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[Illustration: THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER

VOL. XX.—NO. 1011.]      MAY 13, 1899.      [PRICE ONE PENNY.]




GOOD NIGHT.

BY SARAH DOUDNEY.


[Illustration: “SLEEP, SISTER, SLEEP.”]

_All rights reserved._]

    Sleep, sister, sleep, while the lovely light
      Shines still through the dark old firs;
    The birds sleep sound in their nests all night,
      And only the wild wind stirs;
    Far over the hills and far away
      The earth is losing its gold;
    And sheep-bells chime through the twilight grey,
      While the flocks come home to fold.

    Lie down, my dear, in your own warm nest,
      And sister will sit and sing
    When mother watches her darling’s rest,
      And the stars are clustering
    Like silver flowers in the darkened sky,
      And the toil of man is done;
    Sleep, baby, sleep to my lullaby,
      And wake with the waking sun!




THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.

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


CHAPTER VII.

THE ROOTS OF HOSPITALITY.

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

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

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

Jessie Morison pondered.

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

“Yes,” answered Lucy; “but——”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Twenty years!” echoed Lucy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“These seem very satisfactory,” said Lucy.

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

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

Jessie Morison did not resent the hesitation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next afternoon the promised message from Florence duly arrived—

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

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

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

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

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

    “We twa hae paidl’t i’ the burn,
      Frae mornin’ sun till dine:
    But seas between us braid hae roared,
      Sin’ auld lang syne.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(_To be continued._)

[Illustration]




HOW TO CONTRIVE AND DECORATE A COFFER OR LINEN PRESS.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Illustration]

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

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

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




SHEILA.

A STORY FOR GIRLS.

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


CHAPTER VI.

A SHADOWED HOME.

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

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

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

“You are anxious still, then?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Sat’s Uncle Ronald!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Miss Adene nodded sagely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(_To be continued._)




VARIETIES.


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


A FATAL OBSTACLE.—The greatest drawback to the current of true love is
the undertow of selfishness.


A NEW CONUNDRUM.

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


WHO MAKES THE BEST MATCH?—It is not the girl that fires up the quickest
that makes the best match.


THE NARROW MIND.—The mind grows narrow in proportion as the soul grows
corrupt.




[Illustration: EARLY SUMMER.]




THE FAIRIES.


    Oh, brightly, brightly go the days,
      And merrily we sing,
    And mosses, ferns, and flowers fair
      All welcome in the Spring!

    The earth is clad in laughing green,
      The snow has passed away,
    The sun shines forth with beaming face
      And bids us dance and play!

    We live in nooks of moss and fern,
      Where grows the blue hare-bell,
    Which rings whene’er a gentle breeze
      Wafts softly down our dell.

    We ride on graceful dragon-flies,
      With gauzy wings of light;
    And glow-worms lie in readiness
      To shine for us at night.

    We go to children in their sleep,
      And with our fairy art
    We spin sweet dreams of fairyland
      To rest each tired heart!

    So gaily, gaily run the days,
      And so we dance and sing,
    And so the happy flowers bloom
      And merrily they ring!

                        A. M. W.

[Illustration]




A POOR NEEDLEWOMAN.

A DREAM OF FAIR SERVICE.—CHAPTER IV.

BY C. A. MACIRONE.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The _Edinburgh Review_, in an eloquent article on the _Life and Poems
of Sarah Martin_, closes with the following words:

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

[1] See Captain Williams’, the Inspector of Prisons, Report “1836 in
Yarmouth Jail, and Sarah Martin’s Work therein.”




SELF-CULTURE FOR GIRLS.


PART IV.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “Never morn broke clear as those
    On the dim clustered isles in the blue sea,
    The deep groves and white temples and wet caves.”

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

    “Ah, may the Good prevail!”

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

                        “Seeking there,
    Calm converse with the great dead, soul to soul,
    Who laid up treasure with the like intent.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two small books published by the Society for the Promotion of Christian
Knowledge, _Epicureanism_, by W. Wallace, M.A., and _Stoicism_, by Rev.
W. W. Capes, are very useful to those who wish to understand a little
about the chief philosophies of the ancient world. To older readers the
_Meditations of Marcus Aurelius_, and the _Discourses of Epictetus_,
will be valuable.

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

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

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

    “These were cup-bearers undying,
    Of the wine that’s meant for souls.”

        LILY WATSON.

(_To be continued._)




HOUSEHOLD HINTS.


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


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


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


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


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


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


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




A GAME OF MEMORY.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    CLARA THWAITES.




“OUR HERO.”

A TALE OF THE FRANCO-ENGLISH WAR NINETY YEARS AGO.

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


CHAPTER XXXII.

MOORE’S LAST VICTORY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moore pressed his hand tightly.

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

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

“_Mon ami_, this is nothing,” he said.

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

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

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

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

Now there was the thought of his own relatives.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Stanhope—remember me to your sister.”

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

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

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

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

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

    “Dark lay the field of slain; the battle’s strife was o’er,
    That shook Coruña’s hills, and rent the Iberian shore;
    Dim twilight veiled the scene of glory and of death,
      Till o’er the blood-stained snow,
      The moon, pale, trembling, slow,
      Revealed each crimsoned wreath.

    Low on the victor-field the Warrior Chief was laid;
    His eye still sought the foe, his hand still grasped the blade;
    Triumphant was his smile, though dim his closing eye,—
      While bending o’er the slain,
      His mournful gallant train
      Learnt how the brave should die.

       *       *       *       *       *

    No sculptured trophy rose, to deck his honoured head,
    Or monumental urn, to mark the Mighty Dead;
    No lettered scroll to point the pilgrim soldier’s way,—
      The musing foe to greet,
      And guide his wandering feet
      To where the Warrior lay.

    But o’er his loved remains were choicest honours shed,
    Tears such as Heroes weep bedewed his lowly bed;
    A deep responsive sigh from Albion’s woe-struck Isle
      Swelled o’er the Atlantic wave,
      And decked his early grave—
    Who for his Country fought, who for his Country fell.”[4]

(_To be continued._)

[2] Afterwards Lord Lynedoch.

[3] Afterwards Lord Seaton, one of the most prominent officers in the
British Army.

[4] Written in memory of Moore by William Stark of Edinburgh in 1813.




THE GIRL’S OWN QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

THE EXAMINERS REPORT ON THE THIRD AND LAST TWENTY-FOUR QUESTIONS.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

=59. Has anyone ever tried to count the stars?=

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

=69. Who was the father of English cathedral music?=

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

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

This was a question giving an opportunity for considerable difference
of opinion. It drew forth many intelligent answers, and gave a
good deal of insight into individual taste. We give here the seven
principal works named by way of answer, placing them in the order of
frequency:—_The Arabian Night’s Entertainments_, _Don Quixote_ by
Cervantes, _Gulliver’s Travels_ by Dean Swift, the _Divine Comedy_
of Dante, Spencer’s _Faerie Queen_, _The Pilgrim’s Progress_ of John
Bunyan, and Milton’s _Paradise Lost_.

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

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

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

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

[Illustration]




[Illustration: ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.]


MEDICAL.

MISS PERT.—We think you are quite right in supposing that your throat
is really the cause of your trouble. Deafness is an exceedingly common
complication of catarrh of the throat. The ear communicates with the
back of the nose through the eustachian tube, and when the mucous
membrane of the nose or throat is inflamed, the end of the tube is
very apt to share in the condition, and so deafness results. Deafness
from this cause is often exceedingly intractable. The treatment of
the condition resolves itself into two parts—the treatment of the
throat, and the treatment of the ear. Of these, the former is by far
the more important. Perhaps it may be necessary to remove enlarged
tonsils or adenoids, or to destroy little growths in the nose or back
of the throat, or perhaps no such severe measure may be necessary,
and the throat condition may yield to medicated applications. We
advise you to wash out your throat and nose daily with a lotion made
by dissolving one teaspoonful of the following powder in a teacupful
of tepid water—of borax, bicarbonate of soda, and chlorate of potash,
finely powdered, one part each to three parts of finely powdered white
sugar. After having thoroughly washed your nose and throat with this
lotion, spray out your throat and nose with solution of menthol in
paraleine (1 in 8) used in an atomiser. Having well sprayed, close your
nostrils with your hand and blow up into your ears. This last little
manœuvre is of great value, for it helps to unstop the eustachian
tube, and it carries some of the menthol up into them. When you hear
a gurgling during this action, it is a sign that the tube is pervious
though not quite healthy. If the tube is quite normal, a single click
will be heard in both ears. You want our opinion upon the chloride of
ammonium inhaler. Here it is. We thoroughly and absolutely disapprove
of it. Theoretically it is all right, but in practice it has been
our experience that it does far more harm than good. It is true that
finely-divided chloride of ammonium is a very valuable application to
diseased mucous membranes. But the reason why the inhaler is harmful
is, that it is impossible to obtain chloride of ammonium vapours free
from either the vapour of ammonia or of hydrochloric acid. And these do
far greater harm than the ammonium chloride can do good.

MOLLY.—We do not advise the biscuits you mention. Of course they
are indigestible since they cannot be digested at all! They are
occasionally given for wind and tainted breath arising from
indigestion, etc., but they are open to grave objections, and we really
cannot see their value.

A. G.—We have so frequently detailed the treatment of anæmia that it
is not fair to other correspondents to occupy our space, which is very
much limited, by going over the same ground again. Look up the back
correspondence, and you will find all about anæmia. Do not take quinine
and iron, for this mixture is exceedingly indigestible, and anæmic
girls must be very careful of their digestions. The best preparations
of iron to begin with are dialysed iron, syrup of hæmaglobin, or
Robin’s peptonate of iron; the two last drugs are French preparations,
and are rather expensive.

DIANA D.—The pain in the left side of your chest may be due to many
causes, by far the most likely of which is indigestion. Possibly the
illness you had last year was pleurisy.

POPPY.—1. A pale and sallow complexion may either be a natural
condition, or else, as is more probable, a symptom of some abnormal
state. In anæmia, severe indigestion, constipation, and some more
serious affections, a sallow complexion is a common feature. You
say you are quite healthy; this excludes most abnormal conditions.
But the third mentioned trouble is not excluded by that remark, and
as constipation is the commonest cause of a sallow complexion, we
think that that is what is troubling you. Just lately we discussed
the treatment of this complaint at full length.—2. Do not use any
cosmetics. We do not know the preparation you mention, but we strongly
dissuade you from using it all the same. The less you have to do with
patent proprietary articles the better you will be.


GIRLS’ EMPLOYMENTS.

MARION (_Stewardess_).—You should apply at the offices of some of the
principal steamship companies, and inquire whether there is likely to
be a vacancy which you might fill. Preference is usually given to women
who are related to men in the companies’ employ. Nursing experience is
also a strong recommendation to an applicant. Salaries vary from £1
10s. to £3 10s. a month with board, and the gratuities of passengers on
first-class lines make an important addition to the fixed payment.

VERITAS (_Addressing Envelopes_).—This kind of work is occasionally
given out by the law stationers in London, but it tends to become
superseded by typewriting. You must forgive us for saying that your
handwriting is not very well adapted for the purpose. It is almost
essential to write a neat clerkly hand.

DAISY IN THE FIELD (_Nursing_).—See our reply to “Louise” (April 15).
It is rather a jump from the kitchen to the Army Nursing Service, is it
not? Still, if you feel that you would make a better nurse than cook,
you are right in trying to realise your ambition. We advise you to take
the full three years’ training at some large general hospital, and at
the end of that time you will be in a position to decide what to do
next. District and rural nursing we would commend to your notice, for
the poor in our large towns and villages want skilled attendance almost
as sorely as wounded soldiers, and have very few chances of getting it.

A SCOTCH READER (_Teaching Cookery_).—Since you cannot hear of a
vacancy in Scotland, it might be wise to apply to some of the English
educational bodies. We would suggest your writing to the Clerk of the
London School Board, Victoria Embankment, and the Secretary, Technical
Education Board, London County Council, St. Martin’s Lane, London.
Study also the advertisements in such papers as the _Schoolmaster_,
_Schoolmistress_, _Church Times_, and the _Guardian_. You might see
an advertisement for a cookery teacher in one of those journals.
Be careful in applying for a post to make a full statement of your
qualifications and previous experience (if any) as a teacher. There
is a tendency at the present time to prefer teachers who can give
instruction in all housewifery subjects to those who can teach cookery
only.

LUCY HOOD, Germany (_Club for Teacher of Singing_).—1. We do not know
of any residential club in London for teachers only; but there are
many excellent homes and clubs for women who are earning a living in
various ways. Among these we may mention the Ilchester Club, Ilchester
Gardens, Hyde Park, W. (not intended, however, for professional women
exclusively), the Beechwood Club, 6, Oakley Street, Chelsea, and the Y.
W. C. A. Home for Working Ladies, 91, Great Portland Street, W.—2. We
do not advise you to pay fees to an agent in order to obtain pupils.
You should not establish yourself in London unless you have the promise
of a pupil or two already. In the musical profession social interest
is a great advantage. Then the mothers of your pupils could help you
by speaking of you to their friends, and still more by giving an “At
Home” occasionally, at which you might sing. London teachers very often
give concerts at which their musical colleagues and pupils perform.
These concerts usually entail expense, but they are regarded in the
profession as valuable advertisements.

MYRTLE (_Writing_).—If by writing you mean copying, you would certainly
not earn a living by such means; and if, on the other hand, you mean
literary work, you will need to obtain a better education than most
girls have at your age of 16½. You can hardly be expected to earn
a living without being taught any special kind of work. But many
occupations can be learnt without great expense. You could learn, for
instance, cookery or dairy-work at some of the County Council classes;
or you could be trained as an elementary school teacher, after passing
the Queen’s Scholarship Examination. The Post Office branch of the
Civil Service is also worth considering, especially as you write a good
clear hand, and are fond of any occupation that entails writing. In any
case it would be worth while to try to pass the examination. Probably
some Board School teacher in your neighbourhood would coach you for it
out of school hours, if there is no institution in your neighbourhood
that you could attend for the purpose.


MISCELLANEOUS.

SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER.—The passage to which you refer is easily
explained (“Put Thou my tears into Thy bottle,” Psalm lvi. 8). The
practice of preserving tears in bottles is of very ancient Eastern
origin. It was done in Egypt as elsewhere, and it exists down to the
present day in Persia. In that country it constitutes an important
item of funeral ceremonials, when every mourner is presented with a
sponge with which to mop the eyes and cheeks; and after the burial
is over, these are taken by a priest, who squeezes the tears into a
bottle. These sacred tears of mourners are supposed to possess healing
properties, and to be more efficacious than any means of cure for
several forms of Persian diseases.

MINKA.—There have been such terrible and fatal accidents from using
preparations of petroleum for the hair that it is illegal to employ it
in this country. “Koko” is a patent, and of it we have had no personal
experience.

A. POODRIDGE.—As we have often told inquirers, “pouring oil on troubled
waters” is not a quotation—it is an existing fact; and the use of
oil for this purpose obtains at sea. Only a week or two ago oil was
employed on the Channel to enable passengers to land.

THRIFTLESS.—We think that the United Sisters Friendly Society would
suit you. It was founded some years ago in order to enable women
dependent on their earnings to make provision for sickness and old age,
and to secure at death a sum of money for burial expenses. All women of
good health and character between the ages of sixteen and forty-five
are eligible for membership; also the Work and Leisure Court, No. 15.
For both of these, address Miss Edith M. Maskell, 7c, Lower Belgrave
Street, London, S.W. The names of the Trustees of these two Societies
are a sufficient guarantee for their stability and honesty.

KAROLEEN.—If you cannot find the card-game you require at one of the
large bazaars, we do not know where else you could look for them.
Perhaps the bazaar at which you inquire would endeavour to procure them
for you in London.

SLOGGER.—You may find illustrations from photographs of some of the
most distinguished men amongst cricketers in some of the recent
magazines; but you have only to order any you require at a photograph
shop, and they will send you a collection from which you may make a
selection.

FLORA.—We could not take the responsibility of recommending any
security for the investment of money. We do not think a ground rent
could be purchased for so small a sum. The Post Office Savings Bank
appears to us the most suitable.

FLUFF.—Do you mean the famous and beautiful Duchess, or her successor?
In any case, you can only inquire at one of the photograph shops where
the windows are full of notables of every description.

BECKY SHARP.—Fine soft hair can easily be made to lie as you wish; but
the coarse, stiff, pigs’-bristle sort can only be forced into place by
the use of some sort of bandoline, formerly much in use, especially at
a windy seaside place. You had better consult a hairdresser.

TOMUEL, MAB, and others, are very anxious to get rid of the rats which
infest their houses, but that their death should be painless. We fear
any death by poison would be painful, and so it would be by traps; but
then the rats are peculiarly obnoxious, so we have to make a choice
of two evils. We are told of an old recipe, viz., half a pint of
plaster of Paris, mixed with a pint of oatmeal, is an excellent means
of killing them. The best plan, however, is to try to stop up all
the holes by which they enter with broken glass and tin, and to keep
them stopped. To do this may be more expensive, but it will be more
satisfactory, if you have scruples about the cruelty of killing them.

AN IGNORANT ONE.—John Smith. Esq., Mayor of Blackford, would be the
proper address. In speaking to him, we believe he is addressed as “Mr.
Mayor.” You would write to him as “Dear Sir,” or “My dear Sir,” and
after signing yourself, would add below his name and address, “John
Smith, Esq., Mayor of Blackford.”

DAISY.—Leave two of your husband’s cards where you call, if the lady be
at home; in case of an afternoon party, leave your own and his on the
hall table as you go out. White is generally worn for confirmation.

A TROUBLED MIND.—Tell the person who wishes to be engaged to you that
you would like to see more of him personally, and so have opportunity
for a fuller interchange of thought, and that you think he also should
have a better acquaintance with you, before entering into any definite
engagement, for fear of disappointment; in the meantime that (with your
mother’s sanction) you and he might correspond with a view to render
that prospective engagement a wise and happy one. Try some “Berlin
black” on your grate.

NEW HOUSEKEEPER.—1. In a general way, house-linen of the best kind
is now marked in cross-stitch. It may in the case of table-linen be
embroidered in satin-stitch. Marking-ink is used for the commoner
articles only.—2. _The Girls’ Own Cookery Book_, price 1s., was issued
some years ago, and is an excellent manual.

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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