter, and justly proud
of his origin, but, in any case, he is very unlike
our conception of a villain. If recent
newspaper reports can be trusted, that
character is rather personified by the
London “loafer” and his most modern
representative “the Hooligan.”

When the villages increased in size
and became important, usually in the
13th century, many of them claimed
municipal privileges, were called towns,
and erected “town halls,” which are
often highly-picturesque structures. That at
Ledbury, Herefordshire, is an interesting
example which probably dates from the 16th
century. They are generally supported upon
pillars so as to leave the ground-floor an open,
covered space which served as a market.

Very charming are these villages and small
country towns with their quaint old cottages
and picturesque little houses bordering the
wide street. Great elms shade the foot-path,
and sweet gardens are at the side or back of
each dwelling. Perhaps a clear river winds
its way amidst the ruddy buildings, its banks
converted into diminutive kitchen-gardens, and
crossed here and there by bridges. The long
low building of a water-mill seems to block
the way altogether, but in reality it simply
utilises the water to turn its wheels, and we
shall find the river on the opposite side with
its waters banked up some six or eight feet
higher, changed in character, looking more
still and deep, reflecting the surrounding
objects in a still, silent pool, shaded by lofty
trees, its banks clothed with deep grass
plantains, huge docks and marsh mallows, a
spot where, on a sunny day, an irresistible
inclination seizes one to lie down on the cool
earth. The clinging foliage seems to second
the invitation, and one throws oneself down
upon this sweet verdant couch to “dream with
one’s eyes open,” for who could close them in
such an enchanting spot? But somehow or
other, whether it is the “whirr” of the
water-wheel, the fragrant scents of the plants
we are crushing, or the peace surrounding
one, time seems to glide away, and, upon
consulting our watch, we discover the mysterious
fact that the day has become two
hours shorter! Of course we have not been
to sleep!

Such village scenes and sensations are to be
witnessed at Amersham, Cringleford, and many
other spots in England which have still retained
their old village surroundings.

(To be continued.)

TOWN HALL, LEDBURY.

HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

A good black straw hat and bonnet, changed
at the seasons with suitable blossoms, is the
most economical and ladylike fashion, but the
artificial flowers should be very good of their
kind—those with silk or velvet petals look the
best and most natural, and can be used a
second season if carefully brushed and put
away.

Those who have to wear spectacles and eyeglasses
should be very careful that the centre
of the glass is exactly opposite the centre of
the eye. If not, they should be altered to
make them so.

If hair is washed with soap it is apt to make
it brittle, so it should be afterwards rinsed with
a little borax in water.

A little ammonia in the water in which
china is washed makes it glossier and nicer in
appearance.

A dress well made and of good material
outlives several that are not, and gives more
satisfaction to the wearer, but it should be
carefully chosen as to colour, and not be too
aggressive in pattern or tint.

{35}

“OUR HERO.”

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

CHAPTER III.

IN THE YEAR 1803.

“A letter from Paris! Grandmamma,
a letter from Paris!” cried Molly, as
she rushed into the dining-room of Mrs.
Fairbank’s Bath house, situated not far
from the renowned Pump-room. “Look!
And it will be about Roy! And it is
in my papa’s handwriting.”

Polly followed close in rear of the
eager child, hardly less eager herself.
She might at least hope for a message
from Denham, perhaps to say that a
letter was coming.

Mrs. Fairbank, a comely elderly lady—in
these days, with the same weight of
years, she would be no more than cheerfully
middle-aged—adjusted her horn
spectacles, laid the letter on her knee,
tied her loosened cap-strings, and
scrutinised Molly’s excited face.

“You make too much of things,
child,” she remarked. “Whatever may
befall, it is never worth while to discompose
yourself.”

Then she lifted the letter, examined it,
weighed it in either hand, laid it down
anew, and resumed her knitting. Molly’s
agony of suspense and Polly’s wistful
eyes alike failed to touch her. Young
folks, if well brought up, were expected
to submit without question to the will of
their elders, and Mrs. Fairbank had
always been an excellent disciplinarian.
This was, in her eyes, much too good an
opportunity for a lesson in self-control to
be neglected.

Molly stood, squeezing her hands
together, wondering if the slow moments
would ever pass. Mrs. Fairbank
serenely knitted, stopped to count, and
knitted again.

“I met Mrs. Peirce and Will in Milsom
Street after breakfast,” she observed.
“Mrs. Peirce informed me
that the Admiral had a letter yestere’en
from his nephew, Mr. Albert Peirce.”

Mrs. Fairbank’s eyes wandered round
the room in quest of something else to
remark upon.

“My dear Polly, you must surely have
forgot! That piece of knitting which
was to have been done to-day——”

“I’ll set to work upon it, ma’am. It
won’t take me but a very short time.
O Jack!”—and a note of relief could
be heard.

“Jack!” gasped Molly, under her
breath.

“My dear Jack!” and Mrs. Fairbank
suspended her knitting to glance
up in pleased surprise.

The young man who walked in—he
was hardly more than a boy in years—bore
small resemblance to Polly, though
he was her brother. He was of squarer
build, slightly under medium height, and
muscular in make; his features were
irregular, and the eyes were light blue
instead of brown. Beyond those good-humoured
blue eyes and a fresh complexion,
Jack Keene had no pretensions
to good looks; but many people, beside
his grandmother, counted him a very
pleasant young fellow. Mrs. Fairbank,
after the manner of old ladies, simply
doted on her grandson. In her view he
could almost do no wrong.

“Jack, Jack, there’s a letter,”
whispered Molly, clutching at him.
“And, oh! she won’t open it. She
won’t tell us how they are!”

“All right,” murmured Jack. He
understood Molly’s whisper and the
look in Polly’s face; and as he kissed his
grandmother he took up the letter which
reposed upon her knee. No human
being except Jack might have ventured
on such a liberty, but he was a privileged
being. “Ah, from France!” quoth
Jack, with composure. “Will you
allow me to open it, ma’am? You are
busy, and news of any sort or kind from
France in these days is to be welcomed.”

Mrs. Fairbank took the letter from
him with as near an approach to displeasure
in her manner as she ever
showed towards Jack.

“You are pleased to be impatient,”
she remarked, with a sound of reproof.

“Exceedingly, ma’am.” Jack was
always extra polite when bent upon his
own way.

Mrs. Fairbank examined the foreign
missive afresh, studied the stamp, and
at length broke the seal, taking out a
tiny enclosure, which was addressed to
Molly.

“From Roy,” she said. “I think”—and
there was a dubious pause—”I
think I may permit you to read this to
yourself, child. Doubtless your mamma
has already seen it.”

Molly fled to the window-seat, curled
herself up there, and plunged into the
delights of Roy’s epistle, seeing and
hearing nothing else. Mrs. Fairbank’s
face of growing concern failed to
reach her perceptions, and a murmured
consultation which took place might
have gone on in China for all the impression
that it made upon Molly.
Roy’s prim round handwriting spoke to
her as follows:—

There was no ending to the letter, and
Molly read it through a second time. Then
she hugged and kissed it tenderly, and at
length carried it across to the others.

“Roy has forgot to sign his name,”
she said. “I suppose he went out to see
the sights, and did not remember. My
mamma thinks he has caught a cold.”

“Roy is far from well, my dear,” Mrs.
Fairbank observed solemnly. “He was
taken ill with a most unexpected disorder
while writing to you, and could
not conclude. It is truly unfortunate.”

“Roy—ill!”

“‘Tis not good manners to repeat
other people’s words, Molly. Yes; Roy
has the small-pox. Doubtless he took it
into his constitution before ever he left
England. He must have caught the
infection from one of his school-fellows.”

Polly wound her kind arms round the
image of childish woe.

“But numbers and numbers of people
have the small-pox, Molly,” she said.
“‘Tis truly but a few who altogether
escape, you know. And many get over
the complaint. Doubtless Roy will soon
be well again—in a few weeks.” This
was lame comfort, but what better could
Polly say, in those days of the awful
unchecked scourge.

“Will his face be all marked?” sadly
asked Molly, thinking of the innumerable
seamed and disfigured faces which she
knew. “Will he become like to Mr.
Bryce?”

“Oh, I hope not, indeed. All who
have it are not scarred. Captain Ivor
is not, yet he has had it.” Polly’s
lips trembled, and she set them firmly.
“Think, Molly, is not Captain Ivor a
dear brave man? He has taken Roy
into another house, and he will not let
your father or mother go near to Roy, or
anyone that has not had the disorder.
They never have, as you know. And
they were never inoculated, so they
might catch it. And he is nursing Roy
himself. The people in the hotel would
not keep Roy, so soon as they knew that
he had the small-pox, but a room has
been found, and Captain Ivor is there
with him. And they hope it will not be
a severe attack. So in a little while I do
think we shall hear that he is better.”

Molly was hard to comfort, and what
wonder? Polly would have liked to
keep the ill news from her for some
days, till perhaps better accounts should
arrive, but Mrs. Fairbank viewed the
matter differently. “Worse news might
come, instead of better,” she said.

No doubt that was true. Still, Molly
might have been spared many weary
days of suspense. All her spirit went
out of her, and she seemed to care for
nothing, except clinging to Polly and
being told over and over again that Roy
would probably soon be well. Letters
then were not, as now, an everyday
affair. Posts were slow and uncertain,
and postage was expensive, and people
thought twice before putting pen to
paper. Roy’s father promised to write
again speedily, yet he waited till there
should be something definite to tell.

So day passed after day, and no
further tidings arrived. The suspense
was almost as hard for Polly as for
Molly; harder, perhaps, in some respects,
only as Ivor had had the disease,
and had nursed a friend through it two
years earlier without being affected, he
might be counted personally safe. Nursing
in those days was not a science;
trained nurses were unknown; and Roy
could hardly have been in better hands
than those of the young Grenadier officer.
But Polly knew that his stay in Paris was
likely to be much lengthened. Weeks
might pass before Roy would be well
enough to travel, and before it would be
safe for either of them to go freely among
other people. Ideas as to the nature and
extent of infection were vague, but small-pox
was the terror of everybody, and while
there was little system in avoidance of the
danger, there was any amount of scare.

In all probability Denham would spend
the whole of his leave in attendance
upon the boy, and when he returned he
would have no time to spare for Bath.
Polly would have no chance of showing
off her tall Grenadier among friends and
acquaintances. At present her fears
extended no further.

Meanwhile public events marched on
with strides, and that month of May, 1803,
was astir with events. The maintenance
of peace between England and France
became daily more and more precarious.
The feverish ambition of Napoleon could
know no rest, so long as he was fearlessly
confronted by a single nation in Europe.

One chief bone of contention was
Malta. Napoleon had set his heart
upon getting Malta for himself, and
England was equally bent on keeping
him out of Malta. By the treaty of the
preceding year, England had undertaken
to evacuate the island, and to restore it
to the knights of St. John. But the
withdrawal of English troops had been
of necessity delayed, until some means
could be devised to save it from the grip
of Buonaparte; and the First Consul, by
deliberately breaking some of his own
undertakings in the treaty, set England
free as to her undertakings also. Therefore
Malta still remained in the hands of
England, as did Egypt and the Cape of
Good Hope, each a source of jealous
longing on the part of the First Consul.

This state of tension steadily increased,
until the breaking out of war
became merely a question of days.
Large numbers of English had seized
the rare opportunity of a year free from
fighting to travel in France; and at this
time there were something like eight or
ten thousand English, mainly of the
upper classes, in that country.

It was unknown to them that, pending
negotiations, the First Consul caused
careful returns to be sent to himself of
the names and addresses of all English
people then within French borders.
This bears a suspicious look, when read
in the light of his after act, and possibly
he already had in his mind the step
which was soon to scandalise all Christendom.
The French papers heartily assured
English travellers of their absolute
safety, even supposing that war should
break out, and doubtless the editors of
those papers meant what they said.
Few men, if any, French or English,
could have foreseen what was coming.

A homeward stampede took place,
and the thousands were, by some accounts,
rapidly reduced to hundreds. A
good many lingered, however, not all
detained, as were the Barons, by illness.
War-clouds might threaten, but that
private travellers should be affected by a
declaration of war was a thing unheard of.

In May, suddenly at the last, though
the step had been expected, the English
Ambassador was recalled from Paris,
and immediately the French Ambassador
was recalled from London. Meanwhile,
as a second step, the English Government,
issuing letters of marque, seized a
number of French vessels, which happened
then to be lying in English ports.
This, it was said, actually took place before
the Declaration of War could reach
Paris. If so, even though the deed was
within English rights, being sanctioned
by previous centuries of custom, one must
regret its extreme haste. But no excuse
can be found for Napoleon’s illegal and
cruel act of reprisal, which indeed appeared
to have been planned beforehand.

Like a thundercrash came the order,
before the close of May, arresting all
peaceable English travellers or residents
in France, and rendering them “Prisoners
of War,” or “Détenus,” to be
confined in France during the pleasure
of the First Consul.

Here is the shortened form of that
direful order, as it was printed in English
newspapers, spreading dismay through
hundreds of English homes, and awakening
a burst of anger against the man
who had dealt the blow.

“The Government of the Republic,
having heard read by the Minister of
Marines and Colonies a despatch from
the Marine Prefect at Brest, dated this
day, announcing that two English frigates
had taken two French merchant vessels
in the Bay of Audierne, without any
previous declaration of war, and in
manifest violation of the laws of nations;

“First: It is prescribed to all commanders
of squadrons or naval divisions
of the Republic, captains of its ships and
other vessels of war, to chase those of
the King of England, as well as those
vessels belonging to his subjects, and to
attack, capture, and conduct them into
the ports of the Republic;

“Secondly: Commissions will be delivered
in course to those French privateers
for which they are demanded;

“Thirdly: All the English, from the
age of eighteen to sixty, or holding any
commission from His Britannic Majesty,
who are at present in France, shall immediately
be constituted Prisoners of
War, to answer for those citizens of the
Republic who may have been arrested
and made prisoners by the vessels or
subjects of His Britannic Majesty, previous
to any declaration of war.

“The First Consul,
“(Signed) Buonaparte.”

(To be continued.)

{37}

LESSONS FROM NATURE.

By JEAN A. OWEN, Author of “Forest, Field and Fell,” etc.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

Christ, the divine teacher, has taught us to
go to nature for moral and spiritual lessons.
“Consider the lilies of the field,” He says to
those who are anxious about, and careworn with
the things of this life: and that old triangle of a
problem with its hard points: “What shall
we eat? what shall we drink? and wherewithal
shall we be clothed?” does press
heavily on many even of those who read our
Girl’s Own Paper. The fall of the sparrow,
too, He tells us, is noted by His Father and
ours. He bids those who are neglectful of the
talents given to them, learn a lesson of the
barren fig-tree. Again the rapid and
marvellous development of the mustard-tree,
in the mouth of the great teacher, becomes an
image of the faith that He bids us have. And
even when speaking of the yearning love He
had for souls, He did not disdain to use the
simile: “As a hen gathereth her young.”
And so, if the eyes are quick to note all that
surrounds us, all the wonderful life, “the
infinitely small” as well as “the infinitely
great,” and the heart makes room for love, it
will be possible to learn, from the first year of
our lives, until the day of our death here, lessons
from nature which no man or woman has ever
yet exhausted, nor ever will.

One of my earliest memories is of an old-world
garden where our mother, who was an
ardent lover of the beautiful, would direct the
attention of my sisters and myself to the
pencilling on the petal of this and that flower.
God’s finger painted the velvety face of the
pansy, she told us. And how often I pondered
over this expression and wondered if that
finger did its work in the garden when we
were asleep.

Our dear mother gave us a love for nature
which has been our resource and consolation
in many a sorrow, and which has filled the void
of what would otherwise have been weary,
monotonous hours.

Ruskin said, “Despise the earth or slander
it, fix your eyes on its gloom and forget its
loveliness, and we do not thank you for your
languid or despairing perception of brightness
in Heaven. But rise up actively on the earth,
learn what there is in it, and when, after that,
you say ‘Heaven is bright,’ it will be a
precious truth.” Lord Bacon spoke fitly of
the “respondences of nature,” and he with
many other great minds has dwelt on the
marvellous analogies of nature. These
analogies are indeed evidences of the unity of
creation. And there are prefigurations which
we may note in the animal kingdom, in the
various habits of the creatures, their works,
economies and instincts. Human art is prefigured
in the work of the bee, the wasp, and
the beaver. Democritus averred that men
learned weaving from spiders and architecture
from birds. Virgil said that the bees had in
them a portion of the divine mind.

The Psalmist likened a good man to a tree
planted by a river; Wordsworth writes
constantly in a strain which bears witness to
his belief that between man and the flowers of
the field there is the closest affinity; in quaint
George Herbert’s poems we note also the same
teaching. Look them up, if you do not
remember them, especially that dear one called
“The Flower.”

How many great men have been influenced
in their careers, careers which have been great
factors in the world’s growth, by the sight of
what to many an unobservant or unthinking
mind would seem too insignificant an object
for notice.

There was the great traveller and explorer,
Mungo Park, who was employed by the
so-called African association to explore the
interior regions of Africa. Once, weary,
disappointed, and baffled, he was on the point
of giving way to despair, when he suddenly
came on a little plant the sight of which, and
the thoughts which its beauty suggested, revived
his courage and probably saved his life.

Most of you will remember also that
beautiful story of Picciola, the prison flower,
the seed of which had fallen on the paved yard
of a prison where a noble Italian was confined.
When he was in the lowest state of despondency,
and in danger perhaps of madness, the
tiny plant awakened interest, and daily
delighted the poor prisoner as its beauties
unfolded, opening a little world of interest to
the starved heart and mind. When at last he
was set at liberty he caused his wall-flower to
be transplanted and placed it in a border, in a
place of honour in his castle grounds. It had
been made the instrument of his salvation.

Some persons talk of
things being insignificant or
too small to notice. Perhaps
it will surprise some of
our readers to hear that a
common house-fly is said
to occupy the middle place
in creation as regards the
size of known creatures.
Most people can see big
things, but the gift of seeing
tiny objects belongs rather
to the few, and yet it may
be cultivated, and great enjoyment
may be found in
observing things which
seem to common minds to
be unworthy of note—the
simple, homely, and smaller
life that surrounds us. Mr.
Leo Grindon, a great student
of life and a noted
botanist, says very truly—

“To learn how to see
and delight in little things,
as well as in large, is, in
fact, to make no slight
progress both in true intelligence and in
aptitude for genuine pleasure. Many laugh
at the idea of being pleased with little things,
which, they say, ‘please little minds.’ They
should remember that the great mass of the
population of our planet consists of the merest
pigmies, diminutive birds and fishes, tiny
insects, animalcules, only visible through a
microscope, so that to turn away from little
things is to be indifferent to almost everything
the world contains. Besides, with Uranus
eighty times greater than the whole earth,
Neptune a hundred and fifty times greater,
Saturn more than seven hundred times, and
Jupiter more than fourteen hundred, it is rather
inconsistent to talk about littleness in the objects
of a world itself (comparatively) so puny.”

“Our spring is in our lightsome girlish days.”

Spring is the season of growth. Let us try
to promote a healthy mental growth by studying
together in the wonderful book of nature
and appropriating some of those helpful lessons
which she has to teach us.

The Provident Ant.

The wise man, in the Book of Proverbs,
speaks of the ant as one of “four things which
are little upon the earth,” and yet are “exceeding
wise.” He says that the ants are “a
people not strong, yet they prepare their meat
in the summer.” That is, when all in nature
is at its richest, when food abounds, they use
forethought and gather in enough to sustain
themselves before the winter draws near, and
the usual food supplies have failed.

The Book of Job, that Eastern drama which
is so wonderful in its lessons suited to human
experiences in all time, is marvellously comprehensive
in its illustrations drawn from the
natural world. We are taken there into the
regions of ice and snow, and again we pass
through the rich verdure of the tropics. We
try to sound the frozen deeps, and anon survey
the hot desert plains; we wander where the
lion seeks his prey, and through dense forests
where behemoth, or the elephant, feeds. The
coral and the pearls are there, so are the gold
ore, the iron, and the brass. The Author shows
us the ostrich “that scorneth the horse and its
rider, the hawk that stretched her wings towards
the south like our peregrine, the wander
falke”—the eagle that makes her nest on high
yet “is with the slain on the earth beneath.”
And this great observer says, “Ask now the
beasts and they shall teach thee, and the fowls
and they shall tell thee, or speak to the earth
and it shall teach thee, and the fishes of the
sea shall declare unto thee.”

THE WOOD ANT (Formica rufa).

(a) Male; (b) female; (c) worker.

The lessons to be learned from the ant are,
of course, diligence and a careful or prudent
forethought for the future. Solomon says
that the ant “has no guide, overseer, or ruler,”
yet she provides, having gathered in during the
summer and the harvest time. How many of us
there are who seem to need tutors and governors
to urge us on through the duties of life, not only
in childhood, but far on into man and womanhood.
Compulsory pressure from without alone
rouses some of us to action. Man thinks himself
the lord of creation, and is yet far outdone by a
weak insect, not only in energy and persistent
work, but often positively in intelligence.

Perhaps you have, many of you, read of the
so-called warrior ants, the Termites bellicosi
of the more tropical regions. They do not
belong to the same order of insects as our own
ants, and we are happily not subjected to the
havoc which their building and devouring
works. Two species of termites have, however,
got established in France, notably in Rochefort,
La Rochelle, and Aix, and there they have
undermined and utterly ruined a number of
houses. In one town they gnawed away the
supports of a dining-room before their ravages
were detected, and the floor gave way during
a party, the host and his guests suddenly falling
through together.

{38}

Artillery charged with grapeshot has been
employed to destroy great fortresses that these
ants have made in a tropical country. In
South Africa the termites work enormous
havoc. They live in a social republic of their
own. Some of them, the males, have wings;
the workmen, the soldiers, and the queens however
have none. The workmen construct their
buildings, the soldiers defend the colony and
keep order, and the females, or queens, are
worshipped by all the others. These become
in point of fact mere egg-laying machines,
which have at last to remain tied to one spot.

Twenty feet high their nesting-homes often
are, and pyramidal in shape. Wild cattle can
climb upon them with impunity without crushing
them, the walls are so solid. A dozen
men can find shelter in some of their chambers,
and native hunters do often lie in wait inside
them when out after wild animals. They construct
galleries also which are as wide as the
bore of a large cannon, and which run three
and four feet underground. The nests are said
to be five hundred times as high as the ant’s
body, and it has been estimated that if we
built our houses as high, proportionately, they
would be four or five times as high as the
pyramids of Egypt, on which we look with
such wonder and awe.

In speaking of the havoc some ants make,
let us also remember some good service rendered.
In the West Indies there is a red
cockroach which is four times as large as the
English one. It smells horridly, and scents
everything that it touches, is far more destructive
than the ant, and quite omnivorous.
Now, although one cockroach in bulk outweighs
two hundred ants, the latter little
creatures kill and devour innumerable cockroaches.
Whenever an ant comes upon a
cockroach that is at rest, eating, or in its
hole, suddenly myriads appear, swarm round
it, as if by magic, surround it completely, and
then, with one consent, rush all over it, and as
it is dragged away, you see only a mass of ants
moving along. All the time they carry they are
busily devouring it, until only its shell is left.

We read also that in forests in Switzerland
and Sweden the ants form lofty hillocks which
serve as a compass to travellers who have
lost their way by night or in a fog. The
nests being always made from east to west,
their peak is at the east end, which is steep,
the ridge sloping, however, gently down to the
nest. So the wanderer can tell from these ant-hills
in which direction he ought to go.

Tamerlane, the great Tartar prince, learned
a helpful lesson from an ant once, when he
had taken refuge from the pursuing enemy in
a ruined building. Having to stay there for
hours, at the end of his resources, ready to
give way to despair, his attention was attracted
by an ant which was carrying something
larger than itself up a high wall. Noticing
that it often let its burden drop, he began to
count the number of times that it began the
ascent again, and he found that sixty-nine
times it failed, its burden falling to the
ground. The seventieth time was a success.
“This sight,” he said, “gave me courage at
the moment, and I have never forgotten the
lesson it taught me.”

Our own ants afford a marvellous study for
those who can and will give a little time to—as
Solomon says—the considering of their
ways. Ants are said to stand higher than
any other insects in intelligence—so-called
instinct. And insects in general have more of
this faculty developed in them than have any
other creatures. They are watchful, unwearying
nurses; they take the eggs out on fine
warm days so as to warm and strengthen the
coming ants, and they will wait, to be cut
in bits, rather than forsake their charge.
When the eggs are hatched, the nurses clean
and brush their young, and even shampoo the
thin skin which cover their limbs, so that they
can go free. Each grown ant knows its own
business and can, when necessary, fight its
own battles, and yet there is always a community;
they have all things in common and
work for the general good. They are enduring,
persevering, faithful in friendships, and most
industrious. One writer has said, in describing
an ant-hill, that whilst there was a twittering
of birds, and a buzz and hum of insect life
around, the ants were all silent, only “the
sort of low hiss which arose from the collected
workers, resembled the noise of a London
street more than any form of speech.”

Their power of self-sacrifice is a marvellous
fact. A man once saw a line of ants, on travel,
trying to pass a little rapid stream. They
hooked themselves on to each other so as to
form a chain which was carried in a slanting
direction by the current to the opposite shore.
Many of this chain were drowned, dropping
off in the forming process; those in front were
often baffled and overwhelmed in the rushing
current. At last the bridge was completed
and the main body of the army of ants marched
across the stream in safety upon the massed
bodies of their self-sacrificing companions.

Milton has written of “the parsimonious
emmet, provident of the future….” “In
small room, large heart enclosed.” A writer
has stated that a son of Mr. Darwin dissected
the head and brain of an ant, which latter the
great scientist declared to be “one of the most
marvellous atoms of matter in the world,”
more marvellous even than the brain of man.
Speaking of the brain of ants, Sir John
Lubbock says, “The head bears the principal
organs of sense, and contains the brain, as the
anterior portion of the nervous system may
fairly be called.”

Forethought is at the root of all thrift, and
thrift underlies all civilisation as well as
personal well-being. We seem at times,
some of us, rather to despise a saving disposition,
as if this necessarily implied meanness in
its subject. Yet the greatest benefactors of
our race have been nearly all great savers at
some period of their lives. And there is little
true generosity in the soul of the woman who
spends all she gets, even if her means go largely
to others, if, through failing to lay by something
for a rainy day, during the winter of life she
is thrown on the charity of her fellows for her
support. As someone says, nothing should be
left at loose ends. It is only the few who
become rich through large undertakings, the
majority of mankind prosper by means of carefulness
and the practice of the details of thrift.
“Thrift is the best means of thriving.”

Let us end this little study by reminding
ourselves of that thoughtful dictum of Ruskin’s,
“Economy, whether public or private, means
the wise management of labour … first
applying your labour rationally; secondly,
preserving its produce carefully; lastly, distributing
its produce seasonably.”

(To be continued.)

ABOUT PEGGY SAVILLE.

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

CHAPTER II.

The school-room
was a
long, bare
apartment
running
along one
side of the
house, and
boasting
three tall
windows,
through
which the
sun poured in
on a shabby
carpet and ink-stained tables. Everything
looked well worn and, to a certain
extent, dilapidated, yet there was
an air of cheerful comfort about the
whole which is not often found in rooms
of the kind. Mrs. Asplin revelled in
beautiful colours, and would tolerate no
drab and saffron papers in her house;
so the walls were covered with a rich
soft blue; the cushions on the wicker
chairs rang the changes from rose to
yellow. A brilliant Japanese screen
stood in one corner, and a wire stand
before the open grate held a number of
flowering plants. A young fellow of
seventeen or eighteen was seated at one
end of the table employed in arranging
a selection of foreign stamps. This
was Maxwell, the Vicar’s eldest surviving
son, who was to go up to Oxford at
the beginning of the year, and was at
present reading under his father’s supervision.
His sister Mellicent, was
perched on the table itself, watching his
movements, and vouchsafing scraps of
advice. Her suggestions were received
with sniffs of scornful superiority, but
Mellicent prattled on unperturbed, being
a plump, placid person, with flaxen hair,
blue eyes, and somewhat obtuse sensibilities.
The elder girl was sitting
reading by the window, leaning her head
on her hand, and showing a long, thin
face, comically like her father’s, with
the same deep, straight lines running
down her cheeks. She was neither so
pretty nor so even-tempered as her
sister, but she had twice the character,
and was a young person who made her
individuality felt in the house, while
Maxwell was the beauty of the family,
with his mother’s crisp, dark locks,
grey eyes, and rich brunette colouring.

These three young people were the
Vicar’s only surviving children, but there
were two more occupants of the room,
the two lads who were being coached to
enter the University at the same time as
his own son. Number one was a fair,
dandified-looking youth, who sat astride
a cane deck chair, with his trousers
hitched up so as to display long, narrow
feet, shod in scarlet silk socks and
patent leather slippers. He had fair
hair, curling over his forehead; large,
bold, blue eyes, an aquiline nose, and
an air of being very well satisfied with
the world in general and himself in{39}
particular. This was Oswald Elliston,
the son of a country squire, who had
heard of the successes of Mr. Asplin’s
pupils, and was storing up disappointment
for himself in expecting similar
exploits from his own handsome, but
by no means over-brilliant son. The
second pupil had a small microscope in
his hand, and was pouring over a collection
of “specimens,” with his
shoulders hitched up to his ears, in a
position the reverse of elegant. Every
now and then he would bend his head
to write down a few notes on the paper
beside him, showing a square-chinned
face, with heavy eyebrows and strong,
roughly-marked features. His clothes
were well-worn, his cuffs invisible, and
his hair ruffled into wild confusion by
the unconscious rubbings of his hands,
and this was the Honourable Robert
Darcy, third son of Lord Darcy, a
member of the Cabinet, and a politician
of world-wide fame.

The servants at the vicarage were
fond of remarking, apropos of the
Honourable Robert, that he “didn’t
look it,” which remark would have been
a subject of sincere gratification to the
lad himself had it been overheard, for
there was no surer way of annoying him
than by referring to his position, or giving
him the prefix to which he was entitled.

The young folks looked up inquiringly
as Mr. and Mrs. Asplin entered the
room, for the hour after tea was set
apart for recreation, and the elders were
usually only too glad to remain in their
own quiet little sanctum. Oswald, the
gallant, sprang to his feet and brought
forward a chair for Mrs. Asplin, but she
waved him aside, and broke impetuously
into words.

“Children! we have news for you.
You are going to have a new companion.
Father has had a letter this afternoon
about another pupil——”

Mellicent yawned, and Esther looked
calmly uninterested, but the three lads
were full of interest. Their faces
turned towards the Vicar with expressions
of eager curiosity.

“A new fellow! This term! From
what school, sir?”

“A ladies’ boarding-school at
Brighton!” Mrs. Asplin spoke rapidly,
so as to be beforehand with her husband,
and her eyes danced with mischievous
enjoyment as she saw the
dismay depicted on the three watching
faces. A ladies’ school! Maxwell,
Oswald, and Robert had a vision of a
pampered pet in curls, and round jacket,
and their backs stiffened in horrified
indignation at the idea that grown men
of seventeen and eighteen should be expected
to associate with a “kid” from
a ladies’ school!

The Vicar could not restrain a smile,
but he hastened to correct the mistake.
“It’s not a ‘fellow’ at all, this time.
It’s a girl! We have had a letter from
Arthur Saville’s mother asking us to
look after her daughter while she is in
India. She will come to us very soon
and stay, I suppose, for three or four
years, sharing your lessons, my dears,
and studying with you——”

“A girl! Good gracious! Where
will she sleep?” cried Mellicent, with
characteristic, matter-of-fact curiosity,
while Esther chimed in with further
eager inquiries.

“What is her name? How old is she?
What is she like? When will she come?
Why is she leaving school?”

“Not very happy. Peggy. In the
little box room over the study. About
fifteen, I believe. Haven’t the least
idea. In a few weeks from now,” said
Mrs. Asplin, answering all the questions
at once in her impulsive fashion,
while she walked round the table,
stroked Maxwell’s dark curls, bent an
interested glance at Robert’s collection,
and laid a hand on Esther’s back
to straighten bowed shoulders. “She is
Arthur’s sister, so she is sure to be nice,
and both her parents will be in India, so
you must all be kind to the poor little
soul, and give her a hearty welcome.”

Silence! Nobody had a word to say
in response to this remark, but the eyes
of the young people met furtively across
the table, and Mr. Asplin felt that they
were only waiting until their seniors
should withdraw, before bursting into
eager conversation.

“Better leave them to have it out by
themselves,” he whispered significantly
to his wife, then added aloud, “Well,
we won’t interrupt you any longer.
Don’t turn the play-hour into work,
Rob! You will study all the better for
a little relaxation. You have proved
the truth of that axiom, Oswald—eh?”
and he went laughing out of the room,
while Oswald held the door open for his
wife, smiling assent in his lazy fashion.

“Another girl!” he exclaimed, as he
reseated himself on his chair, and
looked with satisfaction at his well-shod
feet. “This is an unexpected blow!
A sister of the redoubtable Saville!
From all I have heard of him I should
imagine a female edition would be
rather a terror in a quiet household. I
never saw Saville; what sort of a fellow
was he to look at, don’t you know?”

Millicent reflected.

“He had a nose,” she said solemnly.
Then, as the others burst into hilarious
laughter, “Oh, it’s no use shrieking at
me; I mean what I say,” she insisted.
“A big nose—like Wellington’s. When
people are very clever they always
have big noses. I imagine Peggy
small, with a little, thin face, because
she was born in India, and lived there
until she was six years old, and a great
big nose in the middle.”

“Sounds appetising,” said Maxwell
shortly. “I don’t! I imagine Peggy
like her mother, with blue eyes and
brown hair. Mrs. Saville is awfully
pretty. I have seen her often, and if
her daughter is like her——”

“I don’t care in the least how she
looks,” said Esther, severely. “It’s
her character that matters. Indian
children are generally spoiled, and if
she has been to a boarding-school she
may give herself airs. Then we shall
quarrel. I am not going to be patronised
by a girl of fourteen. I expect she will
be Mellicent’s friend, not mine.”

“I wonder what sums she is in,” said
Mellicent, dreamily. “Rob! what do
you think about it? Are you glad or
sorry? You haven’t said anything yet.”

Robert raised his eyes from his microscope,
and looked her up and down very
much as a big Newfoundland dog looks
at the terrier which disturbs its slumber.

“It’s nothing to me,” he said loftily.
“She may come if she likes.” Then,
with sudden recollection, “Does she
learn the violin? Because we have one
girl in this house who is learning the
violin, and life won’t be worth living if
there is a second.”

He tucked his big note-book under his
chin as he spoke, and began sawing
across it with a pencil, wagging his
head and rolling his eyes in imitation of
Mellicent’s own manner of practising,
and producing at the same time such
long-drawn, cat-like wails from between
his closed lips as made the listeners
shriek with laughter. Mellicent, however,
felt bound to expostulate.

“It’s not the tune at all,” she said
loudly. “Not like any of my pieces;
and if I do roll my eyes, I don’t tumble
up my hair and pull faces at the ceiling,
as some people do, and I know who
they are, but I am too polite to say so.
I hope Peggy will be my friend, because
then there will be two of us, and you
won’t dare to tease me any more. When
Arthur was here, a boy pulled my hair,
and he carried him upstairs and held his
head underneath the shower-bath.”

“I’ll pull it again, and see if Peggy
will do the same,” said Rob pleasantly;
and poor Mellicent stared from one
smiling face to another, conscious that
she was being laughed at, but unable to
see the point of the joke.

“When Peggy comes,” she said, in
an injured tone, “I hope she will be
sympathetic. I’m the youngest, and I
think you ought all to do what I want,
instead of which you make fun, and
laugh among yourselves, and send
me all the messages. For instance,
when Max wanted his stamps brought
down——”

Maxwell passed his big hand over her
hair and face, and reversing the direction,
rubbed up the point of the little
snub nose.

“Never mind, chubby, your day is
over! We will make Peggy the message-boy
now. Peggy will be a nice,
meek little girl, who will like to run
messages for her betters. She shall be
my fag, and attend to me. I’ll give her
my stamps to sort.”

“I rather thought of having her for
fag myself; we can’t admit a girl to
our study unless she makes herself useful,”
said Oswald languidly; whereupon
Rob banged the note-book on the table
with clanging decision.

“Peggy belongs to me,” he announced
firmly. “It’s no use you two fellows
quarrelling. That matter is settled once
for all. Peggy will be my fag; I’ve
barleyed her for myself, and you have
nothing to say in the matter.”

But Esther tossed her head with an
air of superior wisdom.

“Wait till she comes,” she said
sagely. “If Peggy is anything like
her brother, you may spare yourself the
trouble of planning as to what she must
or must not do. It is waste of time.
Peggy will be mistress over us all.”

(To be continued.)

HAWKWEED.

By LIZZIE DEAS.

IN THE TWILIGHT SIDE BY SIDE.

Third Series.

By RUTH LAMB.

PART I.

THE PRECIOUSNESS OF TIME.

Once more you, my dear girl friends, and I
meet to hold pleasant converse with each
other.

I feel that something specially pleasant
would be missing from my own life were our
twilight talks to cease. It is with a sense
alike of happiness and thankfulness that I
look forward to your companionship for yet
another year. God grant that, as in the past,
so in the future, we may be very helpful to
each other in crossing the rough places that
have to be encountered on the path of life.

I feel that a song of thanksgiving should
go up from us all for mercies already bestowed,
and an earnest united prayer to God for an
ever-increasing blessing upon our meetings.

One thought must come to us all this
evening. Two years have passed since we
first came together, hence we feel that so
much of our lives has gone, and we have two
years less in which to work for God.

It will be good for each of us to ask ourselves,
“What have I done for Him during
the time? What progress have I made in
my spiritual life? Have I grown, as Jesus
grew, ‘in favour with God and man’ during
these years?”

Conscience will answer and can tell only
the truth.

Such communings with your own hearts
are, however, for the quiet of your own
chamber, when you have shut out the world
and are alone with God. Still, it may be
well for us all to have a talk about the
preciousness of some things of which we are
too apt to take little account.

I wonder if you and I are in the habit of
frittering away two invaluable gifts for which
we have to give a strict account to our Father
in heaven. These are, time and opportunity.

I think I hear you ask, “What do you
mean by frittering? The dictionary tells us
that ‘to fritter’ is to diminish or pare off.”

I acknowledge that here we do not get
quite the full meaning of the word “fritter”
as we often use it in conversation. We rather
understand by it the diminution of something
by almost imperceptible degrees, of which no
notice need be taken, because they are so
small, and through the waste of which little
loss is sustained by ourselves or others.

There are things in this world which are of
small value in certain places, because they are
so abundant; yet, in another neighbourhood,
their scarcity makes them of vital importance.
For instance, if we have unfailing springs of
pure water to draw upon, and all our neighbours
are equally well supplied, what matters
it if the pail overflows, or the tap is left
running? But in another place where water
is scarce, the waste of it would be sinful and
cruel, especially if we were well supplied and
our neighbours compelled to economise every
drop.

The child on the sea-shore flings the sand{42}
about with reckless hands, gathers shells and
leaves them behind, or throws pebbles into the
water, caring nothing what becomes of them.

There is no need for care in such cases.
The sea gathers the shells and pebbles and
flings them back in orderly ridges on the
shore. The embankments, laboriously raised
by many small hands, and the trenches dug
around them, are quickly equalised again.
The mighty ocean sweeps all before it. Wave
follows wave, and the grains of sand are
hurried onward. Castles are levelled, trenches
filled, and the retreating waters leave the
beach smooth again and ready for the morrow’s
toilers.

The last murmur of the waters seems to
say, “You can fritter away nothing over
which we flow. We gather your scattered
fragments together, and not one grain is
finally lost.”

You and I, dear girl companions, have
certain great trusts committed to us, which
are neither visible nor tangible. We hold
them in common with our neighbours, though
they are not given to all in the same proportion.
They are made up of littles, and
yet, if we fritter them away, they are gone
past recovery. We can no more regain the
smallest portion than we can bring back the
rain-drops which have fallen into the stream
and are helping to hurry it seaward, or collect
the grains of dust which the wind has whirled
across the plain.

Time is one of these all-important trusts.
Perhaps I should say the most important, for
time and our natural life virtually mean the
same thing. Do they not begin and end
together, so far as we are concerned? Our
first breath ushers us into the realm of time,
and with our last we close our eyes on it for
ever.

Does it not seem strange that any human
being can be found who is careless about or
forgetful of the preciousness of time? People
hesitate to part with a penny unless they can
be sure of receiving something of equal value
in exchange. Yet the same persons think
nothing of frittering away, without return,
that which the wealth of the whole world
cannot buy back for them.

It seems natural for the very young to
think lightly of the flight of time. The world—in
other words, time and life—is all before
them. A day flies so quickly; an hour is
a mere nothing. As to the minutes and
moments! What are they more than the
drops that make up the ocean, or the grains
of sand that form its boundary wall? Who
can exhaust these?

Time, to the child, is an inexhaustible ocean
into which he cannot dip too freely. What
if the tide recedes? It is sure to flow again,
and is, indeed, ever flowing.

You and I have surely learned lessons as to
the value of time to which the child would
not care to listen even. Let us think together
of the value of moments. They follow each
other, and are swallowed in the ocean of
eternity, but there is no reflux. Not one
comes a second time. If an hour has been
frittered away and we can show nothing for
it, all that remains for us is to make the best
possible use of its successors.

Very lately I heard a great preacher say,
“We should be misers in the use of time and
opportunity.” Do we not value too highly
what we call the riches of this world? We
are sparing of our gold, or our silver—even of
our pence—and yet we do not pause to take
account of what is beyond all price.

Have you ever thought, dear girls, that you
are threefold debtors as regards the use you
make of this great trust, time? We are all
debtors, in the first place, to God, and must
account for the use or abuse of time to the
great Giver of it. We are told to “redeem
the time because the days are evil.”

I have in my mind the words of an old
writer and profound student of the Bible who
says about the text I have just quoted,
“Buying up those moments which others
seem to throw away; steadily improving
every present moment.” “Time is that on
which eternity depends. In time you are to
get a preparation for the kingdom of God.”
“Perhaps the apostle means in general,
embrace every opportunity to glorify God,
benefit your own souls, and do good to
men.”

These words carry out the idea I have
suggested as to our threefold debt in relation
to the use of our time. We should be misers
of it, that we may the more fully carry out our
divine Master’s will, follow His example,
obey His commandment to love our neighbour
as ourselves, and, in so doing, promote our
own eternal welfare.

You and I can understand the need for us
to echo the prayer of the Psalmist, “So
teach us to number our days that we may
apply our hearts unto wisdom.”

How much teaching we need! What
heedless and forgetful scholars we are! How
constantly we need to be reminded of the
value of that which we treat so lightly, waste
so often, and lose with so little regret!

All other losses cause us trouble and
generally sorrow. If the child, in hurrying to
spend a halfpenny, loses its one precious coin,
there is eager searching with the help of
companions. Joy follows its recovery, or
bitter tears are shed if it is not found.

The lost purse, or the jewel that has
escaped from its setting, is neither forgotten
nor deemed of slight consequence. It is
sought, advertised for, and, if finally lost, is
remembered with regret; the more so if it has
been the gift of a friend.

The merchant will risk large sums in the
hope of doubling them. If unsuccessful, he
can hardly forgive himself for having thrown
away that which he had. Losses of these
kinds are thought of again and again in after
days, and the face clouds over at the memory
of them.

How few amongst those who have recklessly
wasted moments, hours, and days, pause to
take themselves to task, mourn over an
irretrievable loss, and resolve, by God’s help,
to redeem the time that is left. As regards
the season for making the new beginning,
there is only one word to express the right
one: now. Not a week hence. Not to-morrow.
Not even an hour after the resolution
has been come to; for time is flying always,
and its redemption must begin with the
moment which has revealed to us its infinite
value. Henceforth we must be “misers in the
use of time.”

Time is often unwittingly wasted by thrifty
people for want of due thought and calculation.
How well I remember, in the earlier days of
railway travelling, what anxiety to be in time
for a train was evinced by old-fashioned
people!

I used to stay in a country house which was
several miles from a station, and my kindly
host was so fearful of my missing the train,
that he used to insist on my starting early
enough to spend nearly an hour in waiting
for it.

It was very difficult to turn that waiting
time to any useful account, especially in the
dim light of a wintry morning, for I had to
catch the first train. I smile as I picture the
little bare waiting-room and the scarcely-lighted
fire, by which I sat and shivered and
tried to cherish bright thoughts amidst dull
surroundings.

Those who value their own time lightly are
seldom scrupulous about wasting that of their
neighbour. Have we not all been lectured,
again and again, on the sin of unpunctuality?

I think I hear you ask whether unpunctuality
deserves to be ranked as a sin? Let us consider
the question, then decide for yourselves.

Neither you nor I would like to steal our
neighbour’s purse, or even help ourselves to
a solitary sixpence. But if, by our neglect,
carelessness or wilful selfishness, we rob him
of that on which his income depends, are we
not equally guilty, though the law cannot
reach us for this offence? Time is money to
the toiler in every branch of work, whether
mental or physical, and we have no right to
waste our neighbour’s capital which money
cannot restore to him.

So many people, old as well as young, seem
unable to understand what punctuality means.
Those who allow their own time to slip away
unheeded, cannot see that it matters whether
they are a few minutes too soon or too late
for an appointment. If by some chance—a
rare one—they are too soon, they plume themselves
on this, and are perhaps inclined to be
indignant if they are kept waiting and their
time is wasted.

Dear girls, do think of this! If you make
an appointment try and keep it to the minute.
Be neither before nor after the time fixed, but
by your punctuality redeem your own time
and avoid the sin of wasting what is not your
own.

Indolence is a terrible and stealthy thief
that ought to be battled against, with a
prayerful sense of our own weakness to resist
its encroachments. Indolent people are like
unpunctual ones—very prone to steal the time
which their neighbour values and turns to good
account.

How many busy men and women have had
to work when they ought to have been resting
after a finished task, because an idler has
interrupted it by dropping in at the office
or the home during working hours? The one
object of such visitors is to while away the time
which hangs heavily on their useless hands,
regardless of consequences to those on whom
they intrude, or too selfish to care, so long as
their own end is served.

Unfortunately the sufferers have not always
a remedy. Circumstances may render it unwise
to complain, or politeness restrains them
from doing so, even when they are inwardly
chafing under the infliction. They do not like
to deny themselves to these thieves of time,
for whom perhaps they feel a very real
affection; or it may be they cannot afford
to risk giving offence on account of their
relative positions. Hence they suffer in
silence.

There are hard-working girls as well as
older folk who suffer in like manner, through
other girls who place no value on their own
time and have no qualms of conscience about
wasting that of their neighbours.

Take the lesson to heart, dear ones. Ask
that you may realise the full value of your
own time, and abstain from robbing another
of what she esteems a precious trust from
God.

There are unsuspected ways of wasting time
which those who “use it as misers” are apt
to overlook. The more eager the worker, the
more interested she is in her occupation, the
more likely she is to be guilty of this kind of
waste in these high-pressure days.

I have no doubt there are many of these
too-hard workers amongst you, my dear girl
friends, who grudge the time spent in rest,
who hurry over your meals, who regard
innocent recreation as almost sinful, because
it interrupts your labours and defers the
completion of some task you have set
yourselves.

Believe me, time is never more truly wasted
than it is by those who work too long, without
pausing to refresh the weary mind and body.
Time is saved if, when nature cries aloud for
rest, we put aside the work we love and do
absolutely nothing until we can return to it
with a sense of fitness and freshness.

“Do nothing!” you exclaim. “Why, that
would be the hardest task of all. We may
compel our hands to be idle or our tired limbs
to rest, but thought will still be busy. The
mind cannot be coerced.”

Perhaps not in a sense, but if we wish it, we
can turn our thoughts into a restful channel.
What can be more restful and delightful than
to sit with closed eyes and folded hands whilst
we think over God’s gracious dealings with us
and make a mental catalogue of a single day’s
blessings? What can so renew our strength
to work, as a little season spent in thanking
God for the power to labour? What will be
more helpful to us than a quiet time with
Him whilst the world, its cares and its
business are shut out, and we, alone with our
Father, ask for wisdom to use without abusing
our time and all the powers He has entrusted
to us?

Cultivate the habit of leaving off work when
nature craves for rest, and you will find it,
both for soul and body, by fixing your minds
on God.

You need not utter either prayer or thanksgiving,
but your thoughts may overflow with
both, and He who can read them will accept
your heartfelt thanks and answer your unuttered
prayers by giving you a sweet sense of peace
and renewed power to work for Him.

Oh, it is lovely just to get away from the
world and its bustle and toil for a little while
and spend it in thinking of the goodness and
love of God in Christ Jesus! Our work may
well wait in the meantime.

{43}

I was with some dear friends who were
sight-seeing in town, and who, accustomed to
the quiet of a country place, were almost
bewildered with the din of the great city.
We were near St. Paul’s, and how glad we
all were to enter the great church and to rest
there in a quiet corner, unconscious of all
the noise and traffic which still went on
around it.

My friends’ stay in town was to be a short
one, and they were all eager to see as many
of its sights as possible. Did they grudge the
little time spent in peaceful communion with
God, or deem it wasted when there was so
much to attract them in the great city? Ah, no!

Often afterwards, when other incidents had
faded from their memories, they spoke of its
sweet restfulness, and thanked God for the
open door of that grand cathedral, which
offered to weary wayfarers a chance of
refreshment for soul and body.

Dear ones, learn a lesson from this little
incident. Do not deem the time lost which
is taken from the work you love for the rest
you need. You will redeem it in the best
way if you turn your thoughts from earth to
heaven, from the world around you to its great
Creator.

Unfortunately those who under-value time
are more numerous than those who realise its
preciousness. We often hear the expression,
“I am only giving my time.” As though
money and goods were of infinitely greater
worth. It is when health fails and life is
drawing near its close that the preciousness
of every moment is understood. I beg of you
to remember now, that the right use of your
time is your evidence to those around you of
your union with Christ.

Let us finish our talk this evening by
repeating two or three reasons why we should
be misers in the use of time. Time and life
mean the same thing to us all. Time is a
debt we owe to God. All our work must be
done in time. Eternity depends on the use
we make of time. Time comes only once, and
the present is all we can call ours.

Let us ask God to impress these great
truths on our minds and to give us the will
and the power to use time well.

(To be continued.)

QUEENS AS NEEDLEWOMEN.

CHAPTER I.

John Taylor.

Needlework has been a favourite method of
employing time, both in courts and cottages,
from very early days; and one is not surprised
at this, seeing that it is not only necessary for
the comfort of daily life, but a very attractive
occupation, one capable of great variety and
of being practised without fatigue.

The history of needlework was almost unknown
until Miss Lambert and the Countess
of Wilton devoted their time and talents to
the collection and classification of facts concerning
it.

The first piece of needlework we know of is
that of our first parents in the Garden of
Eden, who, with a thorn, probably, for a
needle, “sewed fig-leaves together to make
themselves aprons.”[1]

Milton refers to it thus:—

From all records of early ages we learn that
the women used first a thorn and then a fish-bone
sharpened at one end as a needle, to sew
the skins of animals or other material together.
Most of our queens have recognised
the advantages of being good needlewomen,
and several have left behind them beautiful
specimens of work, so that we have an almost
unbroken record of their achievements with
the needle.

The inducements to royal ladies to become
proficient in the art of needlework have been
many and varied; for example, some have
been influenced by the desire to set a good
example to their subjects; others in order to
lighten the weariness of solitary hours; others
that they might record the deeds of valour and
daring performed by their husbands; some
because they were thrown on their own resources
through lack of outdoor amusements
and the absence of good roads; others for real
love of it; while other few practised it from
pious motives that they might contribute to
the beauty of churches. Indeed, church,
court, camp and state have all more or less
influenced royal ladies to become good needlewomen.

Nothing creates a stronger bond of union
between classes than like tastes and occupations,
and it holds good specially between
sovereigns and peoples. To know that probably
the Queen and princesses of the royal
house are occupied in the same way as the
poorest cottager, either in sewing a seam,
making a dress, trimming a bonnet, or embroidering
a tray-cloth, creates a kindly feeling
between one and the other, and bridges over
the distance between them.

I remember when our Princess of Wales
came over to dwell among us, it was stated
that she begged to retrim the Queen’s bonnets
and make them pretty and fashionable, as
she had always trimmed her own and her
mother’s. When some of the London poor
heard it they were delighted, and said, “Bless
her now; do you really think a laidy sich as
her would a’ done it?”

Nothing that has been told of Princess
Henry of Battenberg has brought her so near
to the hearts of the poor as the piece of news
that “when she is in sorrow or perplexity she
is greatly soothed by sitting down and sewing
a long seam.” It is something they can
understand and appreciate, for it is most likely
the very thing they themselves would do in like
circumstances.

It has been of no slight benefit to us women
and girls that our queens and princesses should
have been good needlewomen, for we are, to
a great extent, influenced by the daily life of
those in high places; indeed, the influence of
queens upon their women subjects has always
been noticeable; their personal and private character,
their passions and prejudices, are always
more or less reflected in the women of the
kingdom.

Proficiency in the art of needlework is by
no means confined to the great ladies of our
nation, for we hear that the princesses in the
Court of Charlemagne were splendid needlewomen,
and the work of Bertha, wife of
Rudolph the Second of Burgundy, has a
world-wide fame. She is represented on
seals and monuments of her time as sitting on
the throne spinning, and even when out
riding continuing her work. In the old town
of Payerne Canton de Freiburg, a residence
of the kings of Burgundy, her bones, together
with those of her husband and son, Conrad,
were discovered in 1817 below the tower of
the old church which she herself had built,
and they were buried in the parish church,
where the Queen’s saddle is shown with a
hole for her distaff. To this day the expression
is used, as a regretful allusion to the good
old times, “ce n’est pas le temps où Berthe
filait.”

Gisela, also, the wife of St. Stephen, king of
Hungary, was a splendid needlewoman, and
organised embroidery work-rooms near her
palace.

The mother of Charles the Bold and
Adelaide the Consort of Hugh Capet were
also celebrated needlewomen.

Even nations far removed from civilisation
have not been ignorant of needlework, as the
discovery of gold needles, etc., in the Scandinavian
tumuli testify.

To come back to our own country, the palm
is certainly accorded to the Anglo-Saxon
ladies for excellence in this womanly accomplishment.
We have proof that those of rank
and royal blood were skilled not only in the
use of the needle for necessary purposes but
also in elegant and intricate embroidery.

The fleece which was brought home by the
Anglo-Saxon men in summer was spun into
clothing by the female part of each family
during the winter.

Alfred the Great in his will calls the women-part
of his family the spindle side, and it was
understood by our forefathers that no young
woman was fit to be a wife till she had spun
for herself a set of body, table and bed linen;
this is why the maiden was called a spinner or
spinster, and the married woman a wife or one
who has been a spinner (from Anglo-Saxon
wif, the verb being wyfan or wifan, to weave).
Perhaps you have noticed that the armorial
bearings of women are not painted on a shield
like those of men but on a spindle called a
lozenge. The spindle half is a Saxon term
for the female line, while the spear half is the
male side.

Among the Anglo-Saxon ladies Adelfleda
and her three sisters, daughters of Edward the
Elder, stand out as famous for their skill in all
kinds of needlework, and are known in history
as cunning workers.

William of Malmesbury says, “their father
caused them in childhood to give their whole
attention to letters and afterwards employed
them in the labour of the distaff[2] and the
needle.”

The same authority says that Edgitha or
Editha, the Queen of Edward the Confessor,
was “perfect mistress of her needle,” while
the Saxon historian, Ingulphus, a scholar at
Westminster Monastery, near to Edgitha’s
palace, relates of her that “she was skilful in{44}
the works of the needle, and that with her
own hands she embroidered the garments of
her royal husband.”

As a proof of the high value set on good
needlework the Anglo-Saxon Gudric gave
Alcina a piece of land on condition that she
instructed his daughters in embroidery and
needlework.

It was the custom in feudal times for high
families to send their daughters to the castles
of their lords there to be taught spinning,
weaving and needlework under the eye of the
lady chatelaine.

It was also a practice for great ladies and
their attendants to pass their mornings at
needlework, singing and relating stories
meanwhile.

It seems that William the Conqueror on
his first appearance in public after the Battle
of Hastings wore a richly worked cloak of
Anglo-Saxon embroidery. It may have been
this fact which roused his wife Matilda to
produce a piece of work which was to live for
long ages as a specimen of her industry and
skill with the needle. She was a jealous
woman and might not have been pleased at
other hands than her own working her husband’s
apparel. It is difficult to understand
the working of a woman’s mind.

There is no doubt that the work she left
behind, and which is still preserved in the
Cathedral of Bayeux, is perfectly marvellous,
or as Dibdin says “it is an exceedingly curious
document.”

It is a piece of canvas or coarse linen
cloth two hundred and twenty-seven feet long
and twenty inches wide; on it she has wrought
with woollen thread of eight different colours
a picture of her husband’s exploits, from
Harold’s first landing in Normandy to his fall
at Hastings.

It is a most important record of the history
of the period, because the events, costumes,
and warlike instruments are faithfully portrayed.

The canvas contains many hundreds of
men, horses, trees, houses, castles, ships and
churches, with names and descriptions over
them to make the story clear; strangely
enough there are only three women in the
whole picture. Taken as a whole it affords a
curious insight into the manners and customs
of the Norman Period.

The figures and designs for tapestry work
were always prepared by some skilful artist
who traced them out in the colours that were
to be used by the worker either in wool or
silk.

Matilda seems to have employed the dwarf
artist Turold to prepare her work and illuminate
the canvas: he was a dependent of Odo,
Bishop of Bayeux. The parts intended to
represent flesh in the picture are left untouched
by the needle.

It is supposed that not only was Matilda
assisted in her great work by the ladies of her
court but by some of the beautiful workers
among the Anglo-Saxon ladies. She was a
woman who would not study the feelings of
those around her, nor would she consider their
sorrow in having by their needle to perpetuate
their sufferings and defeat.

The work which is now in Bayeux is coiled
round a machine like that which lets down
buckets into a well, and a woman is appointed
to unroll it for visitors and explain it.

A full-sized coloured photograph of it may
be seen in the South Kensington Museum,
and the Society of Antiquaries have engraved
the whole of the Bayeux tapestry and have
coloured it like the original.

We are told in the life of St. Dunstan that
he was originally in an obscure station of life,
and crept into notice by means of his taste
and skill in delineating sacerdotal vestments
and tapestry work for great ladies. He must
have had a great love of such work as well as
genius, for even when he came to high estate
he did not disdain making sketches for queens
to work from.

We now pass on to Adelicia of Louvaine,
the queen of Henry I., who was distinguished
for her great beauty and talents, but especially
for her proficiency in feminine accomplishments.

A standard which she embroidered in silk
and gold for her father when he was engaged
in recovering his patrimony was celebrated
throughout Europe for the exquisite taste and
skill displayed in its design and execution.
For centuries it was carried in procession on
Rogation days through the streets of the city
of Liège, for it had been captured by the
bishop of that town in 1129.

(To be continued.)

WHERE SWALLOWS BUILD.

By SARAH DOUDNEY.

CHAPTER I.

“It is my last day in London,” said Alice
Harper to herself.

The “last day” was a Sunday at the end
of July, and Alice’s box was packed, and
ready for travelling. She had attended
service that morning in a beautiful church,
where she had often gained strength and
comfort in her weariness; and the music was
still echoing in her ears when she turned into
Bruton Street. Wherever she went, she
knew that she should hear that music still.

The smart people were all hurrying out of
town as fast as they could go. But Miss de
Vigny was a very dignified little lady who
never cared to hurry herself in the least. She
always went away on the first of August, and
could not be moved sooner or later. So that
when Alice went into her house, she found
her friend sitting in her old chair near the
window with an open book on her lap.

Miss de Vigny had always liked Alice
Harper. She had watched the girl through
the season that preceded the sudden change
in her lot, and had thought her distinctly
genuine and courageous. She did not guess
how soon that quality of courage would be
called into play; but when the crash came,
she was not surprised that Alice bore up
bravely under the blow.

One morning the daily papers announced
the suicide of Mr. Harper, the well-known
promoter of companies. His daughter, left
quite alone in the world, gathered together
her few possessions, and quietly vanished from
the eyes of society. Only two or three
persons knew what had become of her, or
what she was doing, and Miss de Vigny was
one of them.

She had found out that Alice was going to
be a dressmaker, and take care of herself in
future in her own way. Miss de Vigny met
her one day in a side street in the West-end,
dressed in plain black, and carrying a brown-paper
parcel. She did not avoid the little
maiden-lady as she would have avoided some
of her former friends. She stopped and
accepted the hand that was held out so
readily.

“I shall be eighteen months in learning my
business,” she said. “After that I must
work six months longer as ‘an improver.’
And when I have thoroughly mastered the
art, or trade, or anything that you like to call
it, I mean to go away, and set up in the
country.”

“Quite in the country?” Miss de Vigny
asked.

“Quite in the country,” Alice replied. “I
shall learn what London can teach me, and
leave it with a glad heart. Mind, I am sure
that I could not learn properly anywhere else.
But I shall rejoice when I am free to go.”

“When the time comes, perhaps I can
help you,” Mary de Vigny said. “Meanwhile,
let me see you sometimes. Come and
spend next Sunday with me in Bruton
Street.”

“But I do not want to meet people,” said
Alice, flushing deeply.

“My dear, I do not want you to meet
people. It will do me good to have you all
to myself. I have never been a society
woman; the smart people don’t find me at
all amusing, I believe. I am dowdy, and I
do not know any good stories. Pray come.”

So Alice went. Miss de Vigny was rather
dowdy, and she did not know any good
stories; but she knew other things that are
better worth knowing. She knew how to
guide a sad soul into the true way of peace.
She was neither a rich woman, nor a smart
woman; but she lived a life worthy of her
faith, and was a light to direct others to the
road that led to rest.

From Mary de Vigny’s house, Alice went
to Mary de Vigny’s church close by. And
so the two toilsome years in London were
sweetened and cheered; and if her outer
life was hard and painful, her inner life
became peaceful and fair. The time of
release had come at last, and it was Mary
who had found her a new home in the
country.

Miss de Vigny’s room was cooler than most
rooms in London, and when you went in you
felt you had entered into an atmosphere of
contentment. There were always flowers
here; to-day Alice’s eyes rested gratefully
on a big bunch of mignonette and some
graceful feathery grasses. Mary greeted her
with genuine affection, and pointed to the
nosegay.

“Only think what it will be,” said she, “to
have your fill of flowers!”

“Oh, I have been trying to realise the
delight in store for me!” Alice cried. “My
poor father never cared for the country in the
very least. He always bustled me about to
fashionable watering-places in the summer.
If my mother had lived, life would have been
different for him and for me.”

She sighed; but Mary spoke cheerfully.

“We must let all the ‘ifs’ alone, Alice,”
she said. “It is better to leave ‘ifs’ and
‘might-have-beens’ lying by the wayside if
we want to get on upon our journey. I
know how prone we are to stop, and pick up
useless regrets; it has been an old folly of
my own.”

They had tea together, with the mignonette
on the table between them. Miss de Vigny
said it was like a festival, but she thought
Alice looking tired and worn.

“I don’t think you could have toiled on{45}
much longer,” she remarked. “It has been a
weary time, my child.”

“You have brightened it,” said Alice
gratefully. “Everybody else has forgotten
me, and you know I wished to be forgotten.”

“Here and there one remembers you,” said
Mary, looking at her with observant eyes.
“Only yesterday, in this very street, I met
someone who asked what had become of
you.”

“I hope you did not tell!” Alice cried.

“I told very little. I merely said that you
were living, and working for yourself. It was
Mr. Cardigan who asked for you.”

Alice’s mouth took a scornful curve.

“I do not like him,” said she. “I detest
rich men.”

Miss de Vigny shook her head in reproof.

“That is rather a hard saying, my dear.
For my own part, I think well of Robert
Cardigan. He is natural—refreshingly natural,
and I fancy he wants to know what to do with
his money. After all, that money came to
him in an honest way from a relation who died
abroad; I do not see why it should not wear
well.”

“Perhaps I am prejudiced,” said Alice
colouring. “I have not liked what I have
seen of rich men. Most of them always
wanted to be richer still, and hovered round
my father to be instructed in investments.
Mr. Cardigan only came into his fortune just
before the blow fell upon me. But I thought
he was like all the rest.”

Miss de Vigny dropped the subject. She
was not a woman of many words, and generally
knew when to hold her peace.

Alice walked to church with her a little
later, looking very stately and erect beside her
small companion. People had always regarded
Alice Harper as a proud girl; and there was
something in her bearing which certainly suggested
pride. Plain clothes only accentuated
her air of distinction. And this evening,
although she was very pale, and there were
dark shadows beneath her grey eyes, she was
more beautiful than she had ever been in the
days of prosperity.

Adversity either disfigures or beautifies.
There are certain full-fed, insolently-prosperous
girls who would be enormously improved
by sorrow. Many a plain face has been made
lovely by the chastening of the spirit; and
Miss de Vigny, who did not possess a single
good feature, had a countenance on which, at
the first glance, you could read the sweet
record of inward peace. She had suffered
meekly, and had come out of the strife into
the rest.

Afterwards, when they parted at the door in
Bruton Street, Mary said “good-bye” very
tenderly to her friend. She knew that she
would miss Alice when she came back to town
in the autumn. But above all things she desired
that the girl might have peace after the
weary struggle to learn her business. One
had only to look at Alice to see that she was
a woman who would do what she meant to do.
But these resolute people do not succeed
without paying the cost of their success.

“I know you will be happy at Swallow’s
Nest,” Mary said confidently. “I have often
told you how long Mrs. Bower lived with my
mother, and how good and faithful she was.
Some day I shall run down to the farm and
see you all. You will write soon, dear, will
you not?”

Alice did not find it very easy to answer.
Her grey eyes were full of tears. She looked
earnestly at Miss de Vigny for a moment,
and went her way.

There was something dream-like about the
London streets in the evening light. And
Alice, walking back to the home which had
sheltered her for two years, felt as if she,
herself, were someone who had been living
in a dream.

She thought of the only child of the rich
man, brought up in a luxurious home, but
always pining for the mother who had
been early lost. She saw again those sunny
heights of womanhood which the child’s eyes
had seen afar off. How bright they were
then! Something of the old splendour
lingered about that cloudland still, although
the girl had become a sorrowful, hardworking
woman. She smiled pityingly at the child
who had always dreamed of doing beautiful
things, and making everybody happy when
she grew up! And yet, perhaps the pity was
wasted after all. There are the elements of
true happiness in many an unselfish dream.
We cannot tell how much we have helped
others by the loving desires that we could not
shape into deeds. We do not see what our
good angels are doing, even with the thoughts
of our hearts, when they are sweet and true.

And then came a sudden remembrance of
the men who had come to her father’s house
in Park Lane—men who had shown by their
faces and by their words that they existed
only for self-pleasing. The quiet girl, with
her own aims and ideals, had inwardly despised
them all. Robert Cardigan had been,
perhaps, a little better than the rest. She
could recall certain looks and tones of his that
had seemed real. He had even listened, with
some interest, to those schemes for helping
humanity which she had spoken of, once or
twice, in his hearing. Well, the power that
she had longed for had come to him; but it
was doubtful if he would use it as she would
have done.

The child and the girl had both passed
away; Alice Harper, dressmaker, was walking
through these West End streets to the home
for working women which had been her refuge
for two long years. And Alice Harper,
dressmaker, was going to leave London to-morrow
to live in the country.

She had never seen Mrs. Bower, but she
knew her perfectly by description. Mrs.
Bower was the wife of a farmer; they had
two daughters who wanted to learn dressmaking;
and
there was a good
opening for business
in their
neighbourhood.
Miss de Vigny
had advised
Alice to go to
Swallow’s
Nest.

“If you get
tired of the
country you can
leave it,” she
had said. “But
you have an instinctive
longing
for woods and
fields and fresh
air, and you are
sorely in need of
all these blessings.”

The big house
was generally
quiet on a Sunday
evening. It
was sultry
weather, and all
the windows
were opened
wide. Alice
caught a glimpse
of the new moon
above the house-tops
as she ran
upstairs. It
hung faint and
golden over the
crowded roofs,
in a sky touched with pale crimson, and dim
with mist.

“I shall see it to-morrow above the woods,”
she thought with a sudden gladness.

She took off her hat and coat in her cubicle,
and ran down to supper in her muslin blouse
and tweed skirt. Not a single person in that
full house was acquainted with her real history.
She had never talked of bygone days and
lamented her vanished prosperity. She wore
no jewels; her watch was the sole relic of the
past that could ever be seen. One or two had
remarked that it was a very beautiful watch,
and she had simply said that it was a gift from
someone who was dead.

But in spite of a strong natural reserve she
had made many friends. Living here, a poor
woman among the poor, she had learnt that
one must give love if one cannot give money.

“So you are going to leave us, Miss
Harper,” said a young girl who sat beside her
at supper. “You will be missed for many a day.
There are kindnesses that we never forget.”

“Ah, if only I could have been more
helpful,” Alice sighed.

“You don’t know how much you have
helped,” the other answered. “People may
give gold, and it may go just as far as gold
can. That is a long way, some will say. Well,
so it is, but even the long way has a limit.
There is only one thing that is not hindered
by any limit at all. It flies on, far, far beyond
Time, and right into Eternity. It is Love.”

“MISS DE VIGNY HAD ALWAYS
LIKED ALICE HARPER.”

Alice looked attentively at the girl for a
moment. She was a puny young woman with{46}
round shoulders and a narrow chest. Her skin
was very fair, and she had the large luminous
eyes which often indicate consumption.

“How did you learn so much, Miss Dayne?”
asked she with a smile.

“Just by watching life,” was the reply. “I
do not think that we shall ever meet here
again. I am going a longer journey than you
are. And yet, who knows? Perhaps it may
not be so very far.”

Alice had arranged to start on Monday by a
very early train. She left the house before
any of the other women had come downstairs.
Her box was in the hall; she had supplied
herself with some sandwiches, and could have
a cup of tea at the station. So she was driven
through the streets before the shops were open,
or London had shaken off such sleep as it can
get. She reached Waterloo in time to drink
her tea, and secure a comfortable corner in a
third-class carriage.

When the train began to move out of the
station she was still thinking of herself as Alice
Harper, the dressmaker, going to start afresh
in a new sphere. The former Alice was merely
the girl of the dream.

She smiled, rather a forlorn little smile,
when she called up a vision of the dream—Alice,
travelling first-class, and wearing a
lovely, grey costume, as costly and as daintily
simple as it could possibly be. The dressmaker
was arrayed in a coat and skirt of pepper-and-salt
tweed which would stand any amount
of wear and tear, and a pink calico shirt. Her
gloves were carefully mended; a very serviceable
umbrella and sunshade were strapped up
with a plain waterproof cloak; she had none
of those charming superfluities which a well-to-do
woman seldom goes without. And yet it
was a peaceful face that was shaded by the
sailor hat; and as the train rushed on into
the sweet, green country her eyes grew very
bright.

“I am going where I shall get lots of
pleasant things without paying for them,” she
said to herself. “In London you must pay
your penny for the simplest flower that grows.
Ah, the good God must have thought of the
poor when He purpled the wild land with the
glory of heather!”

(To be continued.)

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

MEDICAL.

STUDY AND STUDIO.

{47}

GIRLS’ EMPLOYMENTS.

MISCELLANEOUS.

THE GIRL’S OWN QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS COMPETITION.

For particulars as to this interesting
Competition, in which every reader
will find it for her advantage to take
part, see page 14 (No. 979).

Questions 13-24.

13. When did the pianoforte first come
into use?

*     *     *     *

14. What is the most polite nation in
the world?

*     *     *     *

15. What is the nearest star to the
earth?

*     *     *     *

16. What philosopher of antiquity
married a shrew?

*     *     *     *

17. What flower, in the middle of the
seventeenth century, became the subject
of a popular mania?

*     *     *     *

18. What is the best soil on which to
build a house?

*     *     *     *

19. Did anyone ever swim across the
Channel from England to France?

*     *     *     *

20. What great lady once in a temper
cut off her long and beautiful hair and
flung it in her husband’s face?

*     *     *     *

21. What is the origin of the name
foolscap as applied to paper of a certain
size?

*     *     *     *

22. Have flowers ever been used as
time-keepers?

*     *     *     *

23. What famous relic of antiquity on
its way to this country nearly found its
last resting-place at the bottom of the
sea?

*     *     *     *

24. Who was the famous carrier who
gave rise to a proverb by always making
his customers take the horse nearest the
stable door?

The Answers to these Questions,
Nos. 13-24, together with the answers to
questions 1-12, which have already appeared,
must be sent in on or before the
30th of December, 1898.

{48}

ENTHUSIASM: AN ADDRESS TO SCHOOL-GIRLS.

By ELIZABETH A. S. DAWES, M.A., D.Lit.

Browning.

I propose to address to the readers of this
magazine a few words on the subject of
“enthusiasm in a good cause;” for undoubtedly
a lack of hearty, honest enthusiasm, a
general “slackness,” both in character and
conduct, is a sad characteristic of too many of
the present-day girls and young women. For
this reason, therefore, I have chosen for you
three quotations, all of which speak of the
duty of enthusiasm in a good cause, or, in
other words, of striving with all our might to
accomplish our life’s purpose, or for the truth,
or in the battle against sin.

Now I can imagine someone asking,
“Why should we be enthusiastic? What
is the good of it?” and to this question I
would reply by giving as the three chief
reasons: firstly, that nothing great or good
can be accomplished without enthusiasm;
secondly, enthusiasm in a good cause is one of
the chief means of forming and ennobling the
character; and thirdly, that it is commanded
and commended by Christ.

To prove the truth of my first reason, you
need only turn your thoughts to the world’s
history, and recall to your memory the many
enthusiastic workers and fighters—”fanatics,”
as the world often mockingly calls them—who
have striven, often literally unto death, to
promote some good cause or establish some
truth, and then ask yourselves, “Would they
have accomplished what they did if they had
been lukewarm, and half-hearted in their
work, and daunted by every fresh obstacle
that beset their path?” No, they would not;
for, as you all know, obstacles there are in
plenty, and, as a Greek writer says, “It is
only true enthusiasm which can overcome all
obstacles; it is not the power, but the will
and the desire which are often wanting in us.”

As illustrations of enthusiasts think of
St. Paul with his tremendous missionary
energy, Socrates, Wilberforce, John Howard,
and, in our days, of the women, the “pioneers,”
who fought against apparently insuperable
difficulties for the opening of the medical
profession and a university career for themselves
and other women.

Secondly, enthusiasm in a good cause forms
and moulds the mind by giving it some
definite object of pursuit, which prevents
aimlessness of purpose, waste of time and
capabilities, and selfishness; it ennobles it by
raising it above trivial or low thoughts, by
attuning it to higher melodies than those of
this earth, and by breeding in it single-mindedness
and fostering sincerity, “which is
the first characteristic of all men in any way
heroic” (Carlyle). Browning and Michael
Angelo, two powerful workers themselves, bear
testimony to this ennobling influence of enthusiasm,
for the former in his Saul writes—

and the latter, “Nothing makes the soul so
pure, so religious, as the endeavour to create
something perfect; for God is perfection, and
whoever strives for perfection strives for something
that is God-like.”

My third reason scarcely needs comment,
for all will instantly recall the command that
“men should always pray and not faint,”
His parable of the importunate widow, and
His commendation of Mary because “she
hath done what she could” and had brought
her best to her Lord. But apart from what
He said, ought not the whole life of “the
Perfect Head and Pattern of Mankind” to be
a direct incentive to enthusiasm?

Next, I would suggest some subjects for
enthusiasm.

One which should throw its glamour over us
all, and should spur us ever onward and upward,
is “the great thought of our immortality,” or,
as a writer puts it, “We must shape our life
under the government of the life to come,”
however many difficulties there may be in
trying to do so. And, if we are brought
under the spell of this great thought, it creates
enthusiasm, for “to keep before us the real
outlook of the soul is to refuse persistently to
drift with the stream. We have to take care
to watch wisely and sternly over our wills, to
keep our eye on the spring of our actions,
to be careful about the decisions we make,
and to be earnest in watching against mere
slackness of will in carrying out those decisions
which we know to be right.” And if this
thought—which yet was to them no definite
thought, but only a misty conception and the
vaguest of hopes—exercised such domination
over the souls of some of the ancient heathens
as to cause them to lead spotless, blameless
lives, what should its effect be on us now,
who know that it is no idle fancy, but a thing
to hold and live by?

Further, I like to see people enthusiastic
about their family and home, about the ordinary
duties that lie to hand, about the place in
which they live, and so on. For assuredly
nothing is more hateful—the word is strong,
but it is the right one—nothing, I repeat, is
more hateful than to hear girls disparaging
their mothers with remarks such as, “Oh,
mother does not understand us modern girls,
she is so old-fashioned, you know; I never
ask her opinion about anything,” or to hear
them complain that there is no scope for their
energies in their own homes. Such as these
should remember Archbishop Trench’s sonnet
beginning—

While at school be enthusiastic for it and
its customs, and, if you think it not all it
should be, work your hardest at rendering it
more worthy of your enthusiasm, and while
there set the example of doing the lessons and
playing at the games with enthusiasm.

But the crucial moment comes when you
leave school and become more or less your own
mistress—for while you are at school your time
is apportioned out to various duties, and the
development of individual bents and tendencies
can necessarily not be allowed such free play
as they can revel in when school-days are over—and
then it is for you to show whether you
mean to pass your days in “doing nothing
much” either at home or outside, or whether
you recognise your own greatness as an
immortal, and intend to do at least something
or other in this world well.

And here a word of caution must be inserted
against allowing enthusiasm for one pursuit to
lead to the neglect of other duties. “There
is the story of a friar who set to work to illuminate
the pages of the Apocalypse in his
zeal and love for God. He became so absorbed
in this work that he neglected the poor and
sick, who were suffering and dying in the
plague. He came at last to the painting of
the face of his Lord, but his hand lost its
skill. He wondered why, and realised that it
was because, in his eagerness to paint his
pictures, he had neglected his poor. Humiliated
by this discovery, he laid aside his
brushes and went down to minister to the sick
and dying. He wrought on untiringly till he
himself was smitten down. Then he tottered
back to his cell to finish his loved work before
he died. He knelt in prayer to ask help, when
lo! he saw that an angel’s hand had completed
the picture of the Lord in a manner far surpassing
human skill.” It is only a legend, but
its lesson is well worthy your serious thought.

Again, contemplate the effect your enthusiasm
will have on those around you. One
great and vital element in enthusiasm is hope—hope
which endures under rebuffs, derision,
and in spite of apparent failure. Now hope
is most infectious, and when others, whose
spirits are perchance drooping, and hearts
failing for the heaviness of their duties and the
weight of their troubles, see that you always
maintain an ardent determination to accomplish
your purpose, a cheerful spirit, and a
smiling, hopeful face, they will feel their courage
renewed and will resume their burden with
re-invigorated strength. This idea is beautifully
expressed by Mrs. Browning in the lines
on “Work”—

I will conclude by reminding you that,
alongside of enthusiasm on one and several
other points, you must, be you strong or weak,
rich or poor, cherish undying enthusiasm for
“friendship’s ministry,” which is the half of
your solemn duty of service to God. So many
people forget that it is not enough to feel love
or affection for others unless they also show it
and thus give pleasure and comfort, and ofttimes
strengthening, to their friend. A word
of sympathy does so much. Once after the
death of a good clergyman whose labours had
been very blessed, his friends expressed to his
widow their appreciation of his noble life and
work, and she, after thanking them for their
kindly words, asked, amid her tears: “But
why did you never tell him these things while
he was living?” Yes, why not? Dr.
Miller says: “Too many wait until those they
love are dead, and then bring their alabaster
boxes of affection and break them. They
keep silent about their love when words would
mean so much, would give such cheer, encouragement;
and then, when the friend lies
in the coffin, their lips are unsealed….
Let us not reserve all the flowers for coffin-lids….
Let us show kindness when kindness
will do good. All about us move those
who would be strengthened and comforted by
the good cheer which we could give. It will
make sorrow all the harder if we ever have to
say beside the dead: “I might have brightened
the way a little if only I had been kinder.””

Never then, I beg of you, forget to be
enthusiastic in this ministry of friendship, and
if, combined with that, you entertain enthusiasm
for other noble, worthy things, and try
to kindle a like enthusiasm in others, you may,
perhaps, at the end of your life be allowed to
feel that you have, though perhaps but in a
slight degree,

Whittier.