The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX. No. 1021, July 22, 1899
    
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Title: The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX. No. 1021, July 22, 1899

Author: Various

Release date: May 10, 2020 [eBook #62082]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Susan Skinner, Chris Curnow, Pamela Patten and
        the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
        https://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL'S OWN PAPER, VOL. XX. NO. 1021, JULY 22, 1899 ***




Produced by Susan Skinner, Chris Curnow, Pamela Patten and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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[Illustration: THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER

VOL. XX.—NO. 1021.]      JULY 22, 1899.      [PRICE ONE PENNY.]




AFTER THE STORM.

BY SARAH DOUDNEY.


    Patience! for the strife is o’er;
    Weary wave and dying blast
    Beat and moan around the shore;
          Peace must come at last.

    Lo! the seagull’s silver wing
    Flashes in the sunset gold;
    Wait, another morn shall bring
          Gladness, as of old.

    Sunlight on the yellow strand,
    Shadows lying still and clear,
    Pearly fringes on the sand;
          Murmurs, sweet to hear.

    Storms of life must have their way
    Ere these changeful years may cease;
    Foam and tempest for to-day,
          And to-morrow—peace.

    Never till the fight is won,
    And the bitter draught is drained—
    Never till the storm is done
          Shall thy rest be gained.

    Waves and winds fulfil His word;
    Thou, like them, shalt do His will,
    Waiting till His voice is heard
          Saying, “Peace, be still.”

[Illustration]

_All rights reserved._]




THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.

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


CHAPTER XVII.

LIFE’S LITTLE AMENITIES.

Determined to do all she could to please Florence, Lucy donned a pretty
evening dress which she had already worn on the few occasions when she
and Charlie had left their “ain fireside.” She had freshened it up with
white net ruching about the throat and arms. She indulged herself with
a cluster of roses, and in order to arrive as early as possible, she
treated herself to a cab, though otherwise, in the warm summer evening,
her thrifty inclination would have been to shroud herself in a cloak
and eke out the journey by an omnibus.

Still there seemed something exhilarating in the little outburst of
elegance, ease and harmless “extravagance.” For once, surely, Florence
would be quite satisfied. And certainly Mrs. Brand’s glance swept all
over Lucy, from her little comb to her very shoes, even before she
kissed her.

Mrs. Brand was not yet in her drawing-room awaiting her guests, but in
her own apartment completing her dinner toilet. A tired sullen-looking
servant was in attendance, and was curtly dismissed by her mistress
when Lucy came in.

“It’s getting late, Lucy,” said Mrs. Brand, “and the few minutes we can
have now is all the time we shall enjoy together. If I want a hand,
you’ll help me, won’t you? I’m glad to get rid of Sophy, she’s so
stupid and clumsy.”

“You haven’t started a maid, have you, Flo?” asked Mrs. Challoner.

Her sister looked at her, half-bewildered, then replied—

“No, that’s the parlour-maid. I know what you are thinking—that she
will soon be telling me ‘it is not her place’ to push in a hairpin, or
fasten a hook. I ought to have a proper maid, I know. But when I said
so to Jem, he said there were already six women in the house to help
his wife to do her part of the partnership, while to get the money
which keeps the whole affair floating, there are only himself and two
clerks. Jem turns that way sometimes. It’s very ridiculous of him. But
he generally comes right by-and-by. Men do, if one knows how to manage
them. The crosser he is the sooner it’s over, and the more sorry he is,
and the more ready to make amends.”

“But six women, Flo?” echoed Lucy, “Is it really so? That’s an
increase, isn’t it?”

“Six women and a boy—the page,” Florence returned in a stage whisper.
“Jem actually forgot all about him, for, of course, he should have
counted in somewhere, either on my side or Jem’s.”

“That’s an increased contingent, isn’t it?” asked Lucy.

“Well, yes, I believe it is. I’ve not seen you for such a time. There’s
cook and her scullery-maid, and the housemaid, and the parlour-maid,
and the schoolroom-maid, and the nursery governess. And it is not one
more than is needed. Mrs. Jinxson, next door, has only one child, but
she has seven women servants, and a footman instead of a boy. And she
wasn’t brought up as we were, Lucy. She was quite a common person. You
can see that still, under all the veneer. You’ll meet her to-night.
I say, Lucy, how nice you look! How do you manage it? I believe the
fairies dress you sometimes! I am so glad you’ve come. It is such folly
of you to tie yourself up to Hugh. Why, a queen’s children have to be
left to servants sometimes. I don’t think you had any high hopes of
your present girl, but I suppose she is giving you satisfaction, and is
turning out a swan, as geese have a knack of doing under your hands.”

Lucy was not quite proof against Florence’s little flatteries. They
reminded her of old times. She answered playfully—

“My ‘present girl,’ as you call her—you must mean Jane Smith—is now my
past girl, and is represented by another who is a woman of about forty.”

“Dear, dear! So you’ve had another change! Even immaculate you! Now you
won’t wonder at my changes. You used not to find it easy to believe
they were necessary. But you won’t readily get another Pollie. Such
good fortune does not recur.”

Lucy did not remind her sister of her former doubts and sneers
concerning Pollie, and she little knew that Florence’s rash and
thoughtless talk had prematurely cost her the services of that young
woman.

“What went wrong with Jane Smith?” asked Mrs. Brand.

“She had a lover whose visits I permitted,” answered Lucy bravely,
fully aware that after this she would receive no more flattery, but
only censure. “And she changed him for another without one week’s
intermission, and without one word of explanation to me. Then when she
felt I would remonstrate, she gave me notice, and has taken service
with my opposite neighbours.”

Florence laughed elfishly.

“Poor Lucy!” she cried. “When will you learn sense? The only way to do
is to forbid all visitors whatever, as I do.”

“Very Draconian and very unfair that seems to me,” said Lucy, “and apt,
like all Draconian laws, to be ignored.”

“Of course it is,” answered Florence. “And I know how it is done. Our
gates, back and front, are heavy, and we can hear them open or shut.
But our next-door neighbour—the other side from the Jinxsons—is a
doctor, and he leaves his gates open, that a night call may be readily
and noiselessly attended to at his hall door. Consequently, my girls’
‘young men’ come through his gate at night-fall, and leap over the low
railing between our gardens. They depart in the same way.”

“Then of what service is your rule?” asked Lucy.

“It saves us from all responsibility,” Florence answered. “Whoever
is in the house, or whatever happens, it is all absolutely against
our strict orders, and the girls have no excuse to fall back upon. Of
course, we know—and they know—that we cannot enforce our rule, seeing
that Jem and I go out so much of an evening.”

“Well, I think it is all very unfair and demoralising,” said Lucy. “A
respectable girl who wishes to obey you is reduced to solitude, and her
decent friends and connexions are kept away, while any hussy who does
not care a whit for your regulations is able to enjoy herself to her
heart’s content. It is precisely the young men who are prepared ‘to
leap over walls’ whom I would wish to keep out of my house!”

“Well, ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating,’” returned Florence.
“And now that you have lost your paragon, and are reduced to the rank
and file of domestic servants, you do not seem to get on much better
than the rest of us. What sort of person have you got now?”

“A middle-aged woman—as I told you, a Highland woman. She was
recommended to me by Mrs. Bray’s Rachel,” said Lucy.

“She ought to be another paragon, then,” remarked Florence; “for
Rachel is a model. It needs to be a saint to live with Mrs. Bray, who
keeps her maid ‘going’ from morning to night. And evidently you start
with implicit trust in your Highland woman, as you have so promptly
trusted Hugh to her society, in defiance of all your stoutly defended
principles.”

“I think I might trust him with her,” Lucy answered mildly.
“Nevertheless I should not have done so yet. I have Miss Latimer
staying with me, and Hugh is left in the company of young Tom Black.
Don’t you remember the nice lad Charlie was so interested in, and who
was one of my visitors on that awful Christmas Day? He has come to
board with us.”

Florence sprang up, and confronted her sister.

“What?” she cried, with startling emphasis.

“He has come to board with us,” Lucy repeated. “He had lost the good
home Charlie had found for him, and as I saw this Clementina Gillespie
was a person who could be trusted to keep the housework regularly done,
I suggested that he should come to us. He makes life much happier for
Hugh than I can do myself just now.”

“Well, to be sure!” said Florence. “And so you’ve turned lodging-house
keeper. You don’t mean to say you needed to do it, Lucy?” she asked
with a bitter tone. “In that case you might first have spoken to Jem
and me——”

“I cannot say I needed to do it. So far as money is concerned,
everything is going on as I arranged and hoped,” returned Lucy. “Rather
I felt that the house is the better for another friendly inmate, full
of good nature and spirits. I do not repent of it. Miss Latimer is
old, the servant is elderly, and I am often too tired to talk to Hugh
or play with him. If it will comfort your gentility to know there is
not much money profit in the new arrangement, I can give you that
assurance, Florence. Young Black pays me exactly what he gave Mrs. Mott
in her little suburban house. It is a trifle over his actual expenses
(as I can see by watching the weekly bills). But it cannot be said
to take its share in the upkeep of a house in Pelham Street. It is a
friendly agreement. Of course Tom could not afford more.”

“Then you give up your privacy—your social status—for absolutely
nothing!” cried Florence. “I never did see anybody like you, Lucy. If
you don’t want to make a profit out of your lodger, why did you take
one? You could have got scores of young ladies glad to live in such
a house as yours, without any salary—or even, I do believe, paying a
trifle, and you could have called her Hugh’s ‘governess’ or your own
‘companion.’ You might have taken Hugh away from the Kindergarten, and
let her teach him at home. Any young lady could teach Hugh all he needs
to learn yet.”

Lucy shook her head. “Every young lady has not been taught how to
teach,” she answered. “If she had, it would not be fair to take her
training for nothing.”

“Oh, fair enough, if she were ready to give it,” said Florence. “There
are plenty of girls, with a little means of their own—who can’t get
on with their own people, and don’t care to submit to the restraints
of really salaried employment—who would have just suited you. And, as
I say, I have no doubt there are many such who would even pay you as
much as this boy does. For Pelham Street is a good address (nobody
knows yours is the only small house there), and your appointment as
art-teacher at the Institute would satisfy their friends of your
eligibility as a chaperon.”

Lucy shook her head more vigorously. “I am not eligible as a chaperon,”
she said. “I want my evenings for rest, and my Saturdays for my child
and my house. And I am prejudiced against girls of the very type you
say I might have found so ready to come to me. I certainly would not
subject Hugh to the casual instructions of such errant misses. I desire
his school education to proceed in orderly fashion. Therefore my
household furnishes no occupation or interest for any who are without
regular occupation or interests of their own outside of it. But you
miss the true point of the position, Florence. The girls you speak of
are all strangers to me. I know none such. But I do know Tom Black.
Charlie also knew him and liked him. If I had known equally well some
young woman-clerk or teacher also in Tom’s plight, I should have made
the same suggestion to her which I made to him.”

“Miss Latimer ought to have been ready to teach Hugh and look after
him, considering she is staying with you,” observed Florence.

“Miss Latimer has her own pupils,” Lucy answered. “She has as much work
as her strength is equal for. And she is not my guest, Florence, but my
boarder. She pays her own expenses, and I am much indebted to her for
giving me the comfort of her society.”

“What can she afford to pay?” Florence asked contemptuously. “One
comfort is that it sounds well to say you have your old governess
living with you. Nobody will think she pays anything.”

Lucy was severely silent.

“And to open your house only to lower it, to get in people earning
wages or salaries, or whatever they please to call them!” groaned
Florence. “If you chose to do such a thing, you might have acted so
differently! It might not have been a bad idea if you had worked it
out wisely. I’ve known reduced ladies who have really kept their
establishments going in this way, taking care never to receive anybody
but those who could pay really well. There are always wealthy families
ready to pay handsomely to secure a happy home for some member who was
born with a want or whose mind has failed. Jem has some friends who
pay three hundred pounds a year for the care of their sister, quite
a gentlewoman and cultivated, but just a little ‘touched.’ I believe
he could have secured her for you if we had dreamed of such a thing.
But of course you’d have had to keep a second servant and a first-rate
table. Still, if you’d managed well, I believe it might have paid you
better than going to the Institute. And it would have kept you quite
in touch with social life, instead of shutting you out of it, as your
daily engagements do.”

Florence poured her words out in such a rapid stream that Lucy could
not launch a word on the current. “My dear sister,” she said, “to my
mind there is no shame in any honest work or domestic arrangement. But
it seems to me that one imports pain into these domestic arrangements
precisely in the degree in which money matters and ‘profits’ come
into them rather than individual selection and personal harmony. And
certainly while I can earn bread in any other way I shall not bring a
half crazy woman to live in the house with Hugh.”

“Well, still there are others,” persisted Florence. “There’s the
Arcuts’ son. He isn’t an idiot; he is quite gentlemanly; he just has
a want. Of course it is painful for his people, and they pay ever so
much for a home apart for himself and his man-servant. They like him
to live in a lady’s house and to sit at her table, so as to keep up
refined habits. Or there are many well-to-do married couples who like
to board, because they don’t get on very well alone together, or the
wife doesn’t care for the trouble of housekeeping. I believe Jem and I
may do it, when we are old and the girls are married off.”

“Florence,” repeated Lucy patiently, “I tell you again, you miss the
whole point of the position. I did not do this for money. I did it
because under present conditions it seemed an opportunity for the
interchange of neighbourly service. If Charlie had been at home, I am
sure he would have asked the boy to be our guest for a week or two,
till some fit home was found for him, which Charlie would have helped
to find. I have done the next best thing—the one thing possible under
present circumstances, and I receive a favour in giving one, which
is always the most wholesome and pleasant thing for both parties
concerned.”

“It seems to me that you consider everybody and everything except your
own position and the feelings of your relations,” returned Florence.
“But it is high time we were downstairs; and I must put the whole
matter out of my mind for the present, or I shall not be fit to receive
my visitors. That ever I should live to see the day——”

She bustled off leaving her sentence unfinished, Lucy meekly following
her.

If Lucy’s news had “shocked” Florence, Lucy was certainly startled by
the new standpoint in the Brand establishment! If the five people to
whom she was introduced—quite strange to her, and in most elaborate
toilettes—were “one or two friends,” what represented “formality” in
the Brand ideas? Of course, the hostess’s sister was introduced to them
all—a murmur of names, a waving of bowing figures, amid which Lucy
caught the name of Jinxson, and was able to associate it with a little
woman, in emerald green brocade, a thatch of tawny curls beetling over
a brow which needed no dwarfing. Then she found herself relegated to
the more special society of a very tall man, very dark, with a sounding
Highland name, whose prefix alone fastened itself upon her ears,
so that ever afterwards she thought of him as “Mr. Mac.” He opened
conversation with her by asking first if she had seen the last opera,
and then if she contemplated going “for the autumn” to the Highlands
or to Norway? Then he murmured, “May I have the honour,” and they fell
into the procession filing into the dining-room.

The dining-room was a still further revelation of the long distance
the Brands’ customs had travelled during the few months since Lucy had
last joined in their social life. Fine napery they had always had,
but now the long table-cloth was edged with rich embroidery and heavy
lace. The table centre was a creamy film over pale rose-satin, and that
note of colour was carried out in every detail of china, glass and
floral decoration. The latter was a wonderful arrangement, which Lucy
at once knew it must have taken hours to work out. The menu was equally
elaborate; one out-of-season delicacy followed another. The wines and
liqueurs seemed to Lucy to be equally rare and choice, judging from
their names whispered in her ear ever and again by two men in severely
correct evening dress who “waited at table,” and were in their turn
waited upon by the housemaid and the parlour-maid.

One of the ladies exclaimed on the loveliness of the floral scheme.
“What genius you have at your service, Mrs. Brand!” she cried.

“Oh, not at my service only,” Florence replied nonchalantly. “I could
not trust such a thing to my maids, and I could not spare time for it
myself. Gosson, the florist, knows of one or two young women whom he
recommends for such work.”

“It needs much taste,” said the Highland gentleman.

“Oh, I understand they are quite superior people,” Florence answered.
“When I asked if one could rely on their honesty, he gave me the
history of the one he meant to send. The daughter of a doctor, I
think Gosson said, who had found it so impossible to provide for his
family by his profession that he was tempted into speculation, and, of
course, lost everything and committed suicide. It looked odd to see the
dismal-looking girl in black creating such visions of beauty.”

“Ah, you have such a sensitive heart, dear Mrs. Brand,” said Mrs.
Jinxson. “I should not wonder you helped her with most valuable
suggestions. I think I trace your exquisite taste.” Florence smiled and
did not reply.

Conversation on the whole was not very brisk. Possibly there was too
much shifting of plates and variety of flavours to admit of that.
Lucy found herself seated between her tall escort and a stout man
with a closely shaven head. The former, finding it hard to discover
any subject on which Lucy was readily responsive, devoted himself
chiefly to Florence at the head of the table. His remarks concerned
bags of game, a county hunt and a forthcoming military ball. Lucy’s
other neighbour, whose name she had never caught, made a polite effort
to include her in a conversation going on between himself and Mr.
Brand. It consisted of mutual congratulations as to the magnificent
prospects of a certain “company,” laudation of a man whom Lucy believed
to be a most dangerous enemy to British freedom and honour, and
scornful denunciations of another whom she regarded as their faithful
champion. Lucy could not attempt expostulation or argument under
such circumstances, but she was thankful that her silences were soon
sufficiently understood to check any further appeals for her sympathy
and concurrence. These were readily tendered by Mrs. Jinxson, who
indeed went beyond the gentleman in her derogation of the statesman
whose influence they deprecated.

When dessert made its appearance, little Muriel and Sybil came upon
the scene. The one was a trifle older than Lucy’s Hugh, the other as
much younger. They were artistically dressed, with fair hair floating
over their shoulders. “Just like little pictures!” cried Mrs. Jinxson
ecstatically. Lucy’s Highland escort began to pay court to Sybil as she
stood between him and her mother. He heard her whispered appeal for a
pear which lay in a dish immediately on his right hand.

“Yes, little lady, you shall have it at once,” he said, “but you must
pay me for it. Do you think you will be able to afford one little kiss?”

The child looked up at him with her hard blue eyes. “Give me the pear,”
she said.

“Certainly; I will trust my payment to my little lady’s honour,” said
the gentleman.

Sybil snatched the pear from his hand.

“I will kiss oo when oo washes oor face,” she said rudely in a sharp
childish treble. The other guests laughed. The Highlander coloured
beneath his swarthy complexion.

Muriel had worked her way round to her Aunt Lucy. “Why are you dressed
in black?” she whispered. “The governess always wears black; but that’s
because she’s only the governess. But then you’re only a governess too,
aren’t you? Nurse said so.”

“I think the lady opposite us wishes to speak to you,” Lucy said,
disregarding her niece’s remarks, and noting that the elderly dame at
the other side of the table was making enticing gesticulations.

Muriel shook herself. “I’m not going,” she said, in a stage whisper. “I
don’t like her. I don’t like people who wear spectacles.”

“But, Muriel,” pleaded Lucy, in a low tone, “you ought not to make
personal remarks of that sort! And your mamma herself will have to wear
spectacles if she lives long enough.”

“Then I hope she won’t,” said Muriel. She was going to say something
else, but interrupted herself to put out her tongue at Sybil at the
other side of the table. Possibly Mrs. Brand herself noticed this
performance, and as rebuke to such children at such a moment would have
probably had still more compromising results, all she could do was to
make the signal for the ladies’ retreat into the drawing-room.

Mrs. Jinxson evidently held the position of intimate in the Brand
mansion. She and Florence promptly began to exchange confidences, while
Lucy took up her rôle of the hostess’s sister by trying to interest the
spectacled dame. That lady, however, preferred to strike into the other
conversation.

“Do I hear you say you are changing your footman, Mrs. Jinxson?” she
said.

“Yes,” said that lady, turning to her with animation. “I was just
congratulating dear Mrs. Brand on only keeping a page. It is far better
to secure, for occasions, such perfect attendance as we have had
to-night than to have to endure one’s own man-servant, who is always
either a clumsy raw hand or a finished villain—either quarrelling
with one’s maids or making love to them. But Mr. Jinxson will have his
own way; he has always been used to men-servants, and he will not hear
reason.”

Mr. Jinxson’s father, a very respectable man, had kept a pleasant
little hotel in a provincial town.

“We are parting with our present footman,” Mrs. Jinxson proceeded,
“because he is so crude. Nothing will mellow him. When we have
gentlemen’s dinner parties—as we so often do—and story-telling and
jokes are going, his face is covered with a broad grin. Once I actually
heard him giggle.” She turned to Lucy. “Such a thing is unendurable, is
it not? It is the A B C of a servant’s training, man or woman, that not
a muscle shall move whatever is said or done. What right have they to
take an interest in anything but their work?”

Now this very difficulty had occurred in some of the houses where
Lucy’s friend, Miss Latimer, had been governess. She and Lucy had
discussed it together. Miss Latimer had told her that Dr. Thomas
Guthrie, the great preacher, having heard such a complaint raised
against a servant, had remarked that, for his part, if a servant were
able to conceal all interest in family mirth or misery going on before
his eyes, he should be inclined to wonder what else he had acquired
equal skill in concealing. Lucy told this little story with a smile and
without any comment.

The spectacled lady stared at her stonily. Mrs. Jinxson gave a
polite sniff, and there was a little motion of Florence’s head which
effectually suppressed her sister.

But at that moment the gentlemen came upstairs, and the conversation
drifted into chit-chat about books which nobody seemed to have read,
and pictures which nobody seemed to have seen. Then there was “a little
music”—the elderly spectacled dame contributing “My mother bids me
bind my hair,” and Mr. Jinxson following suit with “My love, she’s but
a lassie yet.” Then somebody’s carriage was announced, and the little
party broke up, Lucy naturally being the last to leave.

“Flo, you’ve never asked me the details of my last news from Charlie,”
whispered Lucy—speaking playfully and meaning no reflection on her
sister—as she and the Brands stood on the stairs waiting for the
drawing up of Lucy’s cab.

“There, make a grievance and a fuss over that!” cried Florence, her
nerves breaking between the tension in which they had been held by
her anxiety that “all should go off well,” and the consciousness of
sundry lapses which she felt sure had not escaped the lynx eyes of Mrs.
Jinxson. “Of course, I expect you to tell me anything that is worth
telling! But you just lie in wait to catch——”

“Your cab, mum,” said the page.

And Lucy hastily kissed Florence and kept her news to herself.

(_To be continued._)




BOOKS BEFORE TRAVEL.

BY DORA DE BLAQUIÈRE.


PART II.

I have put together the Latin nations, as well as those of Eastern
Europe, for convenience’ sake. Indeed the literature of Italy forms,
of itself, one library, and that of Venice another; for there seems no
native of any distant country who has not tried his prentice hand on
Venice, in some of her many aspects. The American authors have been
much attracted by the Queen of the Adriatic. From Byron to Browning,
our English masters of poetry have delighted in it, and we must by no
means omit the _Stories of Venice_ and other works on it by Ruskin,
which will take some time to read. Shelley, Rogers, and Browning—the
first-named in _Euganean Hills_ and the last in _In a Gondola_ and many
other poems—showed they were full of its spirit and colour.

Howell lived there for many years, and has given us _Venetian Life_,
besides _Italian Journeys_, _Tuscan Cities_, and _Alfieri_ and the
_Modern Italian Poets_. Its book-lore, music, and the _Technical
History of its Lace Manufacture_, glass, ceramics, and architecture,
have all been written of in turn by different writers. One of the
last and best is Robertson’s _Bible of St. Mark’s_. J. A. Symonds has
written _New Italian Sketches_, and _Life on a Doge’s Farm_. There is
also a delightful new book in A. M. Hopkinson Smith’s _Gondola Days_.
Mrs. Oliphant has a book on the _Makers of Venice_, as well as the
_Makers of Florence_.

In the way of Italian stories, we have Hans Andersen’s _Improvisatore_,
Whyte Melville’s _Gladiators_, and the series of Marion Crawford,
beginning with _Saracenesca_, which are full of older days in Rome,
the middle portion of this century. Bulwer too has given us _Rienzi_
and _The Last Days of Pompeii_. _Romola_ by George Eliot, and many of
Lever’s novels, picture for us a Florence which has passed away. Nor
must we forget _John Inglesant_, and its remarkable picture of an Italy
in the middle ages. In Italian we have the famous novel, _I Promessi
Sposi_, _Marco Visconti_, and many much more modern books, including
those of Silvio Pellico, Amicis, which are all interesting, and written
also in Italian of a more modern style, which has taken on some shades
of difference from the French. If you intend going to Italy, you should
by all means try to get a few Italian lessons, if only to accustom your
ear to the sound of the spoken tongue.

The Venetian school of painters is famous for their colouring. The best
known of the great Venetian masters are, Paul Veronese, Tintoretto,
and Titian; and you must know something of them. The last half of the
fifteenth century and the first half of the sixteenth were the great
periods of Italian art, and besides Varsari’s great works, you should
read Benvenuto Cellini’s autobiography; and also a good history of
Italian art, such as Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s _History of Painting in
Italy_. Nor must you omit to learn something of the early history of
music, which has so much of Italian in its origin; and poetry which
numbers Dante and Petrarch, Ariosto and Tasso, in its ranks. You should
likewise understand something of Italian architecture, and of its three
schools, Venetian, Florentian, and Roman.

I remember well my own burning desire to learn something of the meaning
of the things which surrounded me, and how I devoured everything that
came in my way, so that the book list in my note-book and the copious
notes surprise me to this day: Sismondi’s _Italian Republics_, Roscoe’s
_Life of Lorenzo di Medicis_, Sir William Gell’s works, Mrs. Jameson’s
books, and the lives of all the painters I could reach in English,
French, and Italian.

If we wander away from the more modern side of life in Italy, we are
even more interested. The Etruscans and their cities, the early days
of Rome, Rome in Christian days, and the wars and tumults of the
middle ages, have all in turn swayed the Peninsula, and have all had
their historians too. The Etruscans are the most mysterious people of
antiquity, and in the Etruscan museum at Florence you will first be
able to gauge the artistic products of this ancient people in bronze
and earthenware. Their power attained its zenith in the sixth century
B.C., and you ought to know something about them in order to comprehend
better the Roman civilisation.

Next in interest to the Etruscans, to me, were the Catacombs in Rome,
and all the Roman monuments there; and you will speedily learn to
distinguish the different styles both of architecture and ornament.
An excellent _Handbook to Christian and Ecclesiastical Rome_ by M. A.
R. Tuker and H. Malleson has just been published in a series of four
parts, two of which are now out, and parts three and four will soon be
issued in one volume. It is intended to give the visitor a complete
historical and descriptive account of Christian Rome in a handy form
not at present otherwise available. The first part deals with the
wonderful churches and basilicas of Rome, while Part II. deals with
the various ceremonies, and Parts III. and IV. with all the monastic
orders, the colleges, palaces, etc., in fact, all those particulars
that everyone wants to know so much, and finds it so difficult to
discover for themselves. This handbook is published by A. & C. Black at
a very moderate price, and is being much recommended by the well-known
travelling agents, Messrs. Cook and Dr. Lund. Middleton’s _Rome_ deals
more with classical Rome, and Story’s _Roba di Roma_ with things as
they are. Augustus Hare’s _Walks about Rome_ is very useful, and so are
Mrs. Jameson’s great books, _Sacred and Legendary Art_ and _Legends of
the Monastic Orders_; and also Withrow’s _Catacombs of Rome_. _Rienzi_,
_The Gladiators_, the _Improvisatore_, and Marion Crawford’s novels,
all deal with Rome from that fictitious side which is founded on facts;
and all of them paint a different Rome. T. A. Trollope’s books on
Italy, Leader Scott’s, and the delightful books of Professor Villari
and his wife, are all delightful reading, and you will gain an idea
of those two wonderful Italians, Giordano Bruno and Savonarola, who
were at once patriots, reformers and martyrs. There are, and have ever
been, so many Romes, the scenes of which pass before you like those in
a drama; and the more you know the more you will enjoy, in your visits
to her storied stones. Do you think I am laying too much stress on your
study of Rome? When you begin to read you will see that in art, poetry,
and literature, in science and in things that made the beauty of life,
she has always led the way. But two things you will have to return to
England to study, the growth of true freedom and the development of
constitutional law; these were of home manufacture.

To understand Italian poets, especially Dante, your knowledge of
Italian history must be fairly good, and the study of Italian
literature would demand more time, probably, than you will have to give
to it. So I will not enter into that subject, but I will advise you to
take an Italian daily paper directly you begin your study of Italian,
if you do so; for you will very soon be able to spell out a great deal
of its contents, and this will aid you in mastering the language. They
are fortunately very cheap indeed. My first purchase when I get into
North Italy, after passing through the St. Gotthard, and getting near
Milan, is the _Corriere della Sera_ (or the _Evening Courier_) of that
city, of which I am very fond, as it is full of general news and is
amusing. In Florence and Rome I am very erratic in my choice, and only
think of avoiding too fine and close print, and bad paper, as these
are often the faults of Italian papers. But at all times there is the
delightful _Nuova Antologia_ to be had; and at Lausanne there is the
_Révue Nationale_. Both of these reviews, or magazines, are of the best
kind, and the same may be said of the _Révue de Deux Mondes_. If you
can enjoy French, all these can be easily obtained in England, as most
libraries take them.

And now I must turn from Italy, as I think you will know quite enough
about it for a short visit; and let me hope that you will not be
one of the disappointed ones, to whom none of her attractions have
appealed, who see nothing of her many-sidedness, and note none of that
endless procession of people who made her history through the ages,
and understand none of the things which make her everlasting charm. A
well-known prelate said the other day, “General culture is sympathetic
interest in the world of human intelligence,” and this to me is a
definition which explains much of the so-called “disappointment” we
hear of to-day.

The books about Spain are legion, and the best of it is that they are
also infinitely delightful, so that, while improving our minds, we may
do it with thorough enjoyment to ourselves. Here, too, the foreigner
has been most bountiful, and has endowed Spanish literature with
jewels of research and beauty. To begin only with those of America, we
have Washington Irving’s _Conquest of Grenada_, and the _Alhambra_,
Prescott’s _Ferdinand and Isabella_, _Philip the Second of Spain_,
and the _Conquest of Mexico and Peru_. Amicis, also, has a charming
book on _Spain and the Spaniards_, and there are one or two, not very
new, but exceedingly interesting, by the Rev. Hugh James Rose, one of
them called _Untrodden Spain_, and a newer one by J. A. O’Shea, called
_Romantic Spain_. If we do not read Spanish, we may enjoy Longfellow’s
beautiful translations from the Spanish poets, and if we do know it, we
may read the great novelist, Fernan Caballero. Perhaps it will surprise
you to hear that Spain possesses several very able female novelists,
besides the lady I have mentioned, and another one, Emilia Bazan Pardo.
In the story of the nations, we have _The Moors in Spain_, by Stanley
Lane Poole, which should also be read, and you will find Murray’s
_Handbook for Spain_, a perfect and voluminous guide. There are several
others as well. Spain has fewer foreigners than any other European
country resident in her borders, and she has the smallest population in
proportion to her size. Travelling in Spain will be of the greatest
use to you in cultivating the virtue of patience, and you can, at the
same time, take lessons in politeness. If you do not know anything of
Italian, you will find Spanish much pleasanter to learn, for the one
language seems to act as an extinguisher to the other, in my mind, and
I hear others say the same thing, for they are so much alike, and yet
quite different. A smattering of Spanish, however, will be very useful
to you, as English is not so well known as in other countries. Murray’s
_Handbook_ was written by Richard Ford, and he has also written
_Gatherings from Spain_, and he is the standard authority on everything
connected with its study. There is a book by a Miss Thomas, called _A
Scamper through Spain and Tangier_, which would be useful to those
who wish to make a cheap tour in Spain. She visited the chief Spanish
cities. Ticknor’s _History of Spanish Literature_ is the standard work
on the subject.

Portugal is not one of the very popular tourist lounges, and the
ordinary person has a hazy idea of it as connected with port wine, and
the earthquake at Lisbon, and has probably heard of Inez di Castro,
Vasco de Gama, and Prince Henry the navigator; and the Jubilee of 1887
made us all acquainted with the fact that the Royal Family of Portugal
are near relations of our own, as on that occasion the Crown Prince
and Princess were seen very frequently about London. Perhaps many of
my readers may know also that Camoëus is the great Portuguese poet,
who was the author of the _Lusiad_, a poem which has received such
recognition in England that it has been translated four times, the last
time by Adamson, who wrote a biography of the poet, and the late Lord
Strangford translated some of his minor poems. The only really good
book on general Portuguese history is that in “The Story of the Nations
Series” by H. M. Stephens. There is also a book by W. A. Salisbury,
_Portugal and its People_, which is a popular work and well compiled.
_Round the Calendar in Portugal_ is a book by Oswald Crawford, which I
have enjoyed very much, but I think that there is plenty of room for
another or even two or three more about Portugal, which perhaps some of
my girl-readers would like to undertake.

Amongst Mrs. Pennell’s delightful books, the whole of which are
worth reading, is one dealing with Hungary and Roumania, which is
called _Gipsyland_; and Mrs. Elliot has a _Diary of an Idle Woman in
Constantinople_. There are one or two lives of Carmen Sylva, the Queen
of Roumania.

Egypt has had plenty of explorers, and I think you will enjoy
Wilkinson’s _Manners and Customs_, Mariette Bey’s writings, and Miss
Edwards’ delightful books. Then there is Lane’s _Modern Egyptians_,
and as a really delightful thing you had better read Miss Gates’ book,
the _Chronicles of the Cid_. Stanley Lane Poole’s book on _Cairo_, and
Alfred Milner’s _England in Egypt_, are quite modern works, and Charles
Warner has written a very interesting one too. For the Soudan, Major
Wingate’s book is a good one, and you ought to be charmed with all
those written by Mr. and Mrs. Bent. There are many books on Palestine,
but none more useful than Thomson’s _Land and the Book_, for those who
wish to travel through the Holy Land with the Bible in their hands.

And now I think I may leave my task of guiding my readers into such
reading of many books as will give them enjoyment in their travels in
foreign lands. I have not done more than speak of some of the many
works which have interested me, for I find others that have been
perused, but which do not seem important nor useful enough to be
mentioned. In many Continental cities there are fairly good libraries,
from which you can procure books dealing with the city in which you are
staying; and if you are a rapid reader, you can do much in the way of
skimming-over the ground, and a few photographs will remind you of the
objects you most desire to recall.




THE COURTSHIP OF CATHERINE WEST.


CHAPTER III.

In after-life, when Catherine tried to review the events of that
strange summer, although every detail of her stay in Switzerland stood
out in startling distinctness, she could never remember anything about
the journey home. It seemed to pass in a dream, and she saw, as in a
vision, the flitting crowds at the railway stations, the swarms of
strange, unknown faces, the gleams of sunlight on field and stream as
the train rushed by them, and at last the sea and the white cliffs of
England again. Ten days had changed her from an eager, impulsive girl
to a mature woman, self-reliant, not only in intention, but in fact.
The well-known approach to her old rooms convinced her of the reality
of things. “And now,” she thought, “for the old life, with its ordinary
cares and business. Well, it has to be endured.”

But her anticipations were destined to be falsified. Her landlady met
her with mingled relief and surprise. A letter had come that morning
marked “Immediate.” She had not known where to send it, but now Miss
West had come it would be off her mind.

“A letter for me!” cried Catherine, her thoughts at once rushing to
Granville and Margaret, and then immediately reduced to order by a
little common sense. “I so seldom have any letters, surely you must be
mistaken.”

But no, the letter was there, a large square envelope, sealed with a
heavy crest. She opened it with a good deal of curiosity, and read:—

        “The Parade, St. John’s.

    “DEAR NIECE,—You probably never heard of your aunt, or rather your
    father’s aunt, Cicely. He and I quarrelled before you were born,
    and I never had any communication with him afterwards. But I have
    just discovered that I am suffering from an incurable complaint and
    have not many months to live, and it has come upon me that I should
    like to see you, and be reconciled to you as his representative. As
    soon, therefore, as you receive this I beg of you to come to me. I
    will, of course, defray all your expenses, and will see that you
    are met at the station. Telegraph the time of your arrival.

        “Yours sincerely,
            “CICELY WEST.”

The arrival of this letter was a positive relief to Catherine. It gave
her something to do and something to occupy her mind, and she had so
much dreaded those quiet days spent alone in her rooms before the
school opened again. Now there was no time for regret. With feverish
energy she looked out her train in Bradshaw, despatched her trunks,
had some lunch, and started out again on her travels. The journey took
some time. St. John’s is a little watering-place on the south coast,
almost suburban in character, so accessible is it from London, and with
that peculiarly uninteresting and unfinished look distinctive of places
that have been developed as a speculation. A bran new promenade and a
flaunting “Kursaal” are its chief attractions, and at each end of the
bay the giant scaffolding prophetic of some immense hotel or terrace
projects its hideous outline between the sky and sea. Catherine, fresh
from the magnificence of the Alps, shuddered as the train ran into the
overcrowded little station.

She collected her belongings and was about to call a cab when a man in
livery touched his hat, and, asking her if she were not for Frampton
House, opened the door of a brougham that stood waiting. Catherine got
in, and realised for the first time how tired she was; but she did not
have much time for reflection, for in a very few minutes the carriage
drew up at a large house facing the sea.

She was ushered into a dimly-lighted hall, up a broad flight of stairs,
and soon found herself in a bedroom looking out over the promenade. She
was slowly unfastening her jacket, trying to become accustomed to the
sudden change in her surroundings, when the door opened and a little
old lady walked in.

She was decidedly below middle height, but her carriage and dress gave
her a dignity that would hardly belong by right to one so small of
stature. Her fine delicate features were framed in a mist of lace, and
underneath the neatly-parted bands of silver hair her dark eyes flashed
with a brilliance undimmed by age or suffering. But her face was lined
and worn, and the tiny hand that she extended to her visitor was almost
transparent. Catherine was surprised to find how firm was the grasp in
which her own was taken; but she soon found that this mingled frailty
and dignity were but an index to the woman’s whole character. An iron
will within a tender frame, resolution fighting with femininity, this
had been the tragedy of her life; even now the fatal disease with which
she was struggling was kept at bay by sheer force of will.

“So you are Catherine West,” she said, after the first greeting,
standing at a little distance that she might have a better view of the
girl. She crossed to the window and drew up the blind before Catherine
guessed her intention, and then continued her inspection. “Ah, not much
like your mother, much more like what I was in my young days, but
taller—it is the fashion to be tall now. Brown hair, blue eyes, fair
complexion—but you are tired now. Yes, certainly you are a West, and
that is satisfactory.”

Aunt Cicely retired, and Catherine, shaking out her one evening
gown, tried to make herself as presentable as possible. She feared
the disapproval of this daintily-attired old lady, though the large
pier-glass beneath the electric light flashed back to her a defiance
of criticism. Then she found her way down to the immense drawing-room,
like a conservatory in its wealth of glass, but somewhat inferior as
regards warmth. She found out afterwards that her aunt had been ordered
to St. John’s for her health, and had taken this large, new-fashioned
house on the recommendation of a land agent without having seen it.

Aunt Cicely was not such a terrible person after all. The fact was,
she was agreeably surprised by this relation, whom she had summoned in
tardy reparation for the injury she had done her nephew. Catherine’s
father had chosen his wife from an inferior class, and his aunt had
concluded that their daughter would be bourgeoise in the extreme.
She had expected a short, dumpy girl, with big wrists and red hands,
and saw instead a reflection, as it were, from the days of her own
girlhood. A storm of grief and regret swept through the passionate
heart that years of worldliness had been unable to entirely chill, and
a resolution to make Catherine’s life as full and happy as her own
had been empty and desolate filled her mind. But her manner was still
distant and repellant; she could not easily throw aside her reserve
or give play at once to the instincts of tenderness that had been
distorted and diverted all her life.

But as the days wore on the two grew nearer and nearer to one another.
Catherine’s sore and wounded heart, still bleeding from the effort of
her great sacrifice, found wonderful solace in the care and attention
she lavished on her aunt. The absolute necessity of some object of
solicitude and tenderness is more obvious to most women than the desire
for a particular lover. If Catherine had felt that Granville had any
need of her she would not have run away from him; the liberty to love
was far more to her than the desire for his devotion to herself.
But that brief experience had wonderfully deepened and expanded her
character. Before that, she would have viewed her aunt’s idiosyncrasies
with some contempt and treated them with impatient forbearance. Now
a great flood of pity filled her soul for this unhappy woman, who
had wrecked her life by her own self-will, and yet bore the result
with such unexampled fortitude. And Cicely, on the other hand, found
that after all she had not forgotten how to love. After the tragedy
of her youth she had made the repression of her emotions her great
end; naturally ardent, she had striven to show the world an impassive
and indifferent countenance: now, on the brink of dissolution, the
long-suppressed fire burst forth. She was more like the Cicely of her
youth than she had been for forty years.

Her tenderness manifested itself in a hundred ways. She had made
Catherine, immediately after her arrival, send in the resignation of
her post; and though the girl remonstrated with her, and lamented her
loss of independence, she only replied that she could not possibly do
without her, and that it was her plain duty to remain where she was.
But the head mistress was travelling in Norway, so that the letter did
not reach her at once, and was forwarded from place to place in pursuit
of her. Catherine knew that if Granville or Margaret should wish to
find her, they would at once apply at the address on the visiting
card that she had given the latter—the address of her rooms. She
was, therefore, careful to avoid telling the landlady where she had
gone, sending directions to have her few belongings forwarded to the
cloak-room at Victoria, whence they were afterwards despatched to her.
In this way she thought she had concealed her retreat, at least for
the present. For the discovery of a rich aunt had not at all altered
Catherine’s sentiments or caused her to regret her resolution. She was
quite as sure as Margaret that Granville’s interests could best be
advanced by a marriage with Lady Blanche, and, in spite of his note,
was by no means convinced of his attachment to herself. The idea that
in the event of her aunt’s death she would be the probable heiress had
not occurred to her, nor did she realise what this might mean, till one
evening about a fortnight after her arrival, when the two women were
sitting together in the twilight.

Catherine had been playing softly on the piano, and now she sat at the
window, gazing over the darkening sea with eyes that obviously saw
nothing. She did not know that her aunt’s keen glance was fixed upon
her face, and suddenly she gave a little sigh.

“What are you thinking of, my dear?” said the old lady.

Catherine crimsoned, for, to tell the truth, she had been reviewing for
the thousandth time that episode on the mountain-side. She hesitated,
and then answered—

“Oh, about a great many things.”

“Catherine,” asked her aunt again, “have you ever had a lover?”

“Oh, what makes you ask?” said the girl, swift waves of colour chasing
each other from her white forehead to her slender neck.

“That means, I suppose, that you have. I thought that sigh could not be
for nothing.”

“No, indeed,” stammered the girl, “really I haven’t—at least, I
suppose—I don’t think——”

“My dear, I am sure there is somebody. You must not think me very
prying and inquisitive, but I insist on knowing the particulars.”

Catherine grew indignant.

“You have no right; and besides, there is nothing to tell.”

“Pardon me, I have a right,” said her aunt. “Do you not understand that
I have left all my property to you, that you will be a very rich woman,
and that I have some interest in knowing on whom the responsibility
of the management will devolve? Come, my dear, imagine that I am your
mother, and that no one cares more for your happiness than I. Did it
happen in Switzerland?”

And so at last, by dint of many questions and suggestions, she drew out
Catherine’s little story.

“Well, my dear,” she said, when it was finished, and Catherine’s
shoulders were shaking in a storm of sobs on her lap, “I must say
that I think you have behaved very foolishly, although I appreciate
your motives. You should at least have given him the opportunity of a
definite declaration.”

“But I don’t believe that he really cares; it was only a momentary
impulse, perhaps, and besides, how could I help him? And Margaret, at
any rate, suspected that he cared for someone else.”

“But his letter afterwards—you say he was a gentleman?”

“Of course!” cried Catherine, indignant at the insinuation.

“Then it is most probable that he was in earnest. How absurd girls are!
To risk the happiness of your whole life for a sentimental idea! Now
what you must do, and at once, is to write to his sister, and enclose
your address.”

“Aunt Cicely!” exclaimed Catherine angrily.

“Yes, why not?”

“Don’t you see that it would undo all that I have already
accomplished? He would be sure to hear, and it would be like asking him
to come to me!”

“And what of that? He would probably be only too glad. And remember
that you are a better match now. If he cared for you when you were a
little insignificant governess, without any connexions as far as he
knew, he would care much more now you are my acknowledged heiress.”

“It is too bad to say that! He is not at all that kind of man. Why,
Margaret told me that it was only her money that stood between him and
Lord Mayne’s sister.”

Aunt Cicely smiled wisely. Catherine’s warmth was merely a further
revelation of the state of her feelings. “At least, you must do as I
wish in this matter. You must certainly write to Miss Gray,” she said
decidedly.

“I cannot—I dare not—I will not!” returned the girl with equal emphasis.

Aunt Cicely grew angry. Her will had been so long dominant that
she could not brook opposition. And in proportion to her increased
determination, Catherine’s defiance became more and more resolute. It
was the battle of two wills, and the girl had herself scarcely realised
till then how strong her own could be.

At last her aunt moved away, her whole frame shaking with indignation,
and tottered towards the door; but as she reached it, she turned, and,
lifting her hand, exclaimed—

“Remember! From this time you are disinherited! Not a penny of my money
shall ever reach you!”

Catherine drew herself up with girlish dignity. “I have given you no
right to speak like that,” she said. “I have never shown any desire
for your money. I was independent of your favour before, and I can be
independent again.”

The door closed, and Catherine sank exhausted into an arm-chair. But
when the first impulse of resentment had subsided, she began to have
regrets. After all, her aunt was an old woman, and however irritating
she might be, her age entitled her to forbearance. And she was ill and
suffering, and any excitement was bad for her. Catherine dried her
eyes, and ran lightly upstairs to the old lady’s room. She tapped at
the door, but received no response: and after waiting a long time she
concluded that her aunt’s resentment was still unabated, and crept
miserably to bed.

Aunt Cicely, tossing uneasily to and fro, was not less remorseful.
But she was still convinced that her advice was sound, and that the
girl should have taken it. After all, had she not the experience of
a lifetime to guide her? Reviewing her brilliant girlhood and the
long years of desolation and loneliness that had resulted from her
own foolish pride, she resolved emphatically that another life should
not be sacrificed in the same manner. If Catherine would not take the
necessary steps to bring about an understanding, she would take them
herself. She had known Lord Mayne’s father, and had followed the son’s
career with much interest. She could use her knowledge of the family
and introduce herself to the latter, from whom she would, no doubt, be
able to learn all that was necessary about his secretary. And if she
approved of him, she did not doubt that she would be able to bring the
match about. She waited impatiently for the morning, and at six o’clock
rang for her maid.

“I must go to London by the 7.30 train,” she said. “Tell Wilkins to
have the brougham ready in an hour. And don’t disturb Miss Catherine.
She was up late last night, so you might take some breakfast to her at
nine o’clock. Now help me to dress.”

(_To be concluded._)

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: A DREAMY AFTERNOON.]

       *       *       *       *       *




SHEILA’S COUSIN EFFIE.

A STORY FOR GIRLS.

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


CHAPTER XVI.

UNDER A CLOUD.

“It comes to this, Oscar. I myself believe in you. You have been
careless, easy-going, lax, but I have full faith in your integrity.
Yet it comes to this: you will have to make up your mind to be under a
cloud for the present. Without some sort of proof it would be useless
to drag in Cyril’s name. With pain I say to you that I myself greatly
fear the sin does lie at Cyril’s door. But with your memory uncertain,
and his absolute denial of being concerned in the matter, it seems
hopeless to seek to bring it home. It would be a source of bitterness
at home, and would almost break my mother’s heart.”

“I would much rather bear the blame myself than that that should
happen,” said Oscar in a broken voice; but North made a little
impatient gesture.

“Don’t take it like that,” he said. “I have no patience with one
person bearing blame for another—the innocent for the guilty, letting
the scamp go off free—when he could be caught. But in this case there
seems at present no way of getting at him. I don’t want to say harsh
things of my own brother, but I have had one or two shocks with regard
to him during these past six months, and that is why I do not find it
difficult to regard him as the culprit. But you are not without blame,
Oscar. I cannot acquit you, though I shall never believe that you had
any hand in the abduction of the money. You haven’t it in you. But you
ought to take your duties to yourself and others more seriously; and
when money is entrusted to you, nothing should ever induce you to place
it in any hands but those for whom it was given you. It is a breach of
trust, whether you think of it in that light or not.”

Oscar was very humble; he had talked the whole matter out with North,
and had kept back nothing. It had been an immense relief to him, and he
was deeply grateful for the faith reposed in him by his cousin. North
believed in him; he shared his fear that Cyril was the real defaulter,
yet he did not see, as things now stood, how it could be brought home
to him; and for Oscar to seem to try and shelter himself behind a vague
accusation brought against his own kinsman seemed a most undesirable
line of action. Oscar was almost relieved not to be forced to take it.
With his temperament it seemed easier to bear odium and suspicion than
to try and fasten them upon others.

“You must leave the matter in my hands,” said North, after a long
silence. “I will see my father and make the best I can out of the case.
It’s a serious bit of business, look at it as you will. And if he
acquits you of any embezzlement, he must perforce know that there is
somebody else not to be trusted in his employ. It will be hard on you
all, Oscar; and it will be a part of your punishment to know that this
difficulty could not have arisen but for your easy-going ways, of which
I have warned you before.”

“Yes,” answered Oscar, “I can see now how wrong I have been. I deserve
to suffer. But I hope nobody else will fall under suspicion. The other
fellows in the office have really nothing to do with it. I am as
certain as possible that——”

“Yes, yes, I know; and, Oscar, I shall not let the matter rest without
trying to get at the real truth. And my father is too just a man to
believe any person guilty without proof. But his confidence in your
trustworthiness must be in some sort shaken. I do not believe he will
think you have robbed him, but he must think that by your carelessness
you have allowed him to be robbed, and, indeed, Oscar, whether Cyril be
the defaulter or not, it is in a way the truth.”

Oscar winced, but he accepted the rebuke humbly. North sat silent
awhile staring into the fire, and then said thoughtfully and rather
gravely—

“But I shall not let the matter rest there. I shall do my utmost to
unravel the mystery. We have one possible chance. My father has the
numbers of the bank-notes. They may be difficult to trace after this
lapse of time, but it is possible we may be able to hear something of
them.”

“And you will try—even though—it might be—Cyril?”

“Of course I shall try,” answered North. “Do you think I want others
to bear the blame, even though the real defaulter may be a brother?
Besides, Oscar, if it is true, as I sometimes fear, that Cyril is
getting into dangerous company and dangerous ways, do you believe that
it is true kindness to seek to shelter him at the expense of truth?
Discovery and exposure at the outset have been the saving of many a
young man in like circumstances. I don’t know whether you know anything
about Cyril’s goings on just now, but I have an impression that he
is getting amongst a set of betting and racing men, and that these
frequent journeys to London, ostensibly to read at the British Museum,
have in reality a very different object.”

“I know very little about Cyril now,” answered Oscar. “He was friendly
at first, and used to invite me to go about with him, but latterly I
have been busy; and I found too much card-playing among his friends for
my taste—or my pocket. For several months I have seen very little of
him.”

North’s mouth looked set and grim.

“If he is taking to play, and attending race meetings, as I fear, it
would easily account for his desire for money, although my father has
been liberal to him; and I know he has given him extra help latterly,
believing it to go in fees or something for this law reading. I hope I
do not wrong Cyril when I express strong doubts whether the bulk of it
is used for such purposes at all.”

Oscar saw by all this that North was seriously disturbed about his
brother, and he was able to understand then why it was that he had from
the first been disposed to think Cyril might have had a hand in the
abduction of the money. It was a comfort to him to feel that North’s
trust in him was not shaken, but he knew that he had a bad time before
him both at home and in the office.

Nor was he mistaken. That a sum of forty pounds and over had been made
away with, and a counterfeit receipt given for it, were facts there was
no blinking. And it was known that Oscar had received the money, and
could give no satisfactory account of what he had done with it.

His fellow-clerks, with whom he was popular, did not suspect him of
theft, but concluded he had been swindled by some fellow at Jones and
Wright’s.

“He is so easy-going, he’d never notice or care so long as he got any
sort of receipt,” they said one to the other; but Oscar knew he had
never paid the money over, and disliked the thought that blame should
attach to anybody through him.

His uncle said very little to him, but his manner became more cold and
formal; and before long a new confidential clerk was introduced in the
place of Curtis, Mr. Tom remarking in the hearing of the junior clerks—

“I had hoped not to fill that place, but to let the younger men already
here have the chance of working up to it; but I find it does not do to
be without an experienced and trustworthy head.”

Of Cyril Oscar saw almost nothing for a whole week. He went off to
London, with the excuse of his law studies, and did not return till the
talk about the lost money had pretty well blown over.

Oscar begged his uncle to take the forty pounds from his own small
fortune, held in trust till his majority, now quickly approaching,
but he had only received an ambiguous reply to his request. His aunt
continued to treat him kindly, but he could feel the difference in her
manner, and Raby was rather inclined to ignore him altogether.

“It is so very disagreeable to have to talk about one’s family,” she
said. “Of course everybody knows something unpleasant has happened, and
I have had to tell the Bensons all about it. Lionel thinks Oscar had
much better be shipped off to the Colonies; I almost wish father would
get him away from here. It’s so disagreeable having him always about.
One does not like to be unkind, but one can’t trust him or like him.”

That was how Raby felt, and showed it in her manner. She was of course
much influenced by what the Bensons thought, and they naturally
concluded that Oscar was guilty.

“Lots of young fellows get into hobbles, and then make a grand
fiasco getting out,” Lionel had said. “I know Oscar got amongst some
card-playing fellows once. Cyril does too, for that matter; but Cyril
can afford it, he has plenty of money. Most likely Oscar got into a
hole, and was tempted to get out of it by hook or by crook as he could.
But I think it’s a mistake his staying on here. He’d be happier and do
better in a fresh place. That’s my opinion, if you want it.”

Nobody but Raby did particularly want it. She, however, took her cue
from Lionel, and she somewhat influenced her mother, and altogether
Oscar’s present life was not a very happy one. He did his best to be
patient and cheerful, and strove hard to conquer the tendency in his
temperament which had been the indirect cause of all this trouble.

North was uniformly kind and encouraging, and showed him that his
efforts were not unobserved, and he had his brighter days also in
between the dark ones; as when Ray once asked him to drive her across
to spend Saturday afternoon with May Lawrence, and talked to him quite
pleasantly and freely the whole way.

It was a delightful change to him to get right away from the town and
its associations, and May was pleased to see them, asked innumerable
questions about Sheila, and wished she could be out in such a beautiful
place and climate.

Rather to the surprise of Ray and Oscar, though apparently not to that
of their young hostess herself, North walked in about tea-time, and was
very cordially received by May.

From their talk they were evidently on excellent terms, and it was
plain that it was no unusual thing for North to spend his free
afternoon here, though his family knew nothing of his movements except
that he always took a long walk on Saturday afternoons.

He left before his sister, as he preferred walking to the back seat of
the little phaeton; and when he was gone May said with something rather
like enthusiasm—

“I do think there is something very fine about your brother, Ray; he is
so different from most of the young men one sees. He has such a lot to
do and think of. Life is all work with him and not play. I don’t mean
just money-getting. He wants to make things thrive, of course; but he
wants just as much to do good to the work-people and teach them to live
better lives and care for higher things. I’m so tremendously interested
in it all. I suppose you do a lot to help him?”

Ray rather stared and then laughed.

“I think North must talk more to you than he does at home. I know he
has some hobbies of his own, and spends a lot of evenings at the club
and lecture-room; but I don’t know much about the details. North isn’t
much of a one to talk.”

“He talks a good bit to me,” said May. “It’s awfully interesting. If I
were his sister I should want to do a lot. He always speaks of you as
his favourite sister, Ray.”

Ray coloured with pleasure, for North was decidedly her hero, although
she did not know so very much about the way in which his spare time was
spent. Like many men who work hard in one groove, North was reticent at
home of his doings, and even to Ray he only spoke rather vaguely of the
plans and projects in his mind. Working, not talking, was distinctly
North’s forte, and Ray wondered how it had come to pass that May had
broken down his reserve and won his confidence.

“I thought it was Cyril who came here to talk—not North,” she said.
“Cyril always speaks as though he were very intimate here.”

May slightly tossed her head, and her lip curled; she seemed about to
speak rather scornfully, but recollecting herself she answered quietly—

“Cyril does not come very often now, and I think his talk is more
interesting to himself than to other people, for it is mostly about
himself. I hope you don’t mind my saying that much, Ray; but indeed it
is true.”

“Oh, I know!” answered Ray, laughing good-temperedly. “We all know that
Cyril is a bit of a poser, or whatever you call it. But I think our
confidence in him as a hero got rather a shock on one occasion. It’s
not the fashion at home to poke fun at Cyril; but I’m sure other people
must laugh at him often!”

Ray laughed as she spoke, and May joined in; the two girls were very
fairly intimate by this time, for May had never dropped her friends
in the town since those summer days when the friendship had grown and
flourished.

“She is a nice girl,” said Ray, as she and Oscar drove away. “I once
began to think I might have her for a sister-in-law, but I don’t think
that is going to come off. Indeed, I almost hope not! Cyril is not half
good enough for her!”

Oscar was silent; the subject of Cyril was painful to him. Ray glanced
at him, and then said suddenly—

“Oscar, North has told me something about how things stand; he has told
me more than the rest know. I have an awful fear that Cyril is worse
than any of us have ever thought! Sometimes I am quite miserable about
it, and you getting the blame in a way. It is too bad!”

“I think people have been very kind to me,” said Oscar slowly, “and we
do not know anything against Cyril.”

“We know he was a coward once, and told a lie to screen himself! That
was quite bad enough. Oscar, I sometimes feel that a man who could do
all that could do much worse if the temptation were strong enough.
North says the same.”

“North is a very generous fellow—a very fine fellow!” cried Oscar, with
sudden enthusiasm; “and I hope he is going to get his reward—some day!”

“His reward? What do you mean?” asked Ray quickly.

“Didn’t it come into your head to-day? It did into mine. I think Miss
Lawrence may be, perhaps, your sister-in-law still!”

“Oh,” cried Ray, with wide-open eyes, “do you really think so? I never
thought of such a thing! Yet really it might be. But what _would_ Cyril
say?”

(_To be continued._)




DIET IN REASON AND IN MODERATION.

BY “THE NEW DOCTOR.”


PART I.

THE BREAKFAST.

The subject of “diet and digestion” is a well-worn theme, and more
books and papers are written upon this than upon any other medical
subject.

But though the tale is old, there are variations and embellishments
which are quite new; and it is in an original manner that we wish to
speak to you on this old but oft-forgotten subject of physiological
diet.

We are going to teach you health from the kitchen and dining-room, two
of the most important sources of human suffering, and the chief sources
of income of the physician.

For it is in the kitchen that indigestion begins, and if your cook
is faultless, and rightly understands her business, you will not get
indigestion, save through your own indiscretions in the dining-room.

It is commonly supposed that the chief fault in diet is eating to
excess, that is, violation of the laws of moderation. But this is not
the commonest mistake, for in most cases where too much food is eaten,
it is from faulty methods of eating, and from taking unsuitable food.

The Americans suffer from indigestion more than do any other people
in the world; the French suffer perhaps the least. Yet the average
Frenchman eats more than the Yankee, but he has made a science of
feeding, and notwithstanding that he eats more than the American, he
eats it better and more rationally, and therefore his organs digest it
more rapidly.

You think it is disgusting to make a science of feeding—pandering to
one of the lowest of pleasures? No, you are mistaken; the science is
not only just, it is necessary for health. Of course, if your science
consists in elaborating dishes to tickle your appetite, to enable you
to eat more than you need, it is very wrong. But here it is not science
which is to blame, but the person who abuses science.

As soon as we are down in the morning we think of our stomachs, of
our breakfast. It is no good telling us that it is irrational to eat
breakfast; that as we have done no work yet we need no nourishment;
for we thoroughly disbelieve in this argument. It is much better for
everyone to take something at breakfast-time, but whether she should
make a good square meal at breakfast, and take but a small luncheon,
or just pick a little something at breakfast, and make a good meal at
midday, depends entirely upon what she is used to.

Many persons take a little fruit before breakfast, and it is not at all
a bad plan, for fruit is the natural and best aperient. Because of the
difficulty of obtaining fruit and vegetables many of us Londoners eat
too much meat, which is very wrong, for excessive meat-eating brings
many diseases in its train.

All fruits are not equally digestible, and some kinds are so difficult
to digest that they should only be taken by those who are in robust
health. All stone-fruit, especially cherries, and all nuts are very
indigestible. Fruit is always best when it is picked just before it is
eaten, and those who possess the luxury of an orchard or country garden
of their own should eat a little fruit from the trees, in the season,
every morning before breakfast, when the combination of the fresh fruit
and the crisp morning air will do much to brace up the system for the
day.

Unripe fruit is no favourite with the stomach, and it may produce
severe griping and colic. Much more injurious is over-ripe or
decomposing fruit, a very common cause of so-called English cholera.

Certain persons have peculiar idiosyncrasies for certain fruits,
especially for strawberries, and at the beginning of the strawberry
season attacks of nettle-rash accompanied with severe indigestion, due
to eating the fruit, are extremely common.

Now let us go to breakfast. There are plenty of things to choose from;
only think a little beforehand, and have some reason for your choice.

Here is the menu:—

    Tea, Coffee, Cocoa, Milk.
        Rolls and Butter.
        Oatmeal Porridge.
         Eggs and Bacon.
           Fried Fish.
            Bloaters.
           Marmalade.

What will you take to drink? “Oh, tea is so indigestible, coffee is so
bitter, cocoa is so unrefreshing, and milk swarms with tubercle germs!
So give me any that you like.” Why? Is this the science of dieting? Who
has prepared this meal, that she serves up tea that is indigestible,
coffee that is bitter, and milk that swarms with tubercle bacilli? Give
her notice at once, and prepare the drinks for yourself; or rather,
bring us the necessary implements, and we will show you how to prepare
tea that is not indigestible, and milk that is quite free from germs.

There is a great deal of nonsense talked about the indigestibility
of tea. That tea as it is usually served is an indigestible and
highly nauseating decoction we readily admit; and also that if it is
indulged in to excess at all hours of the day, as it is by so many
poor seamstresses, it is injurious to the “nerves.” But in moderation,
properly made tea is as digestible as any hot liquid can be, and is
infinitely more readily digested than any of the numerous substitutes
which have been introduced to supersede it.

This is the way to make tea. What is this? A silver tea-pot!
Take it away and sell it, and buy a brown earthenware one for
fivepence-halfpenny. No good tea was ever made in a silver pot. Which
tea shall we have—Indian, Ceylon, or China? China undoubtedly, for
though it is much weaker than Indian tea it contains very much less
tannin, which is the indigestible ingredient of tea.

We are afraid that you must take the kettle back to the fire and boil
the water again, for while we have been talking the water has got
cooled, and tea must never be made with water that is not boiling,
because it readily dissolves the tannin but leaves the caffeine—to
which the stimulating property of tea is due—behind.

Now we will pour the boiling water over the tea and leave it to draw
for one minute only before pouring it into the cups.

“But it is so weak, I can see the bottom of the cup through it.” Quite
right; so you should. The caffeine and the flavour of the leaves are
instantly diffused into the boiling water. If you leave the tea to draw
for some minutes, excess of the tannin is dissolved, which precipitates
the caffeine and renders the tea indigestible and unrefreshing.

And the deepening of the colour. What do you think causes that? Dirt
and extractives, materials far better left behind with the leaves with
which to sweep the carpet.

Milk must be boiled the moment it enters the house. Infected milk is so
common and so readily infects those that drink it, that it is a serious
mistake not to sterilise it at once.

No milk should be put upon the table which has not been boiled. Boiling
kills all bacteria; it therefore kills the germs of typhoid fever and
tuberculosis which are very commonly found in milk. Indeed, milk is one
of the commonest agents by which these two diseases are spread. There
are numerous milk boilers in the market, notably those of earthenware
with holes in the lid, through which the milk can flow to and fro when
in the act of boiling.

What will you take to eat? But in the first place it is no good sitting
down to eat solids unless you have good teeth. Bad teeth and absence of
teeth are two of the commonest causes of indigestion.

Decayed teeth cause indigestion, because they swarm with germs which
secrete poisons which are swallowed with the food and irritate the
stomach.

Absence of teeth is the commonest of all causes of lifelong dyspepsia,
and the first step in the treatment of any form of long-continued
indigestion should be a visit to the dentist.

Also it is no good having sound teeth unless you use them. Teeth were
given to you to chew with, and you must chew every morsel of food, and
chew it well, giving at least twenty “grinds” to each mouthful.

It is bolting food which causes so much indigestion. It is bolting
which causes so many persons to eat too much, and it is bolting which
has rendered the go-ahead Yankee the proverbial martyr to dyspepsia.

If you eat slowly, and thoroughly masticate your food, you will lose
your appetite when you have eaten enough, and so you will not eat too
much without knowing it. But if you shovel in your food like pitching
bricks into a cart, the stomach is nonplussed, and you may go on eating
and still be hungry long after you have taken sufficient food; and
you will not know that you have eaten too much until your unfortunate
stomach attempts to digest its contents.

Now back again to our _menu_. Eggs and bacon is perhaps the commonest
breakfast dish in England. And a thoroughly good and wholesome dish
it is, too, if properly cooked. Of course if the eggs are stale and
the bacon is half raw and swimming in grease, it is indigestible; but
properly cooked fresh eggs—preferably poached and underdone—and crisp
grilled bacon is a very digestible food. It is curious that although
pork is one of the most indigestible of meats, bacon is tolerated by
the most delicate and disordered stomachs.

Fried fish is another excellent breakfast dish. Whiting, soles and
plaice are the three most digestible of fried fish. Herrings and eels
are bilious and difficult to digest.

Hot rolls and butter are proverbially indigestible. But our close
wool-like bread is far more difficult to digest than the light, more
glutinous _bâtons_ of the French breakfast. Indeed, these light rolls,
consisting of little more than holes stuck together, are not so very
indigestible. Why we cannot get them in England we do not know.

Oatmeal is the national breakfast dish of the Scotch. The Highlander
makes his meal of oatmeal before his long day in the open air. The
English lord, when he goes deer-stalking in the Grampians, also takes
oatmeal for his breakfast, and finds it a wholesome and sustaining
food. But when he returns to Mayfair, he would no more think of eating
oatmeal for breakfast than he would dine off sawdust.

The Scotch brag greatly about the value of oatmeal as a diet, and they
would persuade us Londoners that oatmeal is the best breakfast dish
we can take. But when we say that it makes us heavy, and gives us
indigestion, they always answer, “That is because you do not make it
properly.” But that is not the reason. Oatmeal is a very nutritious
food, but it is not easily digested; and so, although the Scotch
peasant likes it, and can digest it because of his outdoor life and
laborious occupation, the Londoner, with his sedentary life in a smoky
city, cannot digest it. And for him it is an unsuitable diet.

Last and least as regards expense, but most important from the numbers
who eat it, is the homely bloater.

Dried fish is not very easy to digest, but is highly nutritious and
is cheap. And when you can get nutritious food at a cheap rate, you
must expect to give a little extra trouble to digest it. Smoked salmon
is far and away the worst form of dried fish. It is much the most
indigestible, it is very expensive, and it is not really half so tasty
as a kipper.

A little bread and marmalade forms a pleasant end to the breakfast.
But what does this mean—“Good-bye, I am so glad to have had breakfast
with you, but I must rush off to catch my train, as I have to be in the
City by 9.30 A.M.” What! Running to catch a train immediately after a
meal? Then in future you had better belong to that class that eats no
breakfast. Better have an empty stomach than a full one which you will
not allow yourself to digest.

(_To be continued._)




OLD ENGLISH COTTAGE HOMES;

OR,

VILLAGE ARCHITECTURE OF BYGONE TIMES.


PART X.

THE VILLAGE INN.

[Illustration: VILLAGE INN AT WINGHAM.]

Those who recollect “coaching times” can alone realise the idea of a
“village inn.” Railways have created “country hotels,” but the modern
hotel is so different from the old-fashioned inn that it gives one
little idea of the kind of hostelry at which our fathers broke their
journeys when going from London to York, Norwich, or Bristol. Possibly
the attendance was none of the best and the accommodation not all that
could be desired, yet they had somehow or other a charm about them.
They were homely and not luxurious, and the company was decidedly
mixed, yet there was more good-fellowship and kindly feeling among the
guests than can be found in the modern hotel. Of course, we speak alone
of country inns and hotels. Some of our new London hotels are quite
what is wanted in a large busy town, and are distinctly an advance
upon the metropolitan hotel of our grandfathers’ day. But everyone who
recollects travelling by coach has a kindly corner in his heart for
the old roadside inn. How briskly everyone got down from the coach
when the landlord advanced from the porch of the cheery old building,
or the pleasant-looking landlady came to the door, with her pretty
and healthy-looking daughters, to welcome the ladies. There might, of
course, be some bilious old gentleman or cantankerous old lady amongst
the arrivals, but the cheerfulness of the scene and the healthy
appetite generally pacified even these unamiable folks.

[Illustration: A VILLAGE INN, ALFRISTON, SUSSEX.]

What friendships were made, and who does not remember some pleasant
act of kindness connected with the old inn? One of the earliest
recollections of my life is of such an act.

I was a child, and was being taken down to Norfolk to be put to school.
We sat down to dinner, my father on one side of me and a strange, but
very gentle, married lady on the other. My father got very interested
in a conversation with another clergyman on “dangers threatening the
Church.” I felt miserable, frightened, and ready to cry when a sweet
voice whispered in my ear, “What is the matter, my little man? Ah, I
see your hands are cold and you cannot cut up your dinner.” So she
took my hands and warmed them in her own fair palms. After a minute
she addressed me again. “Why, my dear child, you don’t seem to be at
your ease even now.” I was too silly or shy to tell her what was the
matter (and perhaps a little bit ashamed), but her quick woman’s wit
soon found out what was wrong. I saw her whisper to one of the girls
who were waiting, and very quickly a _child’s_ knife and fork were
placed before me. I had never before handled a large knife and fork.
How grateful I felt to that kind and thoughtful lady. I never saw her
again; and although it is more than half a century since this act of
kindness was done, I shall never forget either her or it.

Now, recollections of this kind seem to cling around old-fashioned
inns. And what quaint-looking buildings they were, with their
projecting bow windows, long low rooms, and great beams supporting the
front externally and the ceiling internally.

Few indeed of these old village inns now remain, but we give two,
one from Alfriston in Sussex, and the other from Wingham in Kent.
The former is an excellent example of Tudor work, half timbered
construction, with wooden mullions, bow windows, and doorways, with a
most curious fragment of a sign representing a dragon preserved at one
corner. Since we made this sketch the building has, we believe, been
restored, but we trust the old dragon has survived. The roof is covered
with thin slabs of stone called “shingles,” not an uncommon kind of
roofing in neighbourhoods where stone is cheap and plentiful.

The other inn, which we have sketched at Wingham, Kent, is a very
remarkable building, portions of which certainly date from the
fourteenth century. The great roof, which is visible from the upper
rooms, is very interesting, and seems at one time to have formed a
kind of hall undivided from end to end (the porch with its bow windows
above it is a charming feature). Possibly it may have been a primitive
concert room, and resounded with those sweet old English madrigals of
Bird, Dowland, and Orlando Gibbons.

There is a fine old Gothic inn at Glastonbury with a front of entirely
cut stone, and the picturesque old “King’s Head” at Chigwell, the
original of Dickens’s “Maypole” in _Barnaby Rudge_, is a good example
of the Stuart period.

The bishops and clergy of various denominations who have started “The
People’s Refreshment House Association, Limited,” have no doubt the
idea of replacing the ordinary village “public-house” by something
more nearly resembling the old “hostelrie,” in fact, of replacing the
mere drinking-shop by an establishment where rational refreshment can
be obtained by those who require it, and should they succeed in their
enterprise they will earn the thanks of all thinking people and be
doing a good work in the cause of temperance.

    H. W. BREWER.

(_To be continued._)




CHRONICLES OF AN ANGLO-CALIFORNIAN RANCH.

BY MARGARET INNES.


CHAPTER IX.

MORE ABOUT THE CHINAMEN.

One man I remember especially among these, who led us a fine dance! He
was a tall, thin, intellectual-looking fellow, with a handsome but most
cruel face. Some friends from a distance had sent us word that they
were coming over for the day, and I had provided a turkey for dinner.
All that I could prepare beforehand had been done. Dinner was to be at
one o’clock, and I began to be uneasy as the time passed, and I knew
the turkey to be lying white and cold and unstuffed upon the kitchen
table. It was dangerous ground to seem to interfere, or advise much,
and I had already twice said, and the last time with emphasis, that the
dinner must be punctual and the turkey well done. After anxious and
secret family consultations, however, as the time grew very late, and
I knew the great white thing to be still lying on the kitchen table, I
went in and told him that he must get the turkey into the oven at once.
He made no reply, and went on perfectly quietly with some unimportant
job; I waited a moment, and still getting no reply, I repeated my
order, adding, “Do you hear, Wong?”

Then he looked round at me, with a leer on his handsome face, and still
gave no answer. “Dinner is at one,” I said, trying to keep quiet. “When
will that turkey be ready?”

After a moment of silent laughter, when I could see his back shaking,
he said, “Turkey leady allie lightie to-mollow, not cookie him
to-day—no time!” Then his back shook again, as he bent over his bit of
work.

I confess I did not know how to deal with this. Nowadays, in such a
plight, I should storm and get very angry, and try to frighten him, for
they are all cowards. But I was too uncertain then, and our friends
were due directly, and I did not dare risk anything.

However, the end of it was, dinner was just a little late, but to our
amazement everything was beautifully cooked and served, and there was
no sign of that alarming mood in the grave alert man who waited on us.

I had not then realised how marvellously quick they are; what seeming
impossibilities they can accomplish without effort, slip-slopping about
in their loose, heelless little shoes with apparently tireless steps.
They are very methodical and orderly, and no doubt this is the secret
of their quickness. They certainly get through a great deal of work,
and with ease too, and have plenty of leisure besides.

One man we had always spent his leisure in sleep. He disappeared
regularly after the washing-up of the midday dinner. It was only by
chance that we discovered where he took his siesta. One of us went to
fetch something from the “cool” cellar we had dug for ourselves, and
of which we were very proud, and were startled to find a white figure
lying prostrate, stretched across three empty lemon boxes, in the
middle of the floor.

So that was where Quong disappeared to, and that was why at times the
cellar was locked and the key gone, as we had noticed once or twice.
I did not tell the rest of the family so, but I believe he also made
his Chinese toilet there, combing his pigtail, and generally setting
himself in order all among the milk-pans, and the butter, and the tarts!

He explained, smiling and unmoved, that it was “welly cool, welly nice
for rest there.” However, we said he must not sleep there any more.

Most Chinamen are wonderfully clever gardeners, especially delighting
in growing vegetables; and when once that nimble white figure is seen
busy at work in the kitchen garden, one may pick up some hope that the
new cook will quietly settle down in his new place, for some months
at least, and that the charms of the gambling houses and opium dens
of Chinatown will fade from his mind for a little while. Our present
man, who is a capital servant, has rejoiced our hearts lately by
making himself very busy in the kitchen garden. Knowing what contrary
creatures they are, always doing the opposite of what one expects, we
try to “rejoice with moderation,” as an old friend used to advise; but,
after all, why not enjoy one’s pleasure with a free heart, and to the
full, while it lasts?

We have never done admiring and wondering at the way our present
cook, Yung, does his gardening, accomplishing so much, and in such
a curiously casual way, popping out between-whiles in his little
embroidered velvet shoes, and finishing each time some fresh piece of
work in a masterly fashion.

Then besides the hope in one’s mind that this interest will bind him to
his place for a time, there is the thrilling expectation of some day
eating these same vegetables. One has to live on a ranch, out of reach
of Chinese vegetable carts, to know how pleasant that prospect seems.

The first years of a ranch demand so much work for the trees, and all
the business connected with the ranch itself is so pressing, that even
if a kitchen garden is made at once, as in our case, the vegetables get
such poor attention that they are of very little use. Nothing grows
here without the closest tending; but with constant care the growth is
like a fairy tale. However, very few ranchers find time for vegetables
in the first years, at any rate.

Some Chinamen, too, are great readers, and bring with them quite a
library of small paper-backed Chinese books. I asked one of these
studious ones if they were the books of Confucius that he was reading
so diligently, at which he seemed much amused, grinning and shaking his
head.

After our fatiguing time of domestic troubles, when the winter season
was over, and San Miguel was once more the half empty, easy-going
little town, and good Chinamen were ready to take even a place in the
country, we got quite a passable cook, bad tempered, however, and very
rough in his ways at such times. But we were thankful to have the work
done fairly well, on any terms, and we pretended not to notice his
almost brutal manner.

I had been warned again and again by friends who had long experience
in dealing with Chinamen, not to interfere at all, but to leave things
entirely to them. So long as the work is fairly well done and things
are clean, what does the rest matter? Most of them are by no means
extravagant or wasteful, as servants go; but if such a one should fall
to your lot, you may as well dismiss him at once, for you will never
persuade him to make the least change. They are so exceedingly stubborn
that interference, if it does no harm, is little likely to do any
good. In most cases where a change is demanded, they will say “allie
lightie,” and go on doing their own way.

As I myself do the choosing and buying of the meat, I also go through
the form of ordering how it shall be cooked and prepared for each meal.
If my orders accord with his Celestial ideas, they are carried out, and
if not, they are not. And that is the end of it. He always serves up
something nice, and does not waste, which is surely good enough for any
reasonable being.

I confess I do resent a little the half covert smile with which I am
received in the morning when I go into the kitchen to give these bogus
orders; but I brazen it out, and struggle through the form with the
best dignity I can.

One lady friend, when advising me never to interfere about the work,
told me of a striking experience she had before she learnt her lesson.

She kept a large boarding-school for girls, and employed a number of
Chinamen. The cook, being a very capable and respectable fellow, was
the acknowledged head over the others, engaging them and dismissing
them on his own responsibility. That was the plan which she had found
the best, and as long as he was satisfied, all worked as smoothly as a
machine, for he belonged, as most of them do, to some secret society,
and whether he was a “high binder,” as seemed likely, or not, they
feared and obeyed him as they would never have feared or obeyed her.

One unlucky day, however, she took it into her head to go into the
kitchen and prepare some small thing which he had cooked once or twice
in a manner that did not please her. She had told him that she did not
like it so, but next time it was served in just the same fashion, and
she was annoyed. She went bravely into her own kitchen, and prepared
it as she liked, leaving him in quiet possession as soon as this was
finished.

A large school is a busy place, and no one had time to notice anything
unusual or strange till the hour for dinner drew near. Then suddenly it
struck all the little community that the house was very still; there
was no smell of dinner, and in the dining-room, when the door was
hastily flung open, there were no preparations for the meal.

Our friend, startled and uneasy, hurried to the kitchen, to find
everything in perfect order, but no sign of Chinese activity, and the
fires of the range all grey and cold. A quick search convinced her
that they were alone in the house, and in a great state of wonder
and excitement she and her friends got together a cold, picnic sort
of meal, and ate it up, discussing meanwhile what they should do. As
the Chinese _chef_ had been exceedingly well treated, and had also
been some years with them, they felt very indignant that he should
have played them such a trick for so slight an offence, for my friend
recognised that she had committed an offence.

They determined in their wrath that they would have no more Chinamen;
they would employ nice, decent women, with whom they could reason, and
who would understand one’s point of view. They telephoned at once to an
employment agency in the nearest town, asking for the best girls that
could be had, at such short notice, to be sent out to them at once.

Soon they arrived, and were spreading confusion and discomfort all over
the house—a wretchedly incompetent set. They were all dismissed, and a
fresh batch sent out—but, alas! no better than the first.

Then the girls and their teachers, in desperation, determined to do
their own work until they had time to make some better plans. All
this had taken up three or four days, and one morning our friend was
hard at work sweeping her own drawing-room carpet, and making a great
noise over it, when the brush was taken out of her hands by a quiet
firm grasp, and glancing up, she saw her Chinese _chef_, looking
particularly neat and business-like, after all the tawdry finery of the
women servants. He said quietly, “Me do lis; you no do such sing,” and
went on with the sweeping as though there had been no break whatsoever
in his regular work. Being both breathless with her sweeping, and
very glad to hand it over to someone else, naturally also a good deal
taken aback, she murmured something or other and went quietly out of
the room, and then discovered that all about the house were quiet,
quick-moving figures, clad in the familiar white jackets, busy about
their separate duties, just as though they had been there all the time.
The lesson was very effectual in her case, for never again did she
attempt the least interference.

This seems to be an exceedingly long account of domestic affairs, but
being so unlike our English edition of such troubles, it may be of
interest, or, at least, it may serve to enhance the feelings of comfort
and luxury of those at home who can command a well-trained cook, and
housemaid, and parlour-maid, not to mention the useful charwoman, and
all for less money than we pay our one Chinaman.

(_To be continued._)




SOCIAL INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF AN EAST END GIRL.

BY LA PETITE.


PART IV.

CHAIRS!

It so chanced that I did not see Belinda Ann for some long time after
the launch.

Illness and a trip to Switzerland came between us, and when I returned
to England the Club had not yet resumed its winter meetings.

The moment it did so, however, I took an early opportunity of visiting
it, and to my joy Belinda Ann arrived shortly after me.

I pounced on her at once and drew her into a secluded corner, where we
could talk unobserved.

“Belinda,” I began eagerly, “I want you to take me to your Feather Club
one day. Will you?”

She put her head on one side and glanced at me sideways, as was her way
when in doubt, and remarked—

“There ain’t nothink ter see, yer know. We just pys in our money every
week, an’ the one who draws the winnin’ number gits the feather that
week, an’ then we begins all over agyne, but I’ve left that an’ jined a
furniture club now,” and she gave me another sidelong look.

I was so full of my own ideas that I did not particularly notice her
evident desire to be asked why, but exclaimed—

“I did not know you had other sorts of clubs.”

“Bless yer, yuss!” retorted Belinda Ann, with all her old contempt for
my lamentable ignorance. “There’s furniture clubs, an’ crockery clubs,
an’ photergraph clubs, an’ draperies an’ boot clubs, an’ I dun know
what all!”

“And how much do you pay?” I asked.

“Well, it depends,” she replied cautiously. “It runs from anythink from
thruppence to five bob, accordin’ ter succumstances, but I’ll tyke yer
ter one ef yer like, though there ain’t nothink whatever ter see.”

I closed with the offer at once, and then asked what she had been doing
all this time.

“’Eaps!” she answered laconically; and then remarked in a would-be
off-hand manner, “I’m a-walkin’ hout with a young feller down our
court.”

“Oh!” I replied, not specially impressed, as this was a very everyday
affair.

“An’ ’e’s sed ‘Chairs’ ter me!” she added, with an elaborate assumption
of indifference and an unsuccessful attempt not to look triumphant.

“Oh, Belinda!” I exclaimed, grasping at once what this meant, “I am
glad. That is why you joined the furniture club?”

She nodded, pleased at my intelligence, and added complacently—

“An’ I’ve jined the sewin’ class, so’s I ken myke my own _trossax_.”

I fully approved of this, and inquired as to when the marriage was to
take place.

She pursed up her lips and shook her head solemnly, as she replied—

“Not yet awhile. I’ve no fancy fer startin’ too soon an’ bein’ brought
up with a jerk, an’ I wants ter myke sure of a comferble plyce ter
begin with,” which showed me what I had always known, namely, that
Belinda Ann was in many ways above her class.

“I means ter ’ave a room ter myself any’ow,” she went on. “Why, ef
you’ll berlieve me”—warming with her subject—“down Spitalfields wy
there was once four families as ’ad one room atween ’em. They each ’ad
one corner, an’ one man lived in the middle, but dear, they didn’t
mind, an’ got on well enough till the man in the middle took in a
lodger, an’ then there was a row ’cos they sed that was jest a little
too much.”

I heartily agreed, though the story was not new to me any more than it
will be to you.

We parted, having made an appointment for the following week, so a
few days afterwards found me under her guidance, trying to find out
something about the clubs.

As we walked she showed me notices in various shop-windows of “Clubs
held here,” but the one we finally entered was of a very humble
description, and the proprietress, a wizened little hunchback, looked
suspiciously at me and was most reluctant, even at Belinda Ann’s
request, to explain the mode of procedure.

There was not much to tell, she said stiffly, and nothing to see.

The girls just paid their sixpence a week, and the number of members,
of course, had to tally with the value of what they wanted.

Hers was a boot-club, and, as coster girls are notoriously fastidious
about the quality of their boots, seven-and-six and eight-and-six is
the price aimed at, so she had fifteen members just now, and a friend
of hers had seventeen.

They were strictly honourable, and always “stood up” to what they had
undertaken, even though they might find it a tax to produce the weekly
subscription regularly; and when a girl had secured the article for
which she had joined the club, she never by any chance “cried off,” but
went on paying till all the members were supplied.

Of course it was not everyone who could be admitted to these
privileges, and, as a rule, strangers were not particularly welcomed
unless well vouched for by an old member, as there was always the
chance of their being winners early and then “crying off” the rest of
their subscription.

The club was mainly composed of friends who rarely met at the
“club-holder’s,” except on the occasion of the weekly draw.

Of course, if a girl could spare the money, there was no objection to
her buying two tickets, thus enjoying two chances and also helping to
hasten matters, and there had been cases where the members, hearing
that one of their old “chums” (or “pals,” as they call it) was in sore
want, voluntarily kept the club going another week, and then handed it
all over to her, with the club-holder’s consent, of course.

The usual method was to put fifteen pieces of paper in a bag, on one
being written the number of weeks the club was old, and the member who
drew out the marked paper was able to buy the boots that week, and so
on.

“Then it really is a lottery!” I remarked meditatively.

“No, t’ain’t,” she snapped sharply; “it’s a club!” And after that I
could not get another word out of her, but I gathered later on that she
derived her profit from the draper or bootshop visited, who allowed her
so much for every “ticket” presented to him, and that she often had
more than one club running at a time.

Belinda Ann was so obviously crestfallen at the poor result of our
excursion that I hastened to inquire after her “young man,” upon which
she brightened up, informed me his name was Joe, that he was in the
coster line and owned a “barrer an’ moke” of his own. He sold anything
that was in season, and Belinda Ann had grave thoughts of giving up her
present occupation and accompanying him on his rounds.

I privately thought this would be a “come-down” for her, remembering
the draggle-tailed, slatternly women who usually pursue this line of
business, but she was so visibly elated over the whole business that I
could not bear to be a wet blanket.

She was dying to introduce Joe to me, and as I was no less curious
to see him, I agreed to attend the sewing-class one night, as she
proudly remarked, “’E allus fetches me ’ome ’isself, which is more nor
what most blokes ’ud do,” and indeed I found this to be the case, as
courtship in the East End is a very prosaic and matter-of-fact affair,
conducted on both sides with scant romance and without any of those
little amenities usual in the West End.

Accordingly I attended the next sewing meeting, at which Belinda
Ann showed me with pride the neat nightgowns she was making, with
little tucks and a frill of embroidery down the front, having already
completed a serviceable stout petticoat or two.

She was the best worker in the class and the others readily
acknowledged her superiority, coming to her for assistance or advice,
and admiring her skill with a whole-hearted generosity which had not a
trace of jealousy or envy about it.

I was sure Belinda Ann was not sorry to let me see her in a new
light, and as I sat apart and watched her I saw and appreciated the
subtle change that her new prospects had wrought in her. She was
sobered and softened, more womanly and more responsible. She had
perhaps lost the bizarre and picturesque charm which had been hers,
but she had gained in qualities which would be more useful to her in
the battle of life, and of which she might have dire need. There had
always been the makings of a noble woman in the rough undisciplined
factory-girl, and no true friend of hers could regret the disappearance
of characteristics which, while making her more interesting and less
commonplace, were not likely to help her much in her struggle for
existence.

Not that she was less ready than of yore with “chaff,” and I heard her
joining more than once in the shrieks of laughter called forth by an
oddly-shaped pattern or an ill-cut garment.

The ladies at the head of the class were wise enough to join in, even
when the joke was against themselves, and to take in good part the
various disrespectful and scornful remarks about their knowledge of
needlework made in stage-whispers all round them.

I do not think any of the girls really cared about sewing, and some of
them were frightfully slow workers. One girl had been at work on the
same garment for over a year, and as she came late and left early, it
seemed likely to last another twelve months at least.

The nominal hours were from eight to ten, but they dropped in at all
times, and some only stayed a few minutes.

One girl put in about three stitches and then rolled her work up in an
untidy bundle, crammed it into her bag (a lady had presented each girl
with a bag in which to keep her work clean), and remarking, “I carn’t
sew with coarse cotton like that,” disappeared with not another word of
explanation or apology. They could bring their own materials if they
liked, but long-cloth and flannelette were provided, and they could
then purchase the garments they made at cost price.

There was a piano in the room, but music as a rule was impossible, the
girls’ healthy lungs preventing anything short of a drum being heard.
One started a song and the others joined in, which was all right as
long as they all sang the same, but when half-a-dozen different tunes
were all being shouted out at once, the noise was rather appalling.

By degrees the room emptied till only Belinda Ann and myself were left,
even the founders having retired to a neighbouring class-room to put on
capes and bonnets. I ought to have mentioned before that the meeting
was held in a Board School which the authorities kindly lent for the
one night in the week.

Well, the clock began to strike ten, and I felt really sorry for
Belinda Ann, whose anxious glances at the door were getting more and
more frequent.

The tardy arrival of the swain, whose devotion she had been extolling,
was doubly vexing to a proud girl of her calibre, since it would, she
considered, make me think that she had been “gassing” unduly about him,
besides which she was not at all likely to put up with neglect in any
shape or form.

The slow minutes dragged inexorably on, and she was just rolling up her
work with a great show of nonchalance, when a lumpy and by no means
fairy footfall sounded on the flagged yard outside, and a healthy
whistle (in which, however, a nice ear might have detected some
trepidation) gave us to understand that the owner had “knocked ’em in
the Old Kent Road.”

I glanced at Belinda, who stopped folding as if she had been shot,
hastily unrolled everything and started sewing again with her nose in
the air and the light of battle in her eye.

I was not at all sure that even my presence would save the unlucky Joe
from a sound rating, but when the whistling and the footsteps abruptly
ceased together, and an apologetic double-shuffle at the door forced
her to look round, she evidently considered that the scolding had
better wait, and merely said haughtily—

“Ow, there y’are at larst! Come on an’ show yerself ter ther lydy an’
mind yer manners!”

This was scarcely calculated to set him entirely at his ease, and as I
could plainly see he was already suffering agonies of bashfulness I met
him half-way (literally as well as metaphorically) and, having said how
pleased I was to see him, held out my hand.

He was evidently unprepared for this, and having wiped his own
elaborately on his corduroys, he gave it a final polish with his cap
before venturing to respond.

A rather awkward pause ensued, which was happily broken by the ladies,
who now returned to the room ready to go home, and who all seemed to
know Joe very well. While he was answering their questions, I was able
to have a good look at him, and I must admit I was disappointed in his
appearance.

I had not expected anything heroic or romantic, of course, but, really,
Belinda Ann’s betrothed was distressingly plain.

His hair was an unmistakable red, and cropped so short as to suggest
his having lately lodged at Her Majesty’s expense. His eyes were a
watery grey, with very pink rims and no eyelashes to speak of, and his
mouth was so capacious it really quite alarmed you when he yawned, as
he did presently with engaging frankness.

He was obviously a good bit younger than the bride-elect, but this is
not unusual, and besides Belinda Ann would always have been the leading
spirit anyhow.

He was physically smaller, too, being so stunted in growth as to make
her look like a young giantess, and a stubbly attempt at a moustache
made him seem even more boyish.

By the time I had completed my survey we were all ready to go, and as
the other ladies were returning by the Underground, Joe and Belinda
offered to escort me to the omnibus.

“Joe’s got two tickets for the Vic. to-morrer night,” Belinda remarked
presently.

It seemed to me a pity that Joe should spend his hard-earned and
much-needed money on so questionable an amusement, and I ventured to
say so, in very delicate language of course.

“Ow, ’e ain’t pyd fer ’em!” returned Belinda Ann reassuringly, “a
friend o’ ’is goes on in the crowd, an’ ken pass in two friends when ’e
likes. Thet’s ’ow it is.”

The next time I attended the sewing-class I asked her how she liked
it, and nearly had my nose snapped off in return. For some reason (I
shrewdly suspected that Joe and she had had a “tiff”) she was in a
grievously bad temper, and had already quarrelled with everyone in the
room except me. Now it was my turn, and as she turned on me with a
gloomy frown I felt sorry I had spoken.

“Like it?” she remarked, viciously biting off her cotton with her
strong white teeth. “I never seed anythink more morotonous in all my
born days! Call thet a ply? I calls it a reglar ’owlin’ swindle!”

“Why? What was the matter with it?” I inquired mildly. “What was it
called?”

“Fust!” she retorted ferociously, and for a minute I wondered what she
meant, till it dawned on me that she probably meant _Faust_.

“Well, what happened?” I coaxed. “You might just tell me, Belinda.”

“Ow, I dun know,” she answered sulkily. “There was a sort of a cellar
plyce, kinder prison, with a old cove a-reading in a book, an’ then ’e
began ter jaw, and ’e could do it too. I thought ’e’d never leave off,
an’ I’d jest said ter my Joe, ‘What’s thet there old cove a-doing of?’
when there comes fireworks, an’ someone in red ’ops out of ’em, an’ if
’e don’t bergin ter jaw! My word, it was sick’nin’!” and she relapsed
into gloomy silence.

“But, Belinda,” I put in, “they are obliged to talk to let you know
what the story is about. If they did it all without speaking, you might
not understand it.”

“An’ small loss,” she retorted uncompromisingly. “I didn’t understand
it as it was. In one part three or four people went into a church, an’
I says, sarcastick-like, ‘It must be a weddin’, sech lots o’ people
agoin’ to church,’ but Joe says it was meant there was a service agoin’
on, an’ all I ken say is it was a werry poor congregeration.”

“Oh, of course, it is all make-believe,” I said soothingly. “They
had not really got a church there, you know, and the people were not
attending a service inside but only pretending to.”

“Well, I ’aven’t got the time nor the money ter spend on lookin’
at things wot ain’t true,” she replied with decision, “an’ wot’s
more, I sha’n’t let my Joe go neither. It ain’t wuth it,” which was
astonishingly sensible of her, I thought.

While heartily approving of her decision, I could not resist asking her
whether what she called “fireworks” had not pleased her.

“Purty well,” she replied reflectively, “I’ve seen better ones, but at
leastes they was real. There was one scene with a founting where the
gals shunted that cove in red, an’ then the founting ran fire, but I
spose that was make-believe too,” and, alas, I was unable to deny it.

I was rather relieved to find that her first visit to the theatre was
likely to be her last, and had certainly not given her a taste for
that sort of amusement (which I had been half afraid it might), and,
by dint of great exertion on my part, I managed to restore her wonted
good-humour before we parted.

(_To be continued._)




ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.


GIRLS’ EMPLOYMENTS.

B. G. (_Employment in the Colonies_).—We hope you will observe this
answer, as you have not given a pseudonym. It is, of course, a very
serious question whether you would do wisely or rightly to leave your
present comfortable situation where your services are valued in order
to seek employment abroad. So far as you yourself are concerned, it
would seem probable that if you have made yourself useful to one
household, you would to another. But in dealing with your employers a
frank explanation would probably be best. Tell them that you have this
strong desire to see something of the world outside your own country;
but that you would not like to leave at a moment when, by so doing, you
would be putting them to inconvenience. We can hardly doubt that your
employers will meet you in a similar spirit, and will try to arrange
matters so that you may leave England at the right time of year for
emigration purposes. If you wish to leave this season, you should lose
no time in taking lessons in cookery. You do not say where you live,
but nowadays there are few localities without either a regular school
of cookery or some evening classes at which cookery is taught. If you
can make yourself a really good cook, Canada would be the most suitable
country to which you could betake yourself. According to the latest
report of the Emigrants’ Information Office (31, Broadway, Westminster,
S.W.), cooks earn much more than general servants, £25 a year being
frequently paid. In the north-west cooks receive as much as £5 a month,
or at the rate of £60 a year. You should not leave for Canada later
than September, as the winter, which is severe, begins in October. If
you could go earlier it would be better, otherwise you should wait
till April of next year. The British Women’s Emigration Association,
Imperial Institute, Kensington, W., would advise and help you further
if you would apply to the Secretary. You should also make a note of
the address of the Women’s Protective Immigration Society, 84, Osborne
Street, Montreal, and of the Girls’ Home of Welcome, 272, Assiniboine
Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba. To these institutions you could turn if you
wanted a lodging or help in seeking a good situation.

DAISY (_One Year’s Training in a General Hospital_).—General
hospitals—the qualifications of which carry weight in the nursing
world—almost invariably receive probationers for not less than two
years’ training. Three years is an ordinary limit, and even four
years are required by some of the best training schools. The only
alternative course you could pursue is to enter some hospital as a
paying probationer. You would be required to pay thirteen guineas per
quarter; this would cover board, lodging, and tuition, but not uniform
or laundry. It is possible that at the end of six months a paying
probationer, who has shown an aptitude for nursing, may be invited to
join the regular nursing staff of the hospital. If such an invitation
were made to you, you would do wisely to accept it, for your position
as a private nurse would be strengthened by the fact that you had
undergone a full course of hospital training. We advise you to offer
yourself as a paying probationer to the Middlesex Hospital, Mortimer
Street, London, W., or the Royal Free Hospital, Gray’s Inn Road,
London, W.C. If you prefer to remain in Scotland, you might apply to
the Matron of the Northern Infirmary, Inverness. Here candidates are
received for one year only and are paid a salary. This institution,
however, is much smaller than either of the London hospitals
above-mentioned, and could not offer you so complete a knowledge of
nursing in all its branches.

DORIS (_Hospital Training_).—Hospitals do not receive girls as
probationers who are so young as eighteen. You must wait patiently, we
regret to say, till you are two or three and twenty. In the meantime
try to discover whether any evening classes are being held in your
neighbourhood at which you could study ambulance work. Perhaps you
could attend a polytechnic and learn other things as well, such, for
instance, as cookery, which is a most useful subject for a nurse to
understand. Indeed, if you occupied the next few years in obtaining
complete expertness in all the domestic arts, you would find in later
life that the time had been well spent.

A. E. T. (_Situation as Under-Nurse_).—As you are young and have not
yet been out in service, it might be better for you not to come to
London at first, but to seek a situation in your own locality. The
Matron of the Girls’ Boarding Home, 5, Abbey Street, Carlisle; or Mrs.
Chalker, Ladies’ Association for the Care of Girls Training Home, 8,
George Street, Carlisle, would doubtless be kind enough to give you the
address of some thoroughly respectable registry office in the North of
England, through which you could seek a situation. You are too young to
enter any hospital.

M. D. de J. (_Veterinary Surgeons_).—The Royal College of Veterinary
Surgeons does not at present admit women to membership; consequently
women cannot practise in this country with the English qualification.
There are many women who breed horses, and who, no doubt, are quite
capable of acting as “vets” in an amateur capacity. But women have not
gone further in this direction at present.


MISCELLANEOUS.

ROSEBUD.—White velvet, if not very much soiled, can be cleaned at home
with flour rubbed in well, and then brushed out; and this process may
be repeated till it is clean.

THELMA.—If you do not wish to mark your underlinen with your own
initials, why not wait till you are married, and mark it then with your
new ones? The father of the bride should pay for the carriages in which
the bridal party goes to church; the bridegroom pays for his own, and
also for that in which the newly-married pair depart from the church
and the house.

THEO.—1. The great writer on the subject was Lavater, and there is a
cheap edition of his book, but most libraries contain it.—2. We cannot
suggest methods of earning money when we do not know what you can do,
nor your age and position.

EVE.—1. There are exhibitions held in a large number of provincial
centres, at any of which you might exhibit your paintings. There is
one at Newbury, Berks, and many towns in that part of England, but
as you do not give an address, we cannot help you.—2. You must make
an arrangement with some shop (a greengrocer, perhaps) to sell your
flowers.

FRITZ C.—The word “lacustrine” is derived from the Latin _lacus_,
a lake. It means anything pertaining to lakes or swamps. It is
used especially of those lake dwellings which have been found at
various times and places, in which prehistoric peoples have lived
for protection and better security. The most famous of these were
discovered a few years ago in the Lake of Bienne, in Switzerland.

J. J.—We do not think that Di Vernon was an historical character.
Rob Roy, of course, was such, as it was a nickname given to Robert
McGrigor, who assumed the name of Campbell, when the Clan Macgregor
was outlawed by the Scotch Parliament in 1662. He has been called the
Scottish Robin Hood.

TOPSY should certainly _offer_ to pay for herself; but if the person
she accompanies wishes to do so, she can accept the offer with thanks,
of course.

NINE YEARS’ CONSTANT READER.—All engravings by Bartolozzi are of value,
but we could not say of how much, unless we knew in what condition they
were. You had better have them valued by someone near at hand.

RITA.—The year of THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER ends with the month of
September. You would begin with the first number of October.

KUDEN.—The shillings and sixpences coined in the reign of Queen Anne
are said to be worth 2s. to 3s. You do not describe it, so we cannot
tell you further. If there be an “E.” under the Queen’s bust, it was
coined in Edinburgh.

DRAGON-FLY.—In the first issue of threepenny, twopenny, and
penny-pieces in Charles II.’s reign, the edges were not milled, but
there is no reason given for the fact. In the reign of Elizabeth there
was an issue of hammered, and one of milled, threepenny-pieces. It was
probably a matter of convenience, as we can find no explanation of it.

BARGE.—1. The term “Limited,” or “Ld.,” as generally written, is a
legal way of announcing the way in which that business is conducted.
There can be no question of politeness nor good manners about it, so
you can add it to your address without interfering with either.—2.
The word “therefor” is used in law works. “Therefore” means “for this
(previously mentioned) reason.” “Therefor” means “for this (previously
mentioned) thing.”

MERCIA.—The book is not of any monetary value, we regret to say.

STENCIL WARE.—The origin of the family of Este was in Italy. The first
we hear of it is Alberto I., a Tuscan prince, who died about 972 A.D.
They were rulers of Tuscany, Milan, Genoa, Padua, Modena, and Ferrara.
The last ruler of this State, Alfonso II., died without issue, 1597,
and Pope Clement VIII. seized on his estates. The descendants, however,
of his brother Cesare ruled in Modena till 1801, when the male line
became extinct, and it passed through the female line to Austria. The
last duke, Francesco V., was driven from his dominions in 1859, and the
duchy was soon afterwards incorporated into the kingdom of Italy. The
House of Este was (in 1060) divided into two branches; John Guelf was
invested with the Duchy of Bavaria, and Fulco remained at Modena and
Ferrara. The former is the ancestor of the House of Hanover.

A WIDOW.—A widow does not change the style of her address on the death
of her husband. If she were previously Mrs. John Thompson, she remains
the same, and uses it on her cards and letters. Mrs. Mary Thompson is
a form of address that is purely legal, and used by lawyers or other
men of business. It is not used in society. The methods of addressing
an aunt differ in different families. Aunt Mary, or Aunt Thompson, are
both correct. The latter is, however, rather old-fashioned. We know
a family in which there are three Aunt Marys. One is Aunt Mary, the
second is Aunt Mary John (the name of her husband superadded), and the
third is Aunt Mary Scott. These distinguishing names are only used when
their owners are spoken of. When spoken to, they are all Aunt Marys.

A BEDFORDIAN.—We think your handwriting unformed, and you probably
could not write quickly enough for secretarial work. Why not practise a
more flowing hand?

LORNA.—It is quite correct to have cards of your own, if you be living
with your brother, and keeping his house.

FLOSSIE.—Wear the white dress, if it be clean enough. Why not?

       *       *       *       *       *

[Transcriber’s Note—the following changes have been made to this text.

Page 677: Autologia to Antologia—“Nuova Antologia”.

National to Nationale—“Révue Nationale”.]







*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL'S OWN PAPER, VOL. XX. NO. 1021, JULY 22, 1899 ***


    

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