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[Illustration: THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER

VOL. XX.—NO. 1012.]      MAY 20, 1899.      [PRICE ONE PENNY.]




THE SEA AND THE ROCKS.

BY WILLIAM LUFF.

[Illustration: THE OTHER SHORE.]

_All rights reserved._]


    I watched the waves as they kissed the rocks,
      And linked their hands behind them,
    As if to draw to the deep blue sea,
      Where no searching eye could find them.
    But rocks were firm, and the waves though strong
      Were foiled in their kind endeavour;
    Then what they could not change they bathed,
          And rising higher ever,
    They came and came, till they covered o’er
    The black old rocks of that stubborn shore.
    They were there the same as of old, I knew,
    But hidden now with a robe of blue.

    We all find rocks on the shores of life,
      Dark rocks and stubborn often.
    We pray, but never a rock will move—
      Hard rocks that no sea will soften;
    But lo, the ocean of love and grace
      Is linking its arms behind them;
    The waters rise in their vast embrace,
      Till troubles—we cannot find them.
    I know they are there as they were before;
    But we see them not, they are covered o’er.
    And all that rises before our view,
    Is God’s deep ocean of boundless blue.




SHEILA.

A STORY FOR GIRLS.

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


CHAPTER VII.

IN RIVER STREET.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(_To be continued._)

[Illustration]




OLD ENGLISH COTTAGE HOMES;

OR,

VILLAGE ARCHITECTURE OF BYGONE TIMES.


PART VIII.

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

[Illustration: GEORGIAN COTTAGE, AMERSHAM.]

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

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

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

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

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

[Illustration: COTTAGES AT LYME REGIS—A FORTIFIED VILLAGE.]




LETTERS FROM A LAWYER.


PART VII.

    The Temple.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Your affectionate cousin,
        BOB BRIEFLESS.




GIRLS AS I HAVE KNOWN THEM.

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


PART VI.

THE ATHLETIC GIRL.

    WANTED: A groom, tall, good-looking, steady.

    WANTED: A housemaid, neat, respectable, no fringe.

    WANTED: A cook, good, plain.

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

[Illustration: The athletic girl]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Illustration]

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

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

_Nous avons changé tout cela._

[Illustration: Her ancestress]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In other words, the athletic girl broke down.

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

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

The same girl writes—

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

In another letter she writes—

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

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

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

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

[Illustration: A Novel Sensation]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Would you like to see our gymnasium?”

Colonel Hewson expressed himself as not unwilling.

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

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

[Illustration: Entertaining a dumb beau with dumb-bells]

“Can anyone come?” was asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Illustration: CRUSHED]

(_To be continued._)

[Illustration]




EMBROIDERY WITH CHENILLE.


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

[Illustration: FIG. 1.—PENWIPER.]

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

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

[Illustration: FIG. 2.—HANDKERCHIEF SACHET.]

[Illustration: FIG. 3.—HINGE.]

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

[Illustration: FIG. 4.—RETICULE.]

[Illustration: FIG. 5.—SASH-END.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    LEIRION CLIFFORD.




“OUR HERO.”

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


CHAPTER XXXIII.

A WARRIOR TAKING HIS REST.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “He lay like a warrior taking his rest,
      With his martial cloak around him.”

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

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

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

    “Few and short were the prayers we said,
      And we spoke not a word of sorrow,
    But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
      And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

    We thought as we hollowed his narrow bed,
      And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
    That the foe and the stranger would tread o’er his head,
      And we far away on the billow.

    Lightly they’ll talk of the spirit that’s gone,
      And o’er his cold ashes upbraid him;
    But little he’ll reck, if they’ll let him sleep on,
      In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

    But half of our heavy task was done,
      When the clock struck the hour for retiring,
    And we heard the distant and random gun
      That the foe was sullenly firing.

    Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
      From the field of his fame fresh and gory,
    We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,
      But we left him alone with his glory.”[1]

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

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

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

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

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

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

(_To be continued._)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Written in memory of Moore by the Rev. C. Wolfe, about 1817.

[2] These sentences were written before Lord Wolseley’s speech at
Dumfries, June 15, 1898, in which he was reported as having said:
“There could be little doubt in the minds of most soldiers who knew
what Moore did, that, had he not been killed at the Battle of Coruña,
_he_ would have been the great Commander who led the Peninsular
War, and it was quite possible that that great man, whom they all
worshipped, the Duke of Wellington, would not have been heard of. He
did not say that to depreciate the services of the Duke of Wellington,
who had been a rock of strength to this country; but possibly, had Sir
John Moore lived, _his_ name would have been blazoned on the scroll
of fame, as the man who won the great battle which crushed Napoleon’s
power at Waterloo.”




OUR LILY GARDEN.

PRACTICAL AIDS TO THE CULTURE OF LILIES.

BY CHARLES PETERS.


What garden is complete without the good old tiger-lily? Other lilies
are finer and more graceful, no doubt, but the old-fashioned tiger-lily
will always hold its own in the struggle for popularity.

Although we call it an old-fashioned flower, it has not been grown in
England for so very long, being unknown before this century. It made a
bit of a stir, too, when it first blossomed in England. And no wonder
that it did, when we see what a grand sight a bed of these lilies
really is.

_Lilium Tigrinum_ is a native of China, but it has long been cultivated
in Japan, and it is from the latter country that we obtain most of our
foreign bulbs.

A curious fact, which we have frequently noticed in connection with
this lily, is that the size of the annual portion of the plant seems to
bear no relation to the size of the bulb. In most lilies large bulbs
produce fine plants, though we have seen that this is by no means
always the case. But with _L. Tigrinum_ the shoot apparently bears
no relation whatever to the size of the bulb. If planted in very good
soil, all the bulbs of _L. Tigrinum_ seem to do equally well; whereas
in an unsuitable soil all seem to fare equally poorly.

The bulbs are heavy and white, with the scales very dense and closely
packed.

In growth this lily resembles _L. Auratum_ in some respects, and the
members of the _Isolirion_ group in others. The leaves are very green
and glossy, and are present in larger numbers than is commonly the case
with lilies.

_L. Tigrinum_ is one of the two lilies which constantly bear bulblets
in the axils of their leaves. We have seen that under certain
circumstances several of the other lilies produce these aërial
bulblets, but the tiger-lily invariably does so. The bulblets are deep
glossy purple in colour, and are often produced in great numbers. If
planted as soon as they are ripe, they will grow freely and produce
flowering spikes in their second or third year.

Everyone knows the blossom of the tiger-lily. The pyramidal shape of
the inflorescence, with its nodding bell-like blossoms, irresistibly
suggests a Chinese pagoda, and when looking at the plant one can almost
feel that it hails from China.

The segments of the blossoms of the tiger-lily are much re-curved,
their tips touching their points of origin. The colour of this lily,
reddish orange, is very different from that of any that we have already
described, but as we shall see later, it is a very common colour among
the lilies. In the type of the tiger-lily the colour is a very fine
orange, and the spots, which are very numerous, are deep purple.

The tiger-lily often bears seed in this country if the bulblets
are removed. As, however, seed is the least satisfactory mode of
propagating lilies, it is far better to utilise the bulblets for this
purpose.

Individually, the tiger-lily is a fine plant, but its full effect
is only to be obtained by growing it in great clumps. A bed of
tiger-lilies is a grand sight, and it blossoms in September and
October, a time when showy plants are not very numerous.

[Illustration]

There are several varieties of the tiger-lily. That which is most
commonly grown is called _splendens_, because it is very floriferous,
and the flowers are of large size, fine colour, and are thickly spotted.

Another variety, called _Fortunei_, is also very fine. It grows to the
height of six feet, and the stem and buds are covered with white silky
down. The flowers are very numerous, often exceeding thirty in number.
They are large, less reflexed than in the type, and only sparingly
spotted with large spots.

The tiger is the second lily we have met with of which there is a
double-flowered variety. There are only four double lilies, and none
of them possesses the elegance of the single form. The old double
tiger-lily is very full and is interesting, though far inferior in
beauty to the type.

There is little to be said about the cultivation of the tiger-lily. It
is perfectly hardy and will grow anywhere. It prefers a rich soil, and
in poor or damp spots it often degenerates.

There is a lily which resembles the tiger-lily so closely that very few
people could distinguish between them unless they were placed side by
side. And yet most writers on the subject have separated this lily from
the tiger-lily and placed it among the _Martagon_ group, a group of
lilies differing extremely from the one which we are now considering.

The lily which we refer to is called _Lilium Maximowiczii_ or
_Pseudo-Tigrinum_. It resembles the tiger-lily very closely, but is not
so sturdy in growth, and the flowers are smaller and poorer than those
of the tiger-lily. There are several named varieties known.

Another lily of the same class is _Lilium Leichtlini_, the exact
counterpart of the last species, only differing from it in the colour
of its flowers, which are lemon yellow instead of orange. It is thickly
spotted with small mahogany spots and streaks. It is a very desirable
lily because of its uncommon colour, and it is not by any means
difficult to grow.

Both _L. Maximowiczii_ and _L. Leichtlini_ require a moist peaty soil.
Plenty of peat, plenty of sand, plenty of water and very little direct
sunshine, are the keystones of the successful cultivation of these
lilies.

At an auction last year we gave seven and sixpence for two very small
bulbs of _Lilium Henryi_, a lily which has only lately been introduced,
but one which is fast rising into prominence from its curious colour,
its bold growth and its hardiness.

_Lilium Henryi_ is usually called the “orange _Speciosum_,” but in it
we can see far more resemblance to the tiger-lily than we can to _L.
Speciosum_. It seems to connect the _L. Tigrinum_ and _L. Speciosum_.
Its growth, its leaves, its flower buds and its habits suggest a close
resemblance to the tiger-lily. But the raised tubercles and spines of
the blossom recall _L. Speciosum_. The shape of the blossom is nearer
to that of _L. Tigrinum_ than it is to _L. Speciosum_, and the colour
is totally different from either.

Dr. Henry’s lily blossoms late in September, or in the beginning of
October. Fine examples grow six to eight feet high and produce sixteen
to forty blossoms. The flowers are bright orange without spots.

Our two specimens failed to reach the height of eighteen inches, but
both produced blossoms—one a solitary one, the other a pair. This is
all that can be expected from bulbs at three and ninepence a-piece. We
expect to do much better this year.

The hardiness of this lily is unquestionable, and it needs no special
cultivation.

This lily is a native of China and is at present extremely scarce.
Unless you are prepared to give ten shillings for a single bulb it is
not worth while to grow it. If the bulbs ever get to be as cheap as
a shilling or eighteenpence each, it will be well worth growing, but
at ten shillings a bulb! It is monstrous to pay such a sum for a lily
which at its best is only of inferior beauty.

The lilies which we have considered so far are all remarkable for the
elegance of their forms and the striking colours of their flowers. If
the reader has dreamed that all lilies are equally beautiful, or, at
all events, that all are of great beauty and elegance, we are sorry to
have to awaken him to the sad reality that there are many lilies which
are not beautiful in colour and which are extremely inelegant in form.

The next group of lilies, _Isolirion_, contains many species, in all of
which the flowers are erect and the segments little if at all reflexed.
They are of low growth, and the blossoms are mostly orange in colour.

This group of lilies contains many old garden favourites which, though
they possess but little individual beauty, are yet pleasing in the
flower bed from the brightness and size of their blossoms, and for the
early period at which they flower.

There is a great sameness about the members of the group _Isolirion_,
and as there are many garden varieties of most of the species, some of
which are possibly hybrids, it is a most difficult task to separate the
various species from one another.

We associate the lily with elegance. What, then, should we imagine
_Lilium Elegans_, _the_ elegant lily to be like? And what is the
reality? A low-growing clumsy stalk bearing two or three top-heavy
enormous blossoms sticking bolt upright, chiefly of crude colours! As
inelegant a plant as it is possible to conceive, having about as much
right to the title of _elegans_ as has the hippopotamus! Where did this
lily get its name from? It has another title, _Lilium Thunbergianum_,
or Thunberg’s lily. Which of these names shall we use? Which is the
less objectionable? The name which records the chief characteristic
which the plant lacks, or that concocted of a Latinised version of
the name of a human being? Formerly this lily was called _Lilium
Lancifolium_, or the lance-leafed lily, a name which, though it might
be equally well applied to nearly every known species of lily, is yet
better than either of its modern names. But we cannot use this name,
for florists will persist in applying the name _Lancifolium_ to _L.
Speciosum_.

_L. Elegans_ grows about a foot high, and each stem bears from one
to four blossoms. The blossoms are very large, very inelegant, and
short-lived. But they make up to a certain extent in colour what they
lack in form.

There are innumerable varieties of _L. Elegans_, differing chiefly in
the colour of the flowers. Some of the colours are very fine, others
are harsh and crude.

We append a table of the colours of the best known varieties. An
asterisk is placed before the most desirable forms.

_L. Elegans_ produces both a double and a semi-double variety. We
should have thought that a “semi-double” flower was the same as a
single one. But it is not so. A semi-double equals a one-and-a-half
blossom! That is, a double corolla of which the inner part is abortive.

_Lilium Croceum._ The old orange lily resembles _Lilium Elegans_, but
it grows taller, and produces a far larger number of blossoms. This
is the finest of the upright orange lilies. The blossoms are large and
reddish-orange in colour, spotted with black. The plant grows to about
three feet high, and is very showy.

In Ireland this lily is the national emblem of the Orangemen; and when
travelling in that country you can tell, so we have been assured, the
political opinion of the owner of a house by observing what lilies he
grows in his garden. The Orangemen are said to grow none but the orange
lily, while the rest of the population cultivate only the Madonna lily
(_L. Candidum_).

A variety of _L. Croceum_ named _Chauixi_ is of a bright yellow colour,
and is finer than the type.

This lily is found wild in various parts of Central Europe. It has
been in cultivation for centuries; but lately it has almost lost its
place as a garden lily, having been discarded in favour of some of the
varieties of _L. Davuricum_, which are much cheaper, but nothing like
so fine.

The term _L. Umbellatum_ is applied to certain varieties and possibly
hybrids of _L. Croceum_ and _L. Davuricum_.

A very similar species is _Lilium Davuricum_, a native of Siberia. The
wild plant rarely bears more than two blossoms on each stem; but in
cultivation flower-spikes of twenty or more blossoms are not uncommon.

_L. Davuricum_ is frequently grown in gardens. There is a large number
of named varieties of this lily, but all the forms are very similar,
and in no way deserve separate names. The plant grows to about four
feet high, and produces from four to thirty flowers of a dirty orange
colour.

_Lilium Bulbiferum_ very much resembles the lilies we have just
mentioned, but it may be at once distinguished from any other
_Isolirion_ by the bulblets which are formed in the axils of the
leaves. These bulblets are large and purple in colour. Not very
uncommonly bulblets form in the axils of the leaves of _L. Davuricum_
or _L. Elegans_; but when they do, they are small and green.

The blossoms of _L. Bulbiferum_ are like those of _L. Davuricum_ on a
smaller scale. The same upright position, the same poorness of form,
and the same dirty orange colour, which is so persistent among the
members of the group _Isolirion_, are present in both. But the blossoms
of _L. Bulbiferum_ are distinctly smaller than are those of _L.
Davuricum_.

If the lilies we have just described are not particularly remarkable
for beauty, they are, nevertheless, very desirable subjects for the
flower garden. They are showy, extremely hardy, flower in early
June, when showy flowers are rare, and readily increase when once
established. _L. Elegans_ looks best planted in rows and borders, its
low growth suiting it admirably for such treatment.

These lilies will grow anywhere, in any soil. A little peat and sand
should be mixed with the soil in which these lilies are planted.

Although they will grow well enough in pots, these lilies are quite
worthless for pot culture.

One of the best of the _Isolirion_ group of lilies is _Lilium
Batemanniae_. This plant resembles _L. Elegans_ in some particulars,
but its blossoms are quite distinct. They are of a rich unspotted
apricot colour. The perianth is more reflexed than is commonly the case
in this group. It flowers in the late summer. It should be grown in a
good peaty soil.

_Lilium Wallacei_, a very similar species, has the flowers of a rich
apricot, densely spotted with black. The bulbs of this species are very
small. It requires similar treatment to the last.

_Lilium Philadelphicum_ is an American species, and has a rhizomotose
bulb. The stem produces a single blossom, dirty orange colour spotted
with black and yellow. It requires a wet, very peaty soil.

Another American species is _Lilium Catesbaei_, a very curious and
interesting plant. The bulb is unlike that of any other lily except _L.
Avenaceum_. It somewhat resembles a fir-cone. This plant grows to the
height of about a foot. It produces a single blossom, about five inches
across. The segments are curiously curved and curled. Its colour is
reddish orange and yellow. It should be grown in a peaty soil, but it
is a somewhat tender species, and is not really suitable for outdoor
culture in this country.

We have hurried through this group of lilies because the species are
not remarkable either for form or for colour. They are certainly
inferior to any other of the genus _lilium_.

--------------------+----------------------------------+------------------------------------
     Variety.       |       Colour of Flower.          |        Other Peculiarities.
--------------------+----------------------------------+------------------------------------
                    |                                  |
 Type               |   Dirty orange, spotted.         |           ..          ..
                    |                                  |
*_Van Houttei_      |   Deep red, spotted black.       |   The best of the red varieties.
*_Horsmanni_        |   Deep red, spotted black.       | Very rare and difficult to obtain.
                    |                                  |
                    | {    Pale terra-cotta,     }     |
*_Aurantiacum Verum_| {  very slightly spotted.  }     |    Best of terra-cotta varieties.
                    | {                          }     |
                    |                                  |
 _Robustum_         |   Dirty orange, spotted.         | {    Very early. Stem covered
                    |                                  | {            with down.
                    |                                  |
*_Atro-Sanguineum_  | Very deep red, slightly spotted. |           Fine variety.
                    |                                  |
*_Prince of Orange_ |  Terra-cotta, slightly spotted.  | Inferior to _Aurantiacum Verum_.
                    |                                  |
 _Wilsoni_          |      Lemon-yellow, spotted.      |           ..          ..
                    |                                  |
                    |                                  |
*_Alice Wilson_     |        Clear lemon-yellow.       | {   Very curious. The best of the
                    |                                  | {         yellow varieties.
                    |                                  |
 _Bicolor_          |             Orange.              |              A poor form.
                    |                                  |
 _Brevifolium_      |     Dirty orange, spotted.       |              A poor form.
                    |                                  |
                    |                                  | {   Inferior to the other deep red
*_Incomparabilis_   |       Deep red, spotted.         | {    varieties, but bearing larger
                    |                                  | {              blossoms.
                    |                                  |
--------------------+----------------------------------+------------------------------------

[Illustration]




THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.

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


CHAPTER VIII.

A FALL IN THE KITCHEN.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But Lucy wondered whether she could not do something more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “Hark, the herald angels sing,
    Glory to the new-born King,
    Peace on earth and mercy mild,
    God and sinners reconciled.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The two little Brand girls were whining and fuming.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(_To be continued._)




[Illustration: ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS]


MEDICAL.

UNFORTUNATE ONE.—Tainted breath may be due to a great host of
conditions, and as it is a common affection, and is often exceedingly
distressing, we will devote a little time to its consideration. The
breath may be tainted from the mouth—bad teeth, deposits of tartar
round the teeth, spongy gums, sores in the mouth, such as the little
white ulcers so commonly due to dyspepsia, sores on the tongue or lips,
etc. Enlarged tonsils are an exceedingly common cause of foul breath.
Some forms of chronic catarrh of the nose and throat are also connected
with bad breath. Then again, the breath may acquire a bad smell from
disease of the lungs. The stomach also may cause the breath to smell
bad; as a symptom of indigestion, bad breath is not uncommon. Lastly,
poisons circulating in the blood will taint the breath. A mild form of
this taint of the breath due to substances circulating in the blood
is the unpleasant smell of persons who have eaten onions or garlic.
The treatment for this symptom varies with the cause. Bad teeth should
be stopped or removed. Tartar should be removed by scaling the teeth.
Spongy gums, etc., should be treated with appropriate measures. Tonsils
which render the breath fetid should be removed, for they are dangerous
centres from which serious diseases may start. For the bad breath
arising from troubles in the mouth or throat, a mouthwash of boracic
acid and lavender water, or dilute carbolic acid, or of permanganate
of potash is very useful. Orris root, eucalyptus lozenges, etc., are
also very valuable. When the smell is derived from the nose, local
measures are alone of any service. For other forms of tainted breath,
musk, benzoin, and orris root are of value. It is often said that these
aromatics should not be used for the purpose, because they only mask
the smell and do nothing to remove the cause of the evil. Quite so! But
when the cause cannot be removed, we must treat the symptom. For the
bad breath due to stomach trouble, attention to the digestion and an
aperient will be required. The other conditions and troubles causing
bad breath cannot here be dealt with.

CURIOSITY.—1. Apollinaris, Rosbach, and Johannis waters are for
table purposes, and possess no special medicinal action. Hunyadi,
Janos, and Apenta waters are both saline aperients. Both these latter
springs are in Hungary. Apenta is the more serviceable of the two.—2.
Aix-la-Chapelle supplies two mineral waters; that commonly called
Aix-la-Chapelle water is from a sulphurous spring. The other water is
Kaiser Brunnun, an ordinary gaseous table water.

GLASGOW.—We will give you our opinion; but, mind you, as in all
cases of this kind, we will not take the sole responsibility, and you
must get the opinion of another medical man upon the matter before
deciding for good. The family history of the man you intend to marry
is bad. His mother and his brother died of consumption. Your questions
are these:—Has the man got consumption? will he get consumption? If
he marries, will his wife get consumption, or will his children get
consumption? As regards the first question—you say he expectorates a
good deal, he has a “catching in the throat,” he is very tall and very
pale. He _may_ have the disease. We cannot go further than this without
examining his chest. The answer to the second question must be equally
indefinite. For the third question—his wife will not get consumption
from him unless he himself develops the disease. His children, however,
may develop the disease without their father being personally attacked.
Of course, all may go well, and neither the man, nor his wife, nor his
children may ever develop consumption; but with the history that you
give us, we fear that such a happy result is very doubtful. If the man
has got the disease at present, marriage is out of the question.

PUZZLED READER.—You should eat well, keep warm, and take plenty
of exercise. How to do these is the question. A mixed diet should
always be taken. If your digestion is good, oatmeal and other coarse
farinaceous food will help to keep you warm. If your digestion is
faulty, bread and milk is better. Fat does help to keep you warm,
and fat foods in moderation are by no means indigestible. Indeed,
fat bacon is one of the most digestible of meats. Dress in warm but
loose clothes. Your boots especially should be loose, but perfectly
watertight and well lined. Wear warm loose woollen underclothing. Avoid
any constrictions anywhere, such as tight garters, corsets, or collars.
Take as much exercise as you can manage.


MISCELLANEOUS.

S. C. A.—There is a shilling manual on common British ferns to be
obtained quite easily.

LILY.—To make a rice cake, take six eggs, and their weight (in the
shell) in sugar, and the same in butter; half their weight in rice
flour, and half of wheat flour; whisk the eggs, throw in the rice after
the flour, and add the butter in the usual way. Flavour according to
preference, and bake for an hour and ten minutes. The ingredients
should be severally added during the whisking. To prepare “pressed
beef,” procure a piece of the brisket, remove the bones, and put it
in salt (in the usual way), adding a little extra _sal prunella_ to
the brine and some spice, leaving it in pickle for rather more than a
week. Roll and tie up in a cloth, and simmer gently in plenty of water
for about seven hours (if the thin end, four hours); then remove the
string, tie cloth at each end, put the beef between two plates, and
press under a hundredweight, and leave till quite cold; then remove the
cloth, trim and glaze, and garnish with parsley.

DAFFODIL.—You would have no difficulty in obtaining a good
riding-habit in your own city, where there must be plenty of good
tailors. It would be impossible for us to give an estimate for one,
and we can only say that they may be of any price from £4 4s. to £10
10s. You had better get a Directory, look out for tailors and ladies’
tailors, and go and inquire personally.

M. M.—The “V.R.” on the upper corners made _all_ the difference, and
marked the first issue of the penny stamps in 1840. The stamp you send
us was issued in 1864, and is of no value at all except as a specimen
of the date, if you were collecting stamps of every known issue.

PALE FACE.—Red would of course suit you, as well as all shades of it.
Yellow sometimes suits pale faces very well, and so does grey relieved
with pink. Violet and blue will make you look paler.

E. F. BOULTBEE.—We have pleasure in announcing your change of address,
and congratulate you on your success in the oral system of teaching
deaf mutes, and the remedy of defective speech. Address, Miss Boultbee,
Members’ Mansions, Victoria Street, S.W.

MAHDI.—We thank you sincerely for so kind a letter respecting our
magazine. Your writing is excellent. Peel a banana from the end
downwards to the stem, and then use a knife and fork; or if at home, in
private, you can dispense with them.

P. F. M.—We do not know whom you mean by “supers,” for one of whom you
want a home. If some person that has been employed on the stage—one
class being known as “supers”—there is a charitable society called the
Church and Stage Guild, of which the Hon. Secretary is the Rev. Stewart
Headlam, Duke Street, Adelphi, W.C., which looks after these people,
and perhaps he might give you some information on the subject.

LIGHT WANTED.—There is not the slightest reason why the event should
not take place; indeed there is every reason why it should, provided
that both desire it.

CLARE VERNEY.—You might obtain the information you require by
reference to Agnes Strickland’s _Queens of England_, or other history
of hers.

MISS MASON requests that our readers should be reminded of her
Holiday Home for teachers, clerks, and young persons in business, at
Sevenoaks—“Bessel’s House,” Bessel’s Green, Kent. Reduced fares are
asked from Charing Cross, London Bridge, Cannon Street, and Victoria.
Return tickets for a month, 2s. 8d.—twenty miles from town by S. E. R.
Charge for board, etc., from 12s. to 15s. a week. A stamped envelope
should be enclosed, and the age and occupation of the applicant stated.

PERPLEXED.—The law on the question of changing or adding Christian
names is as follows: “A child’s _baptismal name_, if changed, or not
previously given, may be _inserted in the Register_ within twelve
months after the registration of birth.” You appear to be a member of
the Church of England, and as such, how came you to remain unbaptised
and excluded from Holy Communion until you were seventeen? “One year’s
delay is allowed by the law for altering or adding to your name,” as
entered on the Register of Birth, so as to accord with your “baptismal
name.” As it is, your assumed second name is not yours by legal right.

CUMBERLAND LASSIE.—The high glaze employed by washerwomen for linen is
produced by mixing some wax or fat with the starch. This is a difficult
undertaking, even when hot. But starch-glazes may be purchased ready
for use, which may be employed safely, and are sold at any good
oil-shop. Some people, who wash articles at home, simply stir the
starch while hot with a wax candle. The following is a good recipe for
a glaze: Take 100 parts of wheat starch, 0.75 of stearinic acid, melt
the latter with about ten times its weight of the former. Let it cool,
powder, and mix thoroughly with the rest of the starch. This will be
suitable for shirt-fronts and collars; but for table-linen add a little
unprepared starch.

LITTLE HOUSEWIFE.—To clean japanned trays you should never use hot
water; tepid water used with a soft cloth will remove any grease spot,
and a little flour sprinkled on a smear will restore the polish. The
varnish on candlesticks is often cracked by placing them before the
fire to melt the grease, or by the use of hot water.

A. A. and D. C.—We often see clergymen, who are graduates of different
universities, wearing the hoods of their several universities when
doing duty in the same church and at the same time. Wherever they
pursue their vocation, they have a right to wear their academic
distinctions, and none other.

ANXIOUS INQUIRER.—Your _fiancé_ should leave his own card. It is not
for you to do so for him. Leave your mother’s, should she permit it,
and your own, or her card with your name on it would be more correct.

SAMOA.—Table-napkin rings are only used in private at home, or at
a boarding house, economy in the matter of washing being an object.
But in the houses of the wealthy, a fresh napkin is provided daily,
and thus a distinguishing ring is needless. With reference to the
discoloured coral, try a weak solution of borax, tepid. Should this
fail, take it to a jeweller.

C. L.—There are only two ways of sending any parcel to India—by post,
or by private hand. The acorns should be put into a little box. Your
handwriting promises well, but is as yet unformed.

A CONSTANT READER has only to order a book on the subject from any
librarian, and he will procure it for her.

GENEVIEVE (Alderney).—You have only to write to the Manager of our
Publishing Department for the cover, with index of the year you
require, and ask him to inclose the bill, including postage, and any
bookbinder will bind your volume for you.