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[Illustration: THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER

VOL. XX.—NO. 1022.]       JULY 29, 1899.       [PRICE ONE PENNY.]




THE ANGEL OF PROMISE!

BY EDWARD OXENFORD.


    Wildly she wailed by the tiny cot,
        And knew not the words she said,
    As she Death reviled, for her darling child
        Therein lay cold and dead!
    All in the world she loved was lost,
        From her in its sweetness swept;
    She would no more trust in a Heaven unjust—
        Then the mourning mother slept!

    Hovered the Angel of Promise nigh,
        Empowered by the King above,
    And he o’er her bent with the tidings sent
        Of everlasting love!

    “Trust thou in Him; He knoweth best;
        Nought ordereth He in vain;
    Past the Golden Gates now thy babe awaits,
        And ye there shall meet again!”

    Tranquil and solaced the mother woke,
        Soul-filled with the Angel-dream;
    And she blessed each word, in her slumber heard,
        Sent down in love supreme.
    “Trust? yes, I trust! He knoweth best,
        And guardeth my babe who waits
    In the Realms of Bliss for a mother’s kiss,
        Till I pass the Golden Gates!”

[Illustration: “ALL IN THE WORLD SHE LOVED WAS LOST.”

    [_Franz Hanfstaengl, Munich._]

_All rights reserved._]




THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.

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


CHAPTER XVIII.

CLEMENTINA GILLESPIE.

Lucy could not honestly say to Miss Latimer that she had enjoyed
herself at the Brands’ dinner, but she could frankly say that Miss
Latimer had been right, and that her visit had “done her good.” For
though she had not returned refreshed and re-invigorated, yet she felt
a wonderful thankfulness to be once more enfolded in her own home-life.
Somehow, too, she could see her own trials in a truer and brighter
light. She herself might indeed be worn and nervous, but there was
good reason, and a grand purpose to be fulfilled by the labours and
endurance which made her so. Florence seemed not less worn and nervous,
and why? For no end but vanity and irritating emulation. There floated
through Lucy’s mind some lines she had learned in childhood:—

    “Idler, why lie down to die?
        Better rub than rust!”

But was rubbing really better than rusting, if it were but a voluntary
and needless friction? Lucy realised now that the deeper agonies and
anxieties and the more strenuous efforts of the past few months had
given her new standpoints, and had separated her from much which she
would once have tolerated without question. She remembered having read
the utterance of a certain writer, somewhat to this effect—“I have
been through the furnace, and I have passed out too scorched to mingle
freely with those who are not even singed.” Lucy could not quite see
the matter in that aspect. Rather she would have expressed herself—“I
have been out on God’s wolds, under His open sky with its storms and
its starlight, and I cannot again relish close, artificially-lit rooms,
sickly with manufactured perfumes.” Oh, when once Charlie was at home
again, how much they would have to be thankful for, in their life grown
at once wider and deeper! What a new meaning was given to the old
words, “The Lord drew me out of many waters.... He brought me forth
also into a large place.”

So Lucy’s long holiday from her classes at the Institute proved both
restful and delightful. Nor were they barren of practical results. She
found many picturesque “bits” to sketch near London. Work of this kind
was such pure joy to Lucy that she was apt to forget that nevertheless
it remained a strain upon the nerves. She might have been wiser, ay,
and thriftier too, had she indulged herself in a little sheer idleness,
in lying among the clover making daisy chains or cowslip balls for
Hugh. As it was, when he grew tired of playing alone, he would nestle
down beside mamma, watching her busy fingers and begging for “a story,”
for which he never begged in vain.

Oh, those were happy days, peaceful in their present calm, radiant with
big hopes dawning! Then the evening coming-home was always cheery,
with Miss Latimer hovering over the teacups, Tom’s merry welcome,
and the sighing Clementina’s conscientious preparations for their
creature-comforts. If Lucy’s ceaseless industry did not permit her to
gather up all the physical benefit she might have got, at least her
nightly rest grew sweet and calm, and the troubled haunting visions
vanished.

She herself found much satisfaction in regaining her healthy moral
poise. It did not fret her now when Jane Smith openly gibed at her
in the street. It did not worry her when Jessie Morison’s mysterious
female ally was seen passing the house, and lingering in front of the
gate, as if half inclined to call. Nay, she bore herself with courage
and resolution when the policeman rang the bell in the middle of the
night, and roused all the household to hear that a man was lying in the
area, having evidently climbed over the locked gate and descended the
stairs.

She and Miss Latimer and Tom went downstairs together, Tom being
an incalculable blessing in such circumstances. The invader was
intoxicated, not hurt, as Lucy at first suggested, to the policeman’s
great amusement.

“He’s not been so bad when he was so spry getting over; he thought he’d
got a nice corner to sleep himself square in,” said that functionary,
as, with Tom’s disgusted assistance, he pulled the man nearer the wall
and tried to make him “sit up.” Horrors! Where did Lucy know the smooth
white face and red head thus revealed to view? Why, this was no other
than the carpenter whom she had accredited as Jane Smith’s lawful
“young man.”

“You come out of this, my man,” said the policeman. “You’re where
you’ve no call to be. And if you don’t stir your stumps pretty quick,
it’ll be the worse for you.”

The man had nearly “slept himself square.” He stared wildly around, and
muttered something about “coming to visit one as had called herself a
friend”—“a-wanting to give her a bit of his mind.”

“Take him away and let him go,” Lucy pleaded with the policeman. “I
know who he is—he’s been employed at Shand’s works—he used to visit a
servant of mine who is not with me now. I don’t think she behaved very
well to him.”

The policeman looked up knowingly. “Is it that there woman that
lives——” he paused, with a significant glance towards the closed
windows of the Marvels’ house. “A bad lot she is. She behaves best to
any fellow she treats badly. Come, come, young man, as the lady speaks
for you, I’ll let you go this time. Your young ’ooman ain’t here now,
d’ye understand? And if you take my advice, you’ll give her a wide
berth, wherever she may be.”

The wretched youth rose, picking up his cap, and dashing it against the
iron balustrade to beat off the dust.

“Thank you kindly, mum,” he mumbled thickly. “I begs your pardon. I did
not know she’d left here. I on’y knew she gave me the go-by directly my
back was turned, a-earnin’ money to make a home for her.”

“Well, well,” rejoined the policeman, pushing the shambling figure
before him. “You be thankful she did give you the go-by, though you
don’t deserve a better woman, if you ain’t more of a man than to let
the likes of her get you into the mess you’re in to-night—or this
morning, rather,” he added, looking up at the whitening sky. “Good day,
mum, I’m sorry I had to disturb you.”

On their way back to their rooms, they met Clementina, who had been
aroused by the movements within the house. Clementina, as she herself
expressed it, “was trembling so that one could knock her down with a
feather.” She had not descended below the first floor. Her breathless
question was—

“Is he dead? Has it been a murder?”

She seemed so alarmed and agitated that Lucy, reminded that any such
night disturbance, if occurring on Clementina’s Highland hills, would
have meant something of tragic importance, proposed that they should
all adjourn to the kitchen together and fortify themselves with cups of
coffee. Dawn was already so bright that gas was a ghastly superfluity.
Clementina, usually almost obsequious in her methods of attendance, was
so shaken that she sat down and allowed the two ladies to make all the
little preparations. Yet she suddenly became more communicative than
she had ever been before, and also wonderfully interesting. She told
of other night alarms of her life—of a wild shriek that went sounding
over the moor in one black midnight hour, and was never explained till
months afterwards, when a few whitened bones and wasted rags had been
found among the heather. She whispered of the heavy knock which fell on
her father’s cottage door one bright moonlit evening, though no step
was heard on the footpath, and nobody was in sight when they looked
forth. “But on the afternoon of that day my brother Niel was killed in
India,” she went on in her monotonous mysterious voice, “and when we
heard that, we knew what the knock had been. That’s Niel’s memorial,”
she added, pointing to the melancholy little framed card. “It tells the
date—June 25—and the moon was at the full. It was Rachel’s sweetheart
who wrote and told us all about it,” she went on. “It was the year
after Rachel had been up seeing her sweetheart’s mother and visiting
us. And I mind, wicked sinner as I was, that I grudged that our lad
should be taken and hers left. But after all, she was never to see hers
again, for as long after as he lived. Eh, but life is short for any of
us, whatever!”

“Was your house quite lonely?” Tom asked in an awed whisper.

“Yes,” she said, “that house was. When my father first went there,
there was only a one-roomed place, and he had to pick up the stones
off the fields before he could plant. He said my mother put her life
into that bit of land. That was why she died so young. I’ve heard him
say he could never see a hayrick or a sheaf of ours without thinking
her very heart was inside it. In time he built two rooms more, putting
stone upon stone himself, and Niel helping him. And when, the summer
after Niel was dead, the factor’s letter came, saying the rent was to
be raised, I thought my father was struck for a dead man. I mind I lay
waking through the night. I slept in the old part of the house that
had been there from the beginning, and just when the light was peeping
in, I heard a strange sound, like a spade howking in hard earth. I lay
and listened, and I thought it was like the digging of a grave, and
that it was a sign sent that my father’s time had come. I kept still,
for it’s ill to pry where a sign is set. Then I heard something like a
very heavy sigh and a cough. I thought ‘that’s human,’ and I ventured
to peep. There was my old father himself, howking down the stones that
he’d built up, one by one! And all that day he did it, and by nightfall
no human creature could find a place there to lay its head. And it
was the room where my mother had died, and where Niel had sat in the
chimney corner. My father never said one word,” she concluded, “but I
knew what was in his heart. And next day he took the rubble, and threw
it over the fields. ‘And now,’ said he, ‘let the laird come and take
his own again.’”

A fierce vindictive exultation thrilled through her wailing Celtic
voice.

“But he that quarrels with the gentry is a miserable man,” she went
on. “Trouble came of it. The ford is as deep as the pool. Yet we got
another cot and croft close by, on another laird’s land. It was but
a one-roomed place with a stony field. But my father did nothing to
it this time. Weak is the grasp of the downcast! He was an old man,
and I think he left the soul of his soul in the other place where his
children had been born and his wife had died. My father never spoke out
about the hardship he’d had, but he went about, muttering, and though
he had been a godly man, it was the sound o’ curses that I heard. One
was, ‘May he die in the poors’ house.’ I knew he meant the laird. And
just one week after father himself was taken away, his prayer came
true,” she added in a strange, hissing tone, which sent a shiver over
her listeners.

They all bent forward, eagerly attentive. A strange light in her eyes
seemed to draw their souls towards hers.

“It came true!” she said. “The laird was visiting the poors’ house;
they say he had just been calling something—I think it was a cup of
tea—an ‘unnecessary luxury,’ when he was struck down in a fit, and
there, on a pauper bed, he died quickly, and never saw face of his own
folk again. All the strath was talking of it. But father did not live
to see it,” she went on, “so it did him no good. And naught but false
hearts and evil tongues had been with us in that last place, and I
couldn’t bide there.”

She added that with strong excitement. Lucy remembered Mrs. Bray’s hint
about the unhappy love affair and the hated sister-in-law.

“You must find it a great change from the heather hills to muddy London
streets,” said Mrs. Challoner, hoping to divert Clementina’s moody mind
into gentler channels.

“You can’t give luck to a luckless man,” she answered rather
enigmatically. Just then, the white dawn brightened into a sunbeam, and
the little group arose, feeling that though still early, it was time
they should separate and begin the tasks of the ordinary day.

“She’s an uncanny creature, that,” whispered Tom to Lucy, as they left
the kitchen. “Sometimes, while she was talking, I could not believe it
was our Clementina. It was like another person taking possession of
her.”

“I noticed that, too,” was Lucy’s whispered reply. “And her story about
the curse was awful!”

“You don’t believe it was the curse which did the thing, do you?” asked
Tom.

Lucy hesitated. “No,” she answered, “not as the curse. But without that
curse and the general impression that it was deserved, nobody would
have seen any significance in the laird’s dying where he did. Had he
been a kindly, good man, it would have been felt that his Master took
him to Himself while he was doing his Master’s business among the poor.
We must not forget that some terrible curses stand recorded in the
Bible, possibly to let the evil and unjust see the feelings which they
stir, and the fate they are making for themselves, and how it will be
interpreted.”

Clementina really seemed so much more communicative and even cheerful
after those untimely confidences that Lucy, fearing that she had not
been considerate enough to a lonely and possibly land-sick woman,
tried more persistently than ever to draw her into some conversation.
But Lucy was careful that the name of Charlie—Clementina’s unknown
master—should never get into the talk. She dreaded associating it with
Clementina’s sighs and shakings of the head. She had a nervous horror
lest Clementina should make it a point about which visions and dreams
and omens should crystallise. If this should happen, Lucy felt that she
herself was not now strong enough to shake off the gloomy impressions.

Tom, too, was evidently struck by the general bent of Clementina’s
remarks, generally made when she was setting out the supper-table or
removing it. He used to ask her why “second sight” could not foresee
marriages as well as deaths, comings home as well as goings away,
future occasions for joy as clearly as future woes?

Lucy was rather afraid Clementina might be hurt by Tom’s questions,
but though she sighed and shook her head over his words, she smiled
indulgently on the speaker.

Clementina seemed so unwilling to go out to take exercise in the
open air that Lucy determined to suspend her usual orders to her
tradespeople, and to send her servant out to shop in the evening, when
she herself could keep guard at home.

She told Clementina why she made this new arrangement, remarking that
she could not understand how one who had lived all her life in pure
bracing mountain air could persist in being so much confined in a
London kitchen. Clementina answered, shrewdly enough,

“There’s little bracing air to be had here, ma’am, however much one
may go out for it, and on our hills we didn’t need to go out for the
air, it came to us at our doors. That is why our people can live in
such low, dismal houses. They have but to go to the threshold, and God
Almighty’s glory meets them spread over earth and sky.”

Since Clementina had been with Mrs. Challoner she had not seen much of
Rachel. For Mr. Bray was seriously ill, and he and his wife and their
faithful attendant had gone to Bath, and communication between the two
women was limited to one or two brief notes. Clementina showed Rachel’s
notes to Mrs. Challoner, because they had tidings of the mistress’s
friends. Clementina once opened one of her prim little screeds to add
a message from Lucy in the postscript. Clementina was very lugubrious
over her old acquaintance’s master. Perhaps it was this which first
warned Lucy to give her no encouragement to weave fateful spells round
the absent Charlie. That “the master” would be at home about Christmas
time was all Clementina knew from Lucy herself. Of course Rachel might
have made confidences, but the Highland woman was too well-bred either
to trade on these or to ask any questions. Probably she but thought
the more. Lucy posted her own letters, but Clementina saw her writing
them, saw them lying addressed on the hall-table, waiting for Lucy’s
out-going. And as Clementina took in all the letters, she must have
known that no trans-Atlantic letters came. Undoubtedly she puzzled
herself over this mystery, for once she ventured to say to Lucy—

“It’s sore, ma’am, to see you writing so much and so often. Sending
letters across the world seems so like writing to the dead.”

“Oh, no, Clementina,” Lucy answered, “for we get answers.” And
Clementina smiled an inscrutable smile.

“You don’t believe we get answers from the dead, ma’am?” she asked.

“No,” said Lucy, “certainly not! Not in that way. The dead have cast
off their bodies, and if they do hold any communication with us, it
must be as if we too were out of the flesh.”

“My father always said we had no call to have any dealings with the
blessed dead,” remarked Clementina. “We never had any portrait of Niel.
But after he was killed, Rachel’s sweetheart sent us home a little
one in a case. It had been taken after Niel was in India. But when
my father saw what it was, he wouldn’t take a second look. After the
neighbours had been told about the death, my father never named Niel
again. He never spoke of our mother.” And Clementina sighed and went
about her business.

Lucy drew a long breath. The mere thought of such suppressed existence
seemed to choke her. There may be danger of righteous indignation or
strong emotion merely frittering itself away in the “soft luxurious
flow” of too copious expression. A deep thinker has cautioned us.

    “Prune thou thy words, the thoughts control
      That o’er thee swell and throng:
    They will condense within thy soul
      And change to purpose strong.”

But merely to smother and bury is not to control and direct. It is
rather to deprive healthful force of its lawful function, and to screen
fevered force from wholesome cure. Surely speech is to the mind as an
opened window is to a chamber. If the chamber be fresh already, then
its freshness but meets newer freshness. If it be filled with noxious
vapours, they escape and fresh air enters.

It struck Lucy, too, as singular how this Highland father and daughter,
unlike the Brands in every other respect, yet resembled them in one
particular.

These Gillespies had clearly been gloomy people, narrow of creed,
strict in life, staunch alike in love and in hatred. The Brands were
frivolous, practically creedless, moving at the breath of every social
wind, their emotions floating like bubbles on the surface.

Yet both the Brands and the Gillespies kept silence over “the dead.”
They shut up their names and their memories in the tomb. It had
often pained Lucy to realise that in her sister’s silence her own
recollections of her early home were fading. When we so inevitably
soon pass out of hearing of those who have shared a common past, Lucy
felt much should be made of that treasury, while two remain to turn
it over. Apart from the attractions of Mrs. Bray’s quaintness and
elfishness, the old lady had for Lucy the supreme attraction that she
remembered Lucy’s parents, and seldom saw her without making bright
reference to some saying or doing of “your father” or “your mother.”
But when Florence was forced to mention these parents, it was always in
a whisper—such as Lucy would have used in naming a painful subject. And
she invariably said “poor papa,” “poor mamma,” as if Death—as universal
as birth—can, in itself, be a misfortune.

Winter was drawing on, as Clementina poetically expressed it, “fast
as a stone rolls down the hillside.” No Pacific Island letter had
ever come from Mr. Challoner, but Lucy said to herself that possibly
his American letter would but come the sooner. Every morning she woke
with the thought “Charlie’s letter may come to-day!” She knew the hope
was still premature. So when she did not find Charlie’s letter, she
always opened her other letters cheerily and read aloud any items of
news which she thought might amuse the little breakfast party, Hugh
generally having an interest in most of his mother’s friends, since
those who cared for her did not forget to send a message to him, and
one or two even added a bit of paper “all for himself,” covered with
“O’s” for kisses.

One morning towards the end of November three letters lay by Lucy’s
breakfast plate. The top one was a note from the picture dealer, the
under one was but a type-written circular. But Lucy paused over the
centre missive.

“Here is a funny-looking epistle,” she said, holding it up. The
envelope was thin and poor and dirty, and the writing seemed to have
been done by a pin-like pen wielded by a very heavy hand, which must
have wrought sore damage on its instrument before it laid it down.

“I know what that is,” said Tom confidently; “it’s the bricklayer’s
bill.” A few days earlier a bricklayer had been employed to relay a
stone in the scullery floor, and Tom and Hugh had superintended the
performance with great delight.

“Well, I don’t think he makes out many bills,” remarked Lucy, rather
daintily tearing open the filthy wrapper and unfolding its contents.

As she did so, her contented smile changed to a look of bewilderment.

(_To be continued._)




ABOUT PERGOLAS, AND MISS JEKYLL’S “WOOD AND GARDEN.”


Miss Gertrude Jekyll’s _Wood and Garden: Notes and Thoughts Practical
and Critical by a Working Amateur_ (Longmans) would be welcome if it
were only for the convincing way in which she preaches the true gospel
of gardening—that there is no hard and fast line between wood and
garden, wild and cultivated. She makes her garden melt into her strip
of woodland; she plants her wood as well as her garden with flowers.
The twelve calendar chapters with which her book opens detail the
operations month by month of nature as well as of the gardener. These
are followed by chapters on large and small gardens; beginning and
learning; the flower-border and the pergola; the primrose garden; the
colours of flowers; the scents of the garden; the worship of false
gods; novelty and variety; weeds and pests; the bedding fashion and its
influence; and masters and men—all of them delightfully illustrated
from photographs taken by the author.

For most readers of THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER certain parts of the book have
less value than others. Much of it is taken up with the gardens of the
wealthy. Miss Jekyll’s own garden, which furnishes the backbone of the
book, entails considerable expenditure, and is the ideal garden for
a moderate-sized manor-house. But she treats her garden as a cottage
garden is treated. She buys every plant herself, and puts it into the
ground with her own hands, and she keeps her eye on every plant as
if it were a child, doctoring it when it is weakly, and removing it
when it is obviously unsuited to thrive under those conditions. She
pays special attention to the cottage gardens in her neighbourhood,
knowing that in them she will get her best object lessons in the
survival of the fittest. A cottage wife, to be successful with her
garden, has to use the flowers which experience shows will do best in
the neighbourhood. Her space is limited; she cannot afford expensive
protection against weather, or expensive manures; she cannot afford to
renew her plants often. By paying special attention to the gardens of
her poor neighbours, Miss Jekyll has secured some of the most luxuriant
massings of blossom in her own.

Invaluable advice will be found in the book upon such ordinary subjects
as flower-borders, villa gardens, and small town gardens, and Miss
Jekyll complements her generalisations on the subject by descriptions
of actual gardens of exceptional success and beauty. But I prefer
to take for my example of her book something a little more out of
the ordinary, which yet is within the reach of families of limited
means—the formation of a pergola, especially since it is quite possible
to make a pergola in the narrow strip of garden with which Londoners
have to be content. What is a pergola? people will ask. Webster, in his
great dictionary, defines it thus: “Pergola, _n._ (It.), Pergula, _n._
(Lat.) (ancient architecture), a sort of gallery or balcony in a house.
Some suppose it to be an arbour in a garden or a terrace overhanging
one.” Webster, severe New Englander, had not before his mind the kind
of pergola which haunts the memory of the lover of Italy when he is
back in prosaic London. To such, a pergola is part not of a house, but
of a garden, the framework for an avenue-arbour covered usually with
vines, but occasionally with gourds. This framework consists of a long
colonnade of snow-white plaster columns which support the cross-rafters
over which the vines are trained. And the prettiest ones are those
which crown overhanging terraces. For pergolas a single row of columns
and a wall are perhaps better suited to our more tempestuous climate.
The Italians prefer a double row of columns. Nearly every monastery in
the South of Italy has its pergola, as, for example, the often-pictured
convent of the Cappuccini at Amalfi. In the winter, when their leaves
are off, these pergolas give the effect of a peristyle in Pompeii. Here
is Miss Jekyll’s recipe for a pergola.

[Illustration: STONE-BUILT PERGOLA WITH WROUGHT OAK BEAMS.]

“I do not like a mean pergola, made of stuff as thin as hop-poles. If
means or materials do not admit of having anything better, it is far
better to use these in some other simple way, of which there may be
many to choose from—such as uprights at even intervals, braced together
with a continuous rail at about four feet from the ground, and another
rail just clear of the ground, and some simple trellis of the smaller
stuff between these two rails. This is always pretty at the back of
a flower-border in any modest garden. But a pergola should be more
seriously treated, and the piers at any rate should be of something
rather large—either oak stems ten inches thick, or, better still, of
fourteen-inch brickwork painted with limewash to a quiet stone colour.
In Italy the piers are often of rubble masonry, either round or square
in section, coated with very coarse plaster, and limewashed white. For
a pergola of moderate size the piers should stand in pairs across the
path, eight feet clear between. Ten feet from pier to pier along the
path is a good proportion, or anything from eight to ten feet, and
they should stand seven feet two inches out of the ground. Each pair
should be tied across the top with a strong beam of oak, either of the
natural shape, or roughly adzed on the four faces; but in any case, the
ends of the beams, where they rest on the top of the piers, should be
adzed flat to give them a firm seat. If the beams are slightly curved
or cambered, as most trunks of oak are, so much the better, but they
must always be placed camber side up. The pieces that run along the
top, with the length of the path, may be of any branching tops of oak,
or of larch poles. These can easily be replaced as they decay; but the
replacing of a beam is a more difficult matter, so that it is well to
let them be fairly durable from the beginning.”

Miss Jekyll gives illustrations which are reproduced. She says that
the climbers which she finds best are Vines, Jasmine, Aristolochia,
Virginia Creeper, and Wistaria, and that Roses are about the worst,
for they soon run up leggy, and only flower at the top out of sight.
I am not familiar with the Aristolochia, but Vines, Jasmine, Virginia
Creeper, and Wistaria, all of them grow well in the inner London
suburbs such as Chelsea and Kensington much better than Roses. Nearly
every London garden has its flower bed, two or three feet wide, running
along its wall, and its gravel path, two or three feet wide, running
outside that. All that remains therefore is to have brick piers seven
feet high built on the outside edge of the gravel path and to have
the roof framework carried across from them to the wall. With this a
hideous London back garden can be converted into a thing of beauty.

Readers, who are fortunate enough to live in the country and have a
strip of woodland adjoining their gardens, should read with great
care Miss Jekyll’s admirable advice as to the exotic irises and other
flowers which can be made to grow in English woods. A wood garden full
of daffodils and irises, anemones and primroses, in their due seasons,
is one of the most beautiful things in the world.

    DOUGLAS SLADEN.

[Illustration: PERGOLA WITH BRICK PIERS AND BEAMS OF ROUGH OAK.]




OUR PUZZLE POEMS: AN ACCIDENTAL CYCLE.

COMBINED SERIES.


FIRST PRIZE (_Three Guineas_).

    Helen B. Younger, Edinburgh.


SECOND AND THIRD PRIZES DIVIDED.

(_One Guinea and a Half Each._)

    Ethel Dickson, Preston.
    Ellie Hanlon, Sandycove, Dublin.

These competitors also gained prizes in Series II. and III., and,
according to the rules, we have made a further award of the amounts so
won.


SERIES II.—SEVENTEEN SHILLINGS TO AWARD.

WINNERS (_Six Shillings Each_).

    Miss E. J. Friend, Woodford Green.
    Mrs. G. W. Smith, North Walsham.
    Mrs. A. J. Wilson, Croydon.


SERIES III.—NINETEEN SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE TO AWARD.

WINNERS (_Four Shillings Each_).

    Rev. Joseph Corkey, Armagh.
    Edith E. Grundy, Leicester.
    Rev. V. Odom, Sheffield.
    C. Thompson, Minchinhampton.
    Frederick W. Southey, Newcastle-on-Tyne.


_Correction—Series I._

The solution sent by M. A. C. Crabb was entirely overlooked. It was
perfect, and entitled to a prize of ten shillings, which has now been
sent. No complaint was received from the solver.




IN THE TWILIGHT SIDE BY SIDE.

BY RUTH LAMB.


PART X.

AN ALL-IMPORTANT SUBJECT CONCLUDED.

    “Her price is far above rubies.”—Proverbs xxxi. 10.

       *       *       *       *       *

I want to begin our evening talk, once more, by asking a somewhat
searching question. I know I shall not offend my dear girl friends by
so doing.

When you are looking forward to meeting the one on whose good opinion
you place the greatest value, on what do you bestow most care and
attention? Your higher nature, or your outward appearance? Is it not
generally the latter? Do you not study what colour best suits your
complexion, what style sets off your figure to the greatest advantage,
or whether you have heard him express approval of one dress above all
others?

To use the common phrase, you “want to look nice” in the eyes of that
one who has done all but tell you that you occupy the first place in
his heart, and to whom you have virtually given your own.

Do I blame you for wishing to be externally attractive? Assuredly
not. It is your duty to try and be so at all times and under all
circumstances.

Only, do not be too anxious about outside adornment. Let your life
commend you, rather than your good looks or your tasteful dress. These
may attract in the first instance, but they will not keep what is best
worth having.

A friend once spoke to the mother of a large family of girls in regard
to the anxiety she must feel about their future settlement in life.

She answered with a bright smile, which suggested anything but anxiety,
“I try so to train my girls that they will be fit for the sacred duties
that wives and mothers have to fulfil, and I leave the rest to God.”

One would like to see all girls actuated by the same spirit, that,
without undervaluing anything that helps to make them externally
attractive, they should cultivate every quality that will place them on
a level with the best man in the best things.

In speaking to you, dear girl members of my Twilight circle, I assume
that you desire in all your ways to acknowledge God, and pray that He
will direct your paths. Can there be a more important matter on which
you need guidance than that on which the happiness of your future life
depends? And yet, how common it is for girls to be so carried away by
flattering words and delicate attentions, which make them the envy of
others, that they do not pause to think how small a part these things
play in most married lives.

Are you accustomed to lay bare your heart to God in prayer, and to seek
His aid in all things? If so, have you asked yourself whether the one
to whose keeping you think of committing your future, will be likely
to kneel by your side and join heart to heart with you in making your
joint requests known to God?

Believe me, if husband and wife never pray together, they never taste
the sweetest portion possible in the cup of wedded happiness.

If their ways diverge when the path leads to the House of God; if they
neither worship together in the home nor the sanctuary, they are
without the precious bond of union that makes their lives truly one
here, and gives the assurance of an eternal reunion beyond the grave.

There are many indications of character which may seem trivial in
the eyes of some of you, but which ought to be deemed danger signals
in regard to married life in the future. For instance, an occasional
giving way to intemperance. Jesting about sacred things or passages
from the Bible. Breaches of faith in minor matters. Disregard of
truth, duplicity or evasion. Lavish expenditure and indifference about
incurring debts. Carelessness as to the comfort and convenience of
other members of the family, and want of respect towards parents.

These are but a few of the tendencies which are almost certain to
develop into habits later in life, and to bring anxiety and sorrow with
them.

A girl can make no greater mistake than to think that, after marriage,
her influence alone will suffice to conquer all such tendencies. A man
naturally tries to present the best side of his character to the girl
he seeks to win, and if the best is disfigured by serious blemishes,
believe me, these will be more likely to grow than to disappear after
marriage.

Not that I would underrate the possible influence of a good woman.
But to a good girl I would say, “Let your suitor, who is ready to
promise anything if you will say ‘yes’ to his suit, begin his work of
reformation _now_. Tell him frankly that your heart inclines to favour
him, but conscience warns you not to link your life with his until you
feel that the habits which threaten your future happiness have been
overcome by God-given strength. Say that you will wait, prayerfully and
patiently, during the testing-time, but that you dare not consent to an
unequal yoke. If he truly loves you he will receive your answer in a
right spirit, and will value and respect you the more for it.”

If, on the contrary, he should prove unwilling to turn from the sin
which so easily besets him, be assured that the test has been wisely
applied, and thank God that you had the courage to use it. If we do
right at all costs to our own inclinations, we may with confidence
leave our future in God’s hands, and be sure that He will have some
better thing in store for us in His own good time.

You, my dear ones, must, however, look within, as well as at all that
can be discerned in the characters of those who come to woo you. A true
heart should have its counterpart in exchange. If one is offered, see
that you give an equivalent, and do not dare to accept that for which
you can give no fair return.

To accept true affection only because of the money or position that
comes with it, and to feign the love you do not feel in order to secure
a share of the wealth you covet, is to commit a fraud of the worst and
most contemptible kind. You cannot, it is true, be called to account
before an earthly tribunal, but you will assuredly pay the penalty of
deceit and selfishness in one way or another.

There are some girls, dear good girls too, who get a little carried
away by the sense of power and proprietorship that comes with an
engagement.

Does it not seem delightful to look up at the fine, strong sample of
humanity, whom love has made your captive, and to think to yourself,
“He is ready to give his strength, his means, his time, all that he
has, to promote my happiness”?

Does the thought of such honest devotion make you proud or humble;
anxious to display your power or to repay and deserve such devotion?

Who has not heard such words as these from girlish lips? “I can twist
him round my little finger.” “He almost worships the ground I tread
on.” And forthwith the speaker proceeds to prove the truth of her
assertion by little, teasing, coquettish ways that are unworthy to
have a place where true love is concerned. These airs and graces and
tantalising ways are only like pin pricks, but they wound and leave
scars which do not easily wear away.

The more tender and sincere is the nature with which you have to do,
the more likely is it to retain the painful impression produced by
such methods. I am not going to describe them exactly. You all know
what I mean, and, in your hearts, acknowledge that they are unworthy
accompaniments even to your self-respect, to say nothing of the esteem
which should always go with love for your future mate.

If you believe in your _fiancé’s_ truth, be content without compelling
him to make a perpetual show of his devotion for the gratification of
your vanity. Good men are pained by such experiments; men of lower
natures are apt to retaliate, though, it may be, not immediately.

A husband of many years’ standing once told me that a few words, half
jesting, half taunting, from the girl to whom he was engaged, had
nearly caused a final parting. They did not, for the girl, finding that
she had gone too far, expressed her regret and was forgiven. But the
effect of her stinging words did not soon pass away. The girl forgot
them. The man’s memory was too faithful, and after a long married life
he could not think of them without a renewal of the old pain. “I would
give anything to blot out the memory of that girlish taunt,” he said,
“but I cannot, and _it hurts me after all these years!_”

A good man I knew said to the girl who had just promised to be his
wife, “I have asked you to share my home and my life because you are
dearer to me than all the world besides. Your consent has made me very
happy. Now, dear, I want you to trust me fully, and never to stoop to
test my affection, as I have seen some girls do, in order to display
their power over a man. I have perfect confidence in you, and, though
we shall be parted for some months to come, I shall be cheered by the
thought that at the end of them our real life union will begin. If
at any time you should not receive a letter just when you look for
it, or my coming should be delayed, be sure that I have not willingly
disappointed you. Wait patiently, and trust me under all circumstances,
as I trust you.”

The girl promised. The quiet, simple words and the look of love and
faith in the speaker’s face went to her heart. “Come what may, I shall
always trust you,” she said, “whether in great or little things.”

Circumstances followed—quite unforeseen at the time the pair became
engaged—which tested to the utmost the affection and trust of both. But
they stood the test, and when at length difficulties were overcome,
their union was not the less happy, because, if they had trodden a
somewhat thorny road before reaching the bright home they shared
together, neither doubt nor waning affection had helped to darken the
way.

Sweethearts and wives have such grand opportunities for showing their
power that they need not stoop from the high standpoint, at which every
truly noble-minded woman aims, in order to gratify petty vanity.

The girl _fiancée_ and the wife are alike unequal to lover or husband
in mere physical strength. That is natural, and therefore right. But in
time of trouble many a man, ready to sink under the weight of it, has
gained new strength and courage from her whom he has hitherto deemed
the weaker vessel. Her words may have been few, but they have always
been suggestive of hope and cheer, and said at the right moment.

There has been no “I told you how it would be,” no allusion to mistakes
made or the ignoring of advice which would have prevented them, but
pity for him who is only too acutely conscious of all that has been
wrong. Yet, when gloom and despair were about the man’s path and in his
heart, both have fled before a wife’s devoted ministry and the light
of love on her face. Perhaps she has told him that she knows their
changed circumstances trouble him more on her account than on his own,
but that, with him, she is strong to face them, and she proves it by
patient endurance and by making the best of all things. He sees that
she resolutely turns her face to the bright side—and I truly believe
there always is a bright side—and thus she induces him to open his
despairing eyes to the light, though as yet it may be only a distant
glimmer hard to discern.

A man with such a helper to cheer him on will be heartened to try
again, though he had given up hope. Her courage will make him a coward
in his own eyes, so he will raise his listless hands and shoulder his
load anew for her dear sake. He has felt that it would be impossible
for him to hold up his head again amongst his fellows, but with the
knowledge that a good girl or woman loves and trusts him, despair is
impossible. She believes that the one defeat has taught him to mistrust
himself, and that he will seek strength from God to fight again and to
conquer.

Can you not, my dear girls, imagine a man ready to face, dare, or
do anything in order to prove himself worthy of such whole-hearted
affection and trust?

I have been asked whether the early or later years of married life are
the happier. I think, nay, I am sure the later ones ought to be, if the
union was first founded on love, faith, and respect. All these feelings
should grow stronger as time goes on, and, just like the fair flowers
that need the gardener’s care to perfect them, they should be carefully
cultivated.

We show our love far more by the little things that go to make up the
sum of happiness in everyday life, than by occasional great sacrifices.

The engaged girl carefully notes the likings and dislikes of her
intended husband. She ministers to the one and will not provoke a
manifestation of the other. She watches for a chance of doing something
for him and giving him pleasure. Does she ever leave him abruptly, or
allow him to leave her without an affectionate farewell?

Ah, no! We all know that the farewells of an affianced pair are apt to
be long drawn out. The girl thinks that nothing can be too good for him
who is dearest of all. No effort seems too great when it is seasoned by
love.

If such is the case before marriage, how much more should the practice
of all sweet observances and courteous habits, care in little things
to avoid giving pain and to minister pleasure, be in constant evidence
after marriage!

Little things are often the means of drawing people together in the
first instance. It is much easier to win affection than to keep it,
and, better still, to be conscious that it has grown and strengthened
through the long years of married life. And it is only in the sanctuary
of their home that husband and wife learn truly to know each other, and
to grow into that perfect unity so rarely attained even by those whom
we call happy couples.

It so often happens that people who are most scrupulous as to their
“society manners,” forget to render ordinary courtesy to their own
belongings. They seem to think anything is good enough for the home
circle. Can there be a greater mistake? Those who are joined to us by
the dearest of ties are surely the ones to whom everything we have of
the best should be scrupulously rendered.

I was charmed a while ago, when I was talking with a mother of grown-up
sons about her father. I had known her from her early teens, and we
have been great friends always. It was beautiful to see her face light
with pleasure as she said, “I was telling him only the other day that
I never receive from anyone such perfect courtesy and attention as I
do from my own dear father, and now he is eighty years old. But he has
always, everywhere, and to every person, been the same.” And I, who had
long experienced this, could endorse her words.

So, dear ones, keep your very best manners for home, and they will not
fail you in other circles.

Dear girl wives, be as thoughtful for your husbands as you were for
your lovers—and more. Do not let them miss the loving farewell when
they go out to their daily battle with the world, whether it be in the
field of commerce, the learned professions, art, or behind the counter.

In the humbler but no less useful fields of toil, the farm or the mill,
the man will be cheered by the memory of loving words and the prospect
of your welcoming face and kiss when he comes home weary, toil-worn,
perchance downhearted.

And knowing how you will meet him, he will quicken his tired feet, that
he may the sooner receive the greeting for which his heart longs. If he
has good news to bring, the way will seem doubly long because of his
eagerness to share it with you.

There are times when the best of men are almost too sad and weary to
bear sympathy of the demonstrative sort, when everything seems to have
gone wrong, and all they want is just to be left in peace for a while.

Real sympathy is many-sided, as you all know. It may be of the fussy
sort, which cannot be satisfied without incessant expression, either in
word or deed. Kindly meant, it is apt to jar on its object.

There may be more wisdom and no less sympathy shown by silence than by
words. Thoughtful loving actions will not be lost on the weary, worried
man of business, who has found it impossible to leave all his cares
outside the threshold of home. I knew a man who used to say to his
almost too sympathetic wife, “Let me be quiet a little, my dear, I want
to think things out. I shall be all right by and by.”

Then the wife knew that kind words or the touch of a loving hand was
better withheld, and possessed her soul in patience until the thinking
out was done, and her husband was his bright self again.

The wife’s character should be great enough to grasp the greatest
things that come within her province, yet comprehensive enough to stoop
to the least. Do you wish to look upon a picture which represents a
perfect wife? There is one drawn in words by an inspired writer. Turn
to Proverbs xxxi., and read from the tenth verse to the end.

Note, first, her value. “Her price is far above rubies.” Her
faithfulness. “The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her.”

Her devotion is of no fitful sort. “She will do him good and not evil
all the days of her life.”

She is clever and far-seeing, and able to turn the means with which
she has been entrusted to good account in her purchases of land and of
goods.

She is industrious. “She riseth also while it is yet night.” “She
layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.”

She thinks and cares for those she rules for. “She giveth meat to her
household, and a portion to her maidens.” “She is not afraid of the
snow for her household: for all ... are clothed with scarlet.”

In the midst of wealth and abundance she seeks out, and blesses by
her bounty, those who are less favoured. Note the expression. “She
stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands
to the needy.”

No niggardly giving here. She seeks rather than is sought by the poor.
She is the cheerful giver whom God loveth.

She does not despise rich and beautiful clothing, becoming to her
position. “Her clothing is silk and purple,” which she may well wear
with satisfaction, seeing that she has cared for the needs of others
both near and afar off. But she has better garments than the silk and
purple, for “strength and honour are her clothing” also.

With all her strength, riches, commercial shrewdness and industry, she
combines wisdom and kindness in deed and word. “In her tongue is the
law of kindness.”

Good mistress! Good wife! Good mother! “She looketh well to the ways
of her household.” “Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her
husband also, and he praiseth her.”

Note the summing up of the whole matter. “Favour is deceitful, and
beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be
praised.... Let her own works praise her.”

What, save a life spent in the faith and fear of God, could furnish
such a picture? What, save the grace of God and the guidance of the
Holy Spirit, could be sufficient for such things?

And these must have been sought by prayer, and God’s blessing on the
study of His Word.

I have said much to you, dear girl friends, of my own happy married
life. Shall I tell you what made it so?

It was the being of one heart and one mind in the highest and best
things. We knelt, prayed, worshipped, and worked as one, and love,
trust, and true respect were the foundation of our union which grew
ever closer and dearer with the years we spent together.

Of all the precious memories I retain of my wedded life, one stands out
beyond the rest.

It was on the last day of it that _he_ bade me lie down by his side.
Drawing me close to him, he held me in those dear, worn arms, as if he
could not bear to loose the clasp, kissing me tenderly and repeatedly.
Then, when he could no longer hold me for very weakness, he said, “Oh,
my darling, my darling! Even you do not know how much I have loved you.”

Have I done right in drawing aside the veil, and showing to you, my
dear girl friends, this picture of what was truly his farewell?

I hope it will not have been done in vain. People may talk as they will
about the first whispered words of love and their sweetness. I can
recall such to mind.

Think you that any or all of them are worth naming in comparison with
those precious last words from dying lips, after so many years of
wedded life and happiness together?

(_To be continued._)




FROCKS FOR TO-MORROW.

BY “THE LADY DRESSMAKER.”


One sign of high summer in London is an odd one, and that is the
presence of handsome furs in the West-End shop-windows, where they
may be seen any day after June has once begun. I used to think people
bought them, even when the thermometer was registering 68° in the
shade; but I have found cause to think that they are simply displayed
in the window as a measure of safety, for light, sunshine, air, and
dryness are the chief enemies of the moth, and both May and June
are the worst of months in which they do their deadly work on the
costliest of our raiment. In the shops where furs are kept, they are
beaten with tiny canes, and exposed as much to the air and light as
possible. So we may take a leaf from this open book, and perhaps save
ourselves loss and disappointment. Of course, I do not mean that furs
should be faded by exposure to the sun; but if they were really good
and undyed, a little sunshine would not hurt them, though too much may
do them harm.

This year furs were used up to June, as the weather remained cold till
then; but there was not enough sun to do them harm. Nevertheless,
I lean to the idea that they are best left off early, both for the
health of the furs and of ourselves, many people being inclined to wear
them too long. In the present month they will need attention—shaking,
airing, and beating, and a general careful looking-over.

[Illustration: THREE NEW GOWNS.]

One of the most frequently remarked peculiarities of the present day is
the kind of wobbling way adopted by many women and girls when they
walk. They go from one foot to the other just like a duck. Now, I know
I have said this before, but I am desirous of saying it again, because
I am told that the matter is even more serious than I fancied, and that
there are many more operations in the hospitals now than there were
for various foot troubles. Also I have been informed that the number
of chiropodists has trebled in London during the past three or four
years—really since the pointed-toe shoes came into fashion. There is no
doubt, as we look at one of these ungraceful walkers, that the reason
lies either in their present or their past foot-gear. One of the most
usual sources of trouble is our universal fashion of wearing too heavy
shoes or boots, with too thick soles. In fact, they are altogether too
thick and heavy for warm weather. A lighter shoe would be equally good
and serviceable, and even if it _did_ get damp and need changing, we
could manage this easily on our return home. Follow two rules in the
choice of your shoes. Choose those which do not compress nor curl your
toes under when wearing them, and remember that a shoe is as bad when
too large as when too small. A thin stocking is better than a thick
one; and I have seen many people recently who have obtained ease and
comfort by dismissing merino, wool, and spun silk, and adopting cotton
for winter, and thread for summer. I think a thick cotton stocking
quite as warm as a thick woollen one.

[Illustration: TWO LONG TUNICS.]

The linen collar is far less used this season with blouses than it was
last year. Instead we see lace ties, and lace and silk scarfs. It is
wonderful how pretty an effect is produced by using a lace scarf and
one or two paste brooches or pins, which look so well in the filmy
folds of the lace. The lace has a far softer effect than the plain
severe collar, and this is a question that every girl must consider
for herself. An easy way is to have a long lace scarf, not more than
five inches wide, and to put it on from the front to the back, crossing
it there, and bringing the ends to the front, where they should be long
enough to be tied under the chin in a lightly-knotted bow, in which may
be placed some paste pins, or the tiny brooches so much used at present.

[Illustration: A POINTED TUNIC.]

If I were asked what was the favourite colour, I should very certainly
respond “Blue” to that question. But there are blues and blues; and
I have seen so many that it is difficult to say which is the ruling
hue. A very bright shade is certainly much liked, which is quite of
the old Royal-blue description. Plaids and stripes are much on the
increase, and I should not be surprised if we were to see a winter
of them. These very narrow skirts are well suited to the cutting of
striped materials, which are arranged with a seam in front and one at
the back, the stripes meeting in points like arrow-heads at both these
seams. There are also many spotted materials, and any number of ribbed
and smooth cloths, of varying degrees of thickness. Serge, too, is much
in evidence, and is as popular as ever, and so is woollen poplin and
Venetian cloth. Satin is as much used, and as fashionable as it was;
but fancy silks of all kinds seem to have been less liked than muslins
were during the warmest days of the summer; while the satin-faced
foulards were very pretty, but were not so popular as they promised to
be.

The shoe most worn this season has been the Cromwell shoe, having a
buckle for ordinary daily use with afternoon attire. But where evening
dress is concerned, there has been a great development in luxury, and
they are now made of brocade and velvet; and as to the buckles, you
may expend any amount you like upon them, for they are sometimes set
with precious stones, and are really beautiful. As yet, these shoes are
exotics, and only worn by a few, but no doubt the brocaded ones have
been copied from those of the time of Elizabeth, which have been shown
at the various exhibitions held of late years.

There has been rather a revival in the fashion of cycling, which
has recently suffered rather an eclipse, and there is a very great
improvement in the style and cut of skirts for this exercise, and also
in the general appearance of women a-wheel. The new method is to sit
high and straight, with the handle-bars within easy reach; and there
seems much less exertion in the management of the machine than when the
seat was lower. The cut of the new skirts is so good that they hang
down on either side of the machine quite straight, and there is plenty
of room for pedalling without any of that ungraceful drawing up of the
knees and of the skirt as well that used to be seen and is noticeable
even yet when some careless rider passes us by. We have all, I suppose,
read the Prime Minister’s speech about the ungracefulness of the attire
used in wheeling, and I for one feel quite grateful to him for his
plain speaking. So far as in each of us lies, we should strive to be
graceful, and as pretty as possible, while on our favourite iron steed.
The pattern of these skirts is sold at several paper pattern depôts, so
they can be cut and made at home.

The seated figure in our illustration, which shows a simulated tunic
trimming on the skirt, wears a pretty gown of pale grey summer-cloth,
the bands on the skirt and on the gown bodice being of embroidered
purple silk, while the vest in front is of pale green silk, and bands
of cream-coloured silk embroidery on cream silk. The same embroidery
heads the flounce at the bottom of the skirt. The lining of this gown
is of purple silk; and it has a grey hat and grey and purple ostrich
feathers to wear with it.

The group of “Three New Gowns” begins to show some slight evidences
of autumnal styles, especially the lady in the centre, who wears a
light fawn-coloured braided jacket, with a skirt of light brown cloth,
which is scalloped with velvet of a darker shade, the lower flounce
being embroidered also in silks of a darker brown. This is a charming
autumnal costume for short visits and journeys in England. The hat is a
sailor one, trimmed as these hats generally are at present, with more
or less elaboration. The present one has trimmings of yellow chiffon,
with wheatears laid over it.

The figure on the left hand wears an embroidered and ribbon-trimmed
gown of black satin, the front of the skirt and vest being of pale
lemon-coloured silk, with chiffon of the same hue, and bands of ribbon.
The hat is of the new burnt straw, and is trimmed with white chiffon,
with poppies and bunches of oats arranged amongst it. The right-hand
figure wears one of the new scarf bodices, crossed over in front, a
shirt-front of white silk, and a light green tie. The dress is of
figured poplin, with bands of green silk on the skirt. The toque is of
crinoline, with green and black chiffon, and black ostrich feathers.

The newest style is to have a neck and waist-band of a different colour
from the rest of the dress. For instance, if the gown be mauve, the
velvet at the neck or waist may be of pale blue or pale green, and
with a black gown orange is much worn. There has been a great feeling
towards mixed colours, and it is quite wonderful how we have got over
the old idea that it was both vulgar and ugly to wear many colours, or
to mix two incongruous materials in one gown.

The third illustration shows two charming gowns. The one on the
extreme right wears one of the new satin foulards of dark blue, with
a small white pattern on it. It is trimmed with light blue ribbon in
scallops round the skirt and up the side, the sleeves, and the yoke.
The last-named is of white silk, and so is the under-skirt. The second
figure wears a dress of white figured muslin, the bodice trimmed with
ruffles, and the vest is of tucked muslin. Straps of ribbon are on the
top of the sleeve and round the points of the tunic and waist. The
under-skirt is of muslin flounced, and with folds of muslin between
each. This model would be suitable for a coloured muslin, as well as a
white one.

The bolero has retained its popularity throughout the whole of the
season, and has quite superseded the longer jacket for afternoon and
dress wear. There are also revers to nearly all dresses. But I am
assured that our autumn novelties will be minus both these items, and
that the long three-quarter coat is likely to be the garment of the
winter.




THE COURTSHIP OF CATHERINE WEST.


CHAPTER IV.

Granville Gray was sitting in the library of Lord Mayne’s town house.
He was very busy, for though it was the recess, and his lordship was
away shooting in Scotland, and all the political and fashionable
world was dispersed in different directions, this was just the time
that he could devote to his own pursuits, and to certain important
investigations regarding the industrial life of the country by which
he hoped some day to make his name. But his attention was not as
undivided as usual. He would suddenly interrupt his work to walk up
and down the room, or to gaze absently out of the window at the dusty
lime trees that shaded the iron railing. For his work at the present
moment was not an aim, but a distraction. Catherine’s sudden flight
and the simultaneous appearance of Lady Blanche had made him realise
how strong and genuine was his passion for the former. How precise,
and commonplace, and conventional did the heiress appear beside the
glorified recollection of the girl he loved, as she had stood trembling
and clinging to him on the hillside. So when he read her little note,
with its tender farewell, which convinced him of her affection for him
at the same time as he became fully conscious of his own devotion, he
resolved that no other woman should be his wife, and determined to
set out in search of her at once. In spite, therefore, of Margaret’s
remonstrances, he excused himself to Lady Blanche on the plea of urgent
business, but he did not attempt to conceal the real state of the case
from his sister. Margaret was really very much disappointed, and blamed
herself exceedingly. She knew her brother well enough to realise that
when he had once made up his mind, persuasion was useless; she was
obliged to acquiesce, and to console herself with the thought that
if she had been unwise in bringing her brother and friend together,
Catherine was a very charming girl who could do him no possible
discredit.

So leaving the two women at the hotel, Granville had set out for the
address given on Catherine’s card. He hardly hoped to find her in so
obvious a retreat, yet supposed that he would at least be able to learn
something about her movements there. Great was his disappointment,
therefore, when he discovered that though the object of his pursuit
had been there only two days before, nothing was known of her
present address. The landlady, who scented a romance the moment this
interesting-looking gentleman inquired for Miss West, advised him to
write to the head-mistress of the High School. Granville had at once
acted on this, but as this lady was abroad, and her exact address was
doubtful, he was not surprised that he had not yet received an answer.
Three weeks had passed away in suspense and fruitless inquiry. He had
traced Catherine to Euston, where she had changed for Victoria, on her
way to St. John’s, but all further effort had been useless. Even now,
he thought, she might be within a few miles of him, somewhere in this
vast city; for what better hiding-place than London could anyone want?

His musings were interrupted by a sudden sound of wheels, and the
shrill ringing of the electric bell. Presently the door opened, and a
man brought in a card.

“A lady to see you, sir. She asked for his lordship’s address, but when
she heard you were in, she said she would like to see you.”

Granville was annoyed; he did not feel in the least inclined for an
interview with an unknown lady. Why should the man be so officious?
Then as he looked at the card his heart gave a sudden bound. Had
Catherine sought him out? But what an unlikely idea; West is not an
uncommon name. Nevertheless, it was with a quickened step that he
crossed the hall to the room where the visitor was waiting.

His heart sank when the little old lady, almost old enough to be his
grandmother, rose to meet him.

“I must explain my business,” she said, looking at him with a keen
scrutiny that would have confused a less self-possessed person. “I
asked for Lord Mayne, but I have come on a matter connected with
yourself.”

“With me? I am afraid——”

“Of course, you do not know me. Now will you tell me why I have had the
good fortune to find you in London at this unseasonable time?”

Granville felt more and more astonished, and began to think that his
visitor was mad, and must be humoured.

“I have come here on urgent private business,” he answered. “But you
wished to see Lord Mayne; is it on any matter that I can answer?”

“As I said before, you can probably satisfy me better than anyone else.
But before I put any more questions, let me tell you a story.”

And forthwith she poured out to him all the history of her quarrel
with Catherine’s father, and of her reconciliation with his daughter,
carefully avoiding the mention of the latter’s name. But Granville,
listening attentively, soon solved the enigma. He could hardly wait
with patience till she concluded, saying—

“I am naturally anxious about my niece’s future. She will inherit a
larger fortune than she has any idea of. I may die at any moment, and
she will be left alone in the world, a prey to fortune-hunters, and
quite unprepared to grapple with such difficulties as are sure to meet
her.”

“But why have you told me this?” he asked. “I cannot pretend not to
understand to whom you refer. But has Miss West——”

“Catherine, who, as you have guessed, is my niece, has told me very
little. But, apparently, you are almost the only man she knows. I
believe that I can trust you, for in a long life my powers of intuition
have seldom played me false. What I want to know is whether you would
be prepared to be one of the executors of my will, and to look after
her interests when I am gone?”

“You place me in a very difficult position,” answered he. “Whatever may
be Miss West’s feeling towards me, I tell you plainly that no other
woman shall ever be my wife. But though I am glad for her sake that
she has found you, your news is a personal disappointment to me. I
have spent the last three weeks in a ceaseless search for her. I had
hoped in a few days to go to her and offer all I have—which, if not
much, would at least have been something. How can I do so now? And if
I accept the executorship I shall be placed in the painful position
of seeing her continually without feeling at liberty to declare my
affection.”

“But why should you not declare it? Catherine may return your
affection, and she is quite without fortune at present. If you honestly
care for her now, why not follow up your acquaintance. Come and see her
as my visitor, and win her by a gradual courtship?”

“I cannot do it,” he said. “Simply because I love her, I will not
owe anything to her. I will not expose myself to the imputation of
interested motives, nor her to the humiliating suspicion of having been
sought for her money.”

“Really! Were ever two people more contrary?” exclaimed Aunt Cicely.
“But suppose she already——”

“Stop, I beg of you,” he interrupted. “You have no right to betray your
niece’s confidences.”

“Well,” said his visitor, standing up, “I see that you are
unmanageable. I will give you a week to think it over. You say you love
her, and you have the opportunity of doing her a great service. Will
you not sink these quixotic ideas in the desire to help her?”

And with these words she departed, congratulating herself on
having discovered the state of Granville’s mind without hopelessly
compromising Catherine, or doing anything at the discovery of which her
niece need blush. She drove off in high spirits to her lawyer, planning
a scheme which would inevitably bring the two lovers together without
sacrificing the pride of either. And after spending some time with her
solicitor, she took the last train home, feeling very tired, but with
the pleasant consciousness of having performed a good day’s work.

Meanwhile Catherine had spent a miserable day. She had lain awake most
of the previous night, planning a reconciliation with her aunt; but
towards morning she had fallen asleep, and did not wake till the maid
entered her room at nine o’clock. Her aunt had gone, had taken the 7.30
train to London, they said. At first Catherine had wild thoughts of
following her thither; she was not in a fit state of health to travel
alone, but ignorance of her destination was a hopeless obstacle. So
after spending the morning in vain attempts to read and practise, the
girl set out for the station, where she met every down train that
afternoon. Her patience was at length rewarded by the appearance of
her aunt, looking so pale and tired that Catherine was seized with
sudden alarm. She saw that Miss West was almost too much exhausted to
speak, so, hurrying her into the carriage, she drove quickly home, and
persuaded her to go to bed at once. Little was said on either side,
but the kisses that were exchanged as her niece left her for the night
satisfied Catherine that she was forgiven.

But the exertion and excitement had been too much for Aunt Cicely.
There was a sudden alarm in the night, the sound of hushed and hasty
footsteps on the stairs, a hurried consultation between Catherine and
the housekeeper. The former stood by the bedside, holding her aunt’s
hand, and feeling as if her last earthly support were slipping from
her. Then came the doctor, only to pronounce that the sufferer was past
his skill; even if he had come earlier he could not have helped her.
The grey September dawn found Catherine once more alone in the world,
and feeling more desolate than ever.


CHAPTER V.

Catherine and her aunt’s lawyer were sitting together in the vast
drawing-room with the big bay windows. He was an elderly man, with
daughters of his own, and felt sorry for this girl, who had apparently
no relations to look after her interests. And he shrank, too, from
telling her the state of affairs. She had every reason to suppose that
she was an heiress; if her aunt had died a day sooner that anticipation
would have been realised; but now she had to be informed that she was
left with only a small income, while the bulk of the property had gone
to an entire stranger.

“Your aunt,” said Mr. Cheadle, “was—er—a lady of some eccentricity. On
your father’s death she made a will in your favour, and this remained
unaltered till the day before her decease. But last Wednesday she
called on me and made another in favour of this strange gentleman. Your
legacy consists of various investments, which altogether produce an
annual income of £150, enough to ensure your comfort, but a mere trifle
compared to what you might have expected.”

Catherine brought her mind with an effort to the business before her.

“It is very good of you—of her, I mean,” she answered. “The last time
my aunt spoke about the matter, she threatened to leave me without
anything. I had displeased her, and this is far more than I had any
right to expect.”

Mr. Cheadle rose. “I am glad that you are satisfied,” he said, with an
air of relief. “You will let me know your further movements, and if I
can do anything for you?”

“Thank you,” she answered. “I am quite undecided at present, but I am
sure that I shall settle down quite well. But I will let you know.”

The lawyer departed, and Catherine, putting on her hat and cape, went
out to walk along the shore. The autumn evening, with its chilly
wind, and the grey sea, flecked with white patches of foam, seemed
to harmonise curiously with her sad thoughts. The shore was quite
deserted, and she hurried on, striving to overpower by physical fatigue
the restless pain at her heart.

All at once, amidst the sighing of the wind and waves, she heard
footsteps behind her; the smooth track that led over the beach was only
wide enough for one, and standing aside to let this other pedestrian
pass, she found herself face to face with Granville Gray.

She uttered a little involuntary exclamation of joy, which she
instantly smothered. His face was worn and grey, and reflected none of
her own pleasure.

“I have come to see you on business,” he said. “May I walk a little way
with you?”

Catherine turned, and led the way from the beach to the carriage road
that ran above it.

“It is connected with your aunt’s will,” he said. “The whole affair is
preposterous.”

“Preposterous?” said Catherine. “How do you mean? She has left me what
seems almost a fortune, and I certainly had no right to expect more.”

“You were her natural heiress, and she has robbed you to give the money
to me—me, whom she only saw once in her life—practically an utter
stranger to her.”

“To you!” cried Catherine in delight. “Oh, I am so glad!”

“Please do not congratulate me. I have no intention of keeping it. The
money is yours by right, and shall be yours in fact.”

“But I do not want it!” exclaimed Catherine. “Do you know how rich I am
already? £150 a year! £30 more than my salary used to be!”

“A fortune, indeed,” he replied. “But I beg of you to listen to me.
Last Wednesday your aunt called on me and told me definitely that she
had left all her property to you. She even asked me to act as her
executor. Yet immediately afterwards she went to her lawyer and made
this absurd will. Does it not show that she was not quite responsible?”

“But she also distinctly told me that she would leave me nothing. I am
perfectly certain that she realised what she was doing. Why will you
refuse the good fortune at your hand?”

“Because it is not mine, but yours.” Then suddenly lowering his tone,
he added, “Catherine, why did she come to me that day?”

The girl’s pulses leapt at his voice, and then a flood of shame swept
over her, as enlightenment came to her in a flash. Aunt Cicely had
taken this means of forcing him into a proposal!

“I cannot tell,” she said impatiently. “But the money is yours. I do
not want to hear anything more about it.”

“I will not touch a farthing of it,” he answered. “If you will not have
it, neither will I.”

Thus they argued, neither of them showing any sign of yielding in the
conflict of generous intention. In their excitement they had stood
still; the wind raged round them, blowing Catherine’s hair and cape
about her; but she did not heed it.

“I cannot help it,” she said at length. “It is nothing to do with
me. But,” she added, “it is time for me to go in. I suppose you are
returning to London this evening?”

“Stop!” he cried. “You shall not go yet. For a month I have had no
thought unconnected with you. I have searched for you everywhere, and
have I found you only to lose you? Why should this wretched money come
between us? It is yours, but Heaven knows I have not sought you for it.
Catherine, do you believe me?”

“Yes,” she answered simply, while his arm went round her. “But the
money is yours. Take it, but take me too.”

[THE END.]




SHEILA’S COUSIN EFFIE.

A STORY FOR GIRLS.

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


CHAPTER XVII.

CYRIL’S WOOING.

“Then, mother, you think I can depend upon my father’s doing something
handsome for me if I were to get her?”

“Yes, my boy. I had a long talk with him last evening after you had
spoken with me about it. He has taken a great fancy to May Lawrence,
and he was very pleased indeed with her visit to the works the other
day, and her promise to come and sing at the club some evening. He
seemed just a little surprised when I spoke of your hope of winning her
for a wife; but he said there was nobody he should prefer more for a
daughter-in-law, and I am sure he spoke the truth.”

“Yes, yes, that is all very well; but what sort of establishment would
he give me? She has a little fortune of her own. I know that, and, of
course, she will come in for more when her father dies; but that may be
years off still. I can’t ask a woman to marry me without having a home
to offer her!”

“No, and your father will give you that. He said he would establish you
comfortably in London, and allow you six hundred a year, and that, with
your own earnings at the Bar, since you have now finally decided upon
the law as your profession, will enable you to get along nicely. You
have great talents, you know, Cyril, and we expect great things of you!”

Cyril kissed his mother, but looked a little doubtful.

“Six hundred is not a large income in London; but I think May has two
or three on her marriage. We might get along in a flat. Of course I
shall do all I can, but it’s precious slow work at the Bar in these
days. Some clever fellows never make their way at all. I’m not sure I
sha’n’t take to literature instead. If one can get into the swim it
pays better.”

“With your talents and with your education and presence you are sure to
get on,” said his mother, with serene confidence, and for once in his
life Cyril found this complaisant admiration a little trying. He knew
that money was a hard commodity to make, and he did not like it to be
assumed that he would soon be making a fine income for himself and his
wife.

“Well, at any rate, I can tell the old boy that I am in a position to
marry; that is, if he doesn’t look for great beginnings,” remarked
Cyril, after a pause; “and the Lawrences have come down in the world
themselves, and have no very grand ideas, which is a comfort. May is a
bit of a Radical herself, but she’ll mend of that in time. It does all
very well when you’re young to be enthusiastic and sentimental over the
working classes; but one grows out of that fast enough, except fellows
like North, who never have an idea beyond the shop all their lives!”

“North is a very good son, and a great help to his father. It is not
his fault that he has not your talents, Cyril, dear.”

“No, we can’t all be alike! I say, mater, I’m awfully hard up for loose
cash just now. This London business costs more than one fancies, and
I don’t like always asking the governor. A man can’t go wooing with
empty pockets. Can’t you give me a little just to go on with, from the
housekeeping or something?”

“Well, I’ll see what I can do this time; but you’ve had all I have had
to spare for some time, Cyril. Your father was rather vexed at my not
getting a new winter mantle, but I managed to pacify him. You mustn’t
keep me too short or there will be a fuss.”

“Oh, no, it’s only for a few trifles for May; there will be the ring,
you know, and flowers, and that sort of thing. Thanks awfully, mother,
you are real good sort! I daresay the governor will stump up handsome
when I tell him the news, and then I’ll pay you back.”

Cyril went away well pleased with himself, and resolved to lose no more
time in his wooing. It had occurred to him that it was about time he
had an independent home of his own. Something in the home atmosphere
had become uncongenial to him. North was cool, and rather avoided his
society, and Cyril had very uneasy moments sometimes when his brother
occasionally came to him with certain rather pointed questions, the
drift of which he seldom altogether understood. Ray had been rather
off-hand with him ever since that luckless fire, the memory of which
still made his cheeks tingle, and he often fancied that his prestige
in his native place had considerably gone down. Oscar’s face was a
continual reproach to him. He was tired of his life in Isingford,
anxious for a sphere of his own.

But a sphere implied a centre and a home, and a home meant a wife.
Cyril turned matters over in his mind a few times whether or not to go
out to Madeira and propose to Effie with her rich dowry, or to content
himself with the much more attractive May and her smaller fortune.

In the end he decided upon the latter course. Effie’s money was certain
to be tied up very tight. He had more hopes of getting things more
to his liking in dealing with May’s parents. They were not business
people. They would probably have easier ideas, and May was out and away
a more attractive girl than Effie; besides, a delicate ailing wife
would be a nuisance. Cyril wanted to be the centre of attraction in his
own home, not to have to spend his time fussing after his wife.

So dressing himself very carefully in a riding suit which he greatly
fancied, he ordered the best horse to be obtained at the livery
stables, and rode gaily off towards Monckton Manor.

May was in the garden. The sun was shining brightly, and the birds were
singing with that kind of eager rapture which is only heard in the
spring. February was waning, and though the March winds were still to
come, the present warmth was all the more welcome. Celandines lifted
their golden cups to the caress of the sunshine, and primroses were to
be found gemming the banks, whilst in garden borders crocuses made a
joyous blaze, and the daffodils began to push up their bloom buds as
though eager to show that they would not be much behind.

A servant came out to her from her house.

“Mr. Cossart has called and would like to see you, miss.”

May’s eyes lighted and a little flush stole into her cheek. It was not
Saturday, so there must be something special in this visit. Perhaps the
very fact that it was unusual helped to induce that wave of subdued
excitement. Something special must have occurred. He must be wanting
something from her. May turned at once and went eagerly towards the
house.

A tall figure came out into the sunshine of the terrace, and suddenly
all the light faded out of May’s face. She turned to the servant almost
sharply.

“You said it was Mr. Cossart,” she said.

“That is the name the gentleman gave,” answered the footman, who was
new to the place.

“That is Mr. Cyril Cossart. You must remember the difference in
future,” said May, trying to control the irritation she felt. “I don’t
believe I’d have gone in for him,” she muttered to herself. “He had no
business to ask for me with mother out. But he has seen me now, so I
suppose I must go for a little while. I hope he won’t stay long. I’ve
such lots of things I want to do.”

Cyril came down the steps to meet her, too much self-engrossed to
observe the coolness of her greeting.

“Don’t let us go in this lovely day, Miss Lawrence. These sweet spring
days are too precious to lose! May I not join you in your ramble?”

“I was not rambling, I was gardening,” answered May, but she could not
exactly refuse his request, though she did not altogether approve the
suggestion. She thought he was taking too much the airs of an intimate
friend, and of late he had not been encouraged to intimacy at the Manor.

“I am sorry my mother is not at home,” she said, as they walked down
the wide nut avenue, where she had so often paced with North, asking
eager questions about his work, and forgetting everything in her
interest at his replies.

“Well, it is you that I came especially to see, May,” he answered; and
as she started at the sound of her name spoken thus for the first time
by him, and flashed an indignant glance at him, Cyril plunged into the
carefully-prepared speech he had made, faltering a little at first,
but getting the thread quickly, and then going rapidly forward with
gathering courage and assurance.

For the first few minutes May was simply too much astonished to speak
a single word, and then a wave of hot indignation surged over her, and
she was afraid to speak lest she should say something she might regret
afterwards. After all, when a man proposed to a girl, he was supposed
to be paying her the highest honour in his power to offer. She sought
to remember this, and to curb her angry impulses; and during this time
Cyril had got a long way in his speech, so that there could be no
possible doubt as to his meaning.

“Oh, please stop! Please do not say any more!” cried May at length,
when she felt that she could master her emotions and speak quietly.
“What you want is quite out of the question! Please say no more. We had
better say good-bye”—and she stopped, facing him, and held out her hand.

Cyril stood dumfoundered. He simply could not believe his ears. This
was probably some girlish wile to lead him on to more impassioned
declarations. He was quite ready for that, and, taking her hand in his,
recommenced his protestations, but May pulled it from him, and her eyes
flashed.

“Mr. Cossart, please to understand me, once and for all. What you wish
is quite impossible!”

“Impossible that you should be my wife, May?”

“Quite impossible, and please not to call me that again! You have no
right to do so.”

“May—Miss Lawrence—what does all this mean? Why cannot you be my wife?”

She looked him steadily in the face; her composure was coming back to
her. The desire to speak the truth was upon her.

“We have always been friends,” he urged, desiring this thing the more
urgently from the unexpected opposition. His pride and vanity were
working hard on the same side as his affections. May looked very
handsome standing there confronting him, a flush on her cheek, a light
in her eyes. It was impossible for Cyril to believe her indifferent to
him. He had always regarded himself as irresistible.

Once again he began to plead; once again she let him have a certain
licence, and then she cut him short.

“Mr. Cossart, you have said a great deal now, let me say a very little.
Perhaps you do not know what a woman most desires in the man she makes
her husband. One thing is, I think, a perfect trust in him—his love,
his courage, his honour!”

She spoke the last words very distinctly; Cyril’s glance wavered for a
moment, then he broke out—

“I love you with all my heart, May!”

“I do not think so,” she answered, “though, perhaps, you think it
yourself. Forgive me if I pain you, but you want to know the truth,
you say. A woman would not like to feel that in a moment of danger
her husband would lose his head, leave her, and think only of saving
himself!”

“You are ungenerous,” said Cyril, with a dark flush; “I have refuted
that charge once. I shall not repeat my defence.”

“No, don’t,” said May quietly; “not to someone who was there and saw
and heard all!”

In the deep silence which followed, his quick angry breathing could be
heard; then May spoke again in the same calm way.

“A woman wants also perfect confidence in her husband’s honour. It
would not be pleasant to hear searching inquiries as to how bank-notes,
for instance, which he had passed on to other people had come into his
possession.”

The flush on Cyril’s face faded, and a grey pallor took its place. He
took a backward step and almost gasped out—

“Miss Lawrence, what do you mean?”

“Nothing very much. Of course, no man of honour would mind such
inquiries. But it seems that there is a hue and cry of some sort over a
bank-note which my brother cashed some time ago. That note he changed
for a friend of his who happened to be short of gold one day and asked
him for it. It is rather wonderful he remembered the circumstance, but
he did. As he said to me, that sort of thing was not quite pleasant,
though no doubt everything could be satisfactorily explained.”

Cyril’s face was livid.

“I never asked your brother for change.”

“Did I say that you did?”

“It was implied in your speech.”

“I will not imply any more then. I tell you in plain words that it was
you who asked Frank for change for the note and got it. You may have
forgotten, but he has not.”

“And who has been making inquiries?” asked Cyril, with stiff pale lips.

“Never mind. It is really no affair of mine. If it is anything to you,
you will hear all in good time. I think I must be going now. I have a
number of things to do. Good-bye, Mr. Cossart. I will tell them to
bring your horse to the door.”

She turned and left him—left him standing like a man half-stunned. That
was a pretty outcome of his day’s wooing. Fear and rage wrestled for
mastery in his heart as he rode away from the house, resolved never to
cross that threshold again.

He had been so confident that all the trouble had blown over by this
time, that nobody, not even Oscar, had been much the worse, that no
strict inquiry had ever been set on foot. His face was still pale, and
he felt shaken and nervous as he walked from the livery stables home.
He was half afraid to enter the drawing-room lest his appearance should
excite comment.

But as it happened there was another excitement on foot which quite
shielded him from notice. Voices were speaking in rapid eager tones.

“What can it be? How very strange!”

“Alone too, or she would not want meeting.”

“Oscar must go, of course, but it is all very odd.”

“What’s the matter?” asked Cyril, in as easy a tone as he could master.

“Why, look there,” cried Ray, putting a telegram into his hand, “that
has just come from Uncle Cossart in Madeira.”

The message ran as follows—

“Sheila returns by _Dunraven Castle_. Have her met.”

(_To be continued._)

[Illustration]




WILL SHE GROW OUT OF IT?

BY DR. GORDON STABLES, M.D., C.M., R.N. (“MEDICUS”).


The first part of this paper at all events may be supposed to be
addressed to young mothers, rather than to young girls, but I have no
doubt that the latter will have a peep at it just to see if there is
anything in it which concerns them. I shall not tell them whether there
is or not. Let them read on and see.

My main difficulty in writing it I feel will be one of condensation.
The subject of inherited ailments and congenital malformation is one of
such importance that it is a book thereon I should publish, and not a
single paper. However, if it leads young parents to think, thinking is
sure to lead to action, and with the hints I shall give, and of course
the help of their family doctor, many a young life may not only be
saved, but children may grow up strong and bonnie, who through neglect
or ignorance might have anything but happy futures, and lives so weary
that their brevity might well be looked upon as a blessing.

I must say a few words at the outset on the terrible scourge of these
islands, which most people call consumption, and the medical profession
phthisis. The question “Is it hereditary?” stares us in the face at
once whenever we think of it, and it is a somewhat difficult one to
answer. I myself do not believe in heredity in the ordinary sense of
the word as applied to disease. A beautiful young shoot of wood may
spring from a fast-decaying tree, and if this be transplanted into
good soil, it will grow as well as any other. What holds good as
regards vegetable life cannot of course be shown to be quite true as
regards animal, nevertheless there is a certain analogy. Consumption
we believe to be infectious; if so, it is caused by a disease germ.
Now your old-school hereditists would tell us that this germ descends
from mother to child. In some cases it does or may, but the child very
soon succumbs to _tabes mesenterica_, or some other terrible infantile
disease. A germ will do one of two things: it will either assert itself
very speedily, or be killed in the system. Nature sets about at once
getting rid of these disease germs, supposing them to exist at the time
of birth. She brings, among other organs of relief, the absorbents
and glands into play; there is a struggle for life, in which nature
often fails, because those very glands become overladen and diseased,
tubercle being formed and multiplied within them. Nature does her
best, but she is beaten—another proof of the struggle betwixt what we
call evil and good, which is constantly going on in this world.

Well, on the other hand, if the child is born of delicate parents,
but free from germs, it has, if carefully fed, nursed, and tended, a
very excellent chance of growing up well. It is difficult to conceive
of a child having germs of, say, consumption in its system and these
lying latent or dormant until she is a certain age, and then springing
suddenly into life after she has suffered from some exposure and caught
cold in the chest. There are easier theories than this by far and
away to account for the children of consumptive parents dying of the
same disease in their later teens. Besides, that word “latent” may be
convenient, but it is a shockingly unmeaning one. I remember my father
buying for a good round sum a few grains of wheat that were said to
have been in the grasp of a mummy for a thousand years. The wheat when
sown grew most certainly. It may never have been in the hands of a
mummy at all, but it _may_ have been. If so, it was surrounded by dead
matter, it was hermetically sealed against any influence that could
cause it to germinate. Life was latent or asleep. But in the human body
germs have no chance of dorminating, for so constant are the changes,
that everything is constantly getting shifted, and by the time a man or
woman is fifty he or she may have used up a score of bodies.

However, there is this to be said concerning the children of
consumptive parents: they are born delicate, and therefore far more
likely to fall victims to the scourge than others.

May they grow out of this delicacy of constitution? Yes, and that is
the question I am going to consider, but I must answer another one,
and it is one, too, that strikes at the very root of sociality: should
consumptive people, or those suffering from other so-called hereditary
ailments, marry? I say, “No.” They are, if they do so, guilty of as
great a crime as many a felon who leaves the dock with the dread
sentence of the judge ringing in his ears. It is sad to have to answer
the question in such seemingly cruel words, but nevertheless I believe
I am doing my duty in giving that reply.

There are two ways in which a young woman can give herself to God
in this world, and both are honourable. One is by marrying the man
she loves if he be healthy in body and pure in mind—not else—and
thus becoming Heaven’s own servant for the happy propagation of
healthful species and the progress of the world; the other is by—if
weakly—remaining celibate and devoting her time, her talents and
energies to doing good to her fellow beings without hope of reward in
this world. There is a charm about a woman like this (though foolish
people may sneer at her as an old maid) that it is difficult to
describe.

I have met many such, and seem to have seen a halo already around
their heads. I am a physician, naturalist, scientist, if you will, and
something of an astronomer, and being so of course—to some extent—a
_doubter_, but I do most sincerely believe that the good in this weary
wicked world will ultimately prevail, and those who help it onwards
will not go unrewarded in a future life whatever that life may be.

Now to lay down a few simple rules for the treatment of weakly children
whether born of delicate parents or not. Will she grow out of it? The
answer to this question is a hopeful one or the reverse just as you
choose to make it, young mother.

There is one stumbling-block of which I bid you beware at the very
outset of your girl-child’s life. It is the bogey “cold.” That young
children need warmth is very true. They are for the time being little
hot-house plants, but the sooner you recognise the truth that they are
not intended to remain so, the better it will be for yourself, and for
the child as well. Those wee things have to be hardened off because the
world isn’t a hot-house, and they have got to live hardy, healthy, and
therefore happy lives, in spite of the many and daily changes of this
changeable climate of ours.

If you desire the wee lassie to grow up as tender as a mushroom and
perhaps die just as soon, comparatively, then all you’ve got to do is
to permit her to sleep night after night in a badly-ventilated stuffy
room and to _plot her_. The verb “to plot” is essentially Scotch, but
as applied to over-coddled children or young canaries or pigeons in a
nest that the nervous mother is sweating to death, it is exceedingly
expressive. Many of the Scotch words are derived from the French as,
in olden times, the two nations were great allies. It would be going
a little out of the way perhaps to seek its derivation from _sur le
plat_, on the plate, as an egg when poached. A pig is plotted when
boiling water is poured over it in order to get off the bristles
easily, the cook plots herself when she gets a splash of hot water
over her hands, a boy or man is said to be plotting himself when he
wears more clothes than is wanted as a guard against the weather, and
babies are all too often plotted in bed or bassinette. The single word
“plotted” means sweated, blanched (_faire pâlir_), poached, all in one.
Well, however nice a poached egg may be, poached baby looked at from a
doctor’s point of view is very unsatisfactory.

Now just think of the folly, not to say the iniquity, of treating a
tender infant as many do. Here lies the mite at the mercy of a mother
who may be wise, but who may be otherwise. It is already struggling
with the arch-enemy, death. Pray do not misunderstand me: I do not mean
to say it is dying, only from the very day we begin to live we begin to
die, as it were, at least, to struggle against all that is inimical to
life. And life is change, you know, merely that. “I live, therefore I
must die.” But we want to keep the spark in this little body, and what
is more we want to fan it into health that shall fill every vein and
nerve in its body, and produce future health, happiness, and strength.
In order to do this, in order to give the child a chance to grow out
of its inherited weakness (I do not say “disease,” for that is an ugly
word, and quite unnecessary), we must place it under conditions most
favourable to existence.

I think this is the proper place in which to mention a very injurious
fallacy as regards what are called infantile ailments. It is a fact
that children of tender years are more likely to be attacked by certain
ailments, of which measles is as good an illustration as any, simply
because they are weak, and these, in certain states of the atmosphere,
especially in villages where sanitation is utterly neglected, are
apt to become epidemic, carrying away to their little graves victims
that are not strong enough to fight against the trouble, for Nature’s
law that the fittest shall survive is fixed and immutable. But it is
a great mistake to believe that children _must_ have such ailments,
and the sooner such an error of belief is written down and eradicated
the better. Scarlatina is another ailment which often breaks out in
villages, especially in Board schools; and remembering the utter want
of fresh air and cleanliness which prevails in these seminaries, one
cannot wonder. During an epidemic of this sort the school is closed,
and the children, sick or well, go to their squalid dens and unhealthy
huts to live or die, as the case may be, for they “break up” at school
only to hatch out the seeds of illness already sown in their systems.
But your well-fed, well-cared-for children, and such as sleep at night
in fresh air without more than sufficient bed-clothing, do not succumb
to these disorders, be they ever so rife.

Surely, then, prevention is better than cure. I shall now mention one
or two of these so-called infantile troubles that some young mothers
who read this brief paper may know a little more about them and their
causes. I advise everyone who has the care of children to keep in the
house in its little case a clinical thermometer. The family doctor will
be very pleased, I am sure, to show parents how to use it, and whenever
the temperature mounts over a hundred the physician should be called in.

_Measles._—The ailment is ushered in somewhat similarly to a bad cold,
and often passes at first for a touch of influenza. But the girl is
feverish with loss of appetite, and no heart for play. Then about the
third day come out the rose-coloured spots, first on the brow. They
are so close together as to almost coalesce. The fever now gets worse,
and the case is one for the doctor to superintend; but the parents
ask the question: “Will she get over it?” I am glad to answer in the
affirmative, only that nasty wee word “if” comes in—_if_ the case does
not become complicated, for bronchitis may ensue, or inflammation of
the lungs itself, and then there is great danger. And bear this in
mind; the child that has been treated while in health in a common-sense
way, not “plotted,” over-coddled, or over-crammed as to food, has
by far and away the greatest chance of getting over this ailment or
scarlatina either.

_Scarlatina._—When this becomes epidemic in small towns and
badly-drained villages, the Angel of Death has indeed spread his wings
on the blast.

If there is scarlet fever or scarlatina (the milder sort) about, and
your little girl begins to ail from no apparent cause, suffering from
loss of appetite and cheerfulness, if she has chills alternating
with flushing, hot skin and uneasy sleep, with a little headache and
maybe sore throat, with a high temperature and furred tongue, having
little red papillæ showing through—the “strawberry tongue”—then in all
probability she has an attack of scarlatina. We shall hope it is to be
a simple one. Cure it you can’t; but the little patient may be guided
through it.

The doctor is the man to trust. But there is one thing you can assist
him in most materially, and that is in seeing that the patient is
completely isolated from the rest of the house, for the simplest cases
in one child may generate the worst in others. It is a more dangerous
disorder than measles, and mind that, until the doctor gives a clean
bill of health, and the skin has entirely peeled, no other child
should be allowed into the room. Indeed, the success in any one case
depends on careful nursing, and isolation will prevent it spreading.
Disinfectants must of course be used—but the doctor will tell you all
this—and food taken from the room must not even be given to the cat or
dog. She will pull through if scientifically treated, and soon grow out
of any little weaknesses that may remain.

_St. Vitus’s Dance._—Will she grow out of this? I do really think
that the medical profession has a good deal to learn even yet
concerning this strange ailment. But its symptoms are unmistakable.
The uncontrollable, fidgety movements may be slight or very great;
they may be on one side of the body or both. She will grow out of
it, however, if the treatment is most skilful. The health must be
properly attended to, and all rules obeyed which the doctor shall lay
down. The digestion and the teeth must be seen to, with abundance of
fresh air and non-exciting exercise and recreation. The bath often
does wonders—tepid, of course—given in a warm room. There are certain
kinds of methodical drill which, moreover, do good, and many kinds of
tonics. But cod-liver oil or marrol is perhaps one of the best, as it
is a food. The doctor will for each case prescribe the necessary tonic.
Dear me! what thousands of thousands of lives might be saved if we
could only act up to the physician’s instructions. I must bid the young
mother beware of quack medicines, and of all such dangerous drugs as
chloral, bromides, and phenaticin, etc. In the hands of the physician
these are useful; in those of the uninitiated they are verily like
razors grasped by infant fingers.

There are three ailments or more which I hope to treat of in papers
succeeding this. One is incipient consumption and its fresh air cure,
another rickets and bandy legs, and a third scrofula, a disease of the
glands, but, of course, from constitutional causes. Scrofula used to be
called King’s Evil; and, although one suffering therefrom may do much
good by strict adherence to the laws of health, medical advice should
in all cases be sought for.




ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.


STUDY AND STUDIO.

ROSEMARY.—1. We have sent your quotation to “Our Open Letter Box.”—2.
For icing, consult the February number of THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER, p.
264. You will find many receipts for cakes there and elsewhere in our
magazine. This is not literary! but we cannot divide a letter. It is
better, if possible, for our correspondents to send separate letters
for questions on cookery, health, toilet, etc.

A. DAWSON.—We should think _Twenty Minutes_, by Harriet L.
Childe-Pemberton might suit you, or _The Witch’s Curse, and Other
Plays_, by Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy (Miss Alcott). French’s catalogue
(Covent Garden, Strand, London) contains all sorts of plays for young
and old, and might prove a help.

IDA.—We should advise you to get _Chambers’s Book-keeping by Single and
Double Entry_, published at 1s. 6d. You might also take correspondence
lessons in the subject. Apply to King’s College, London (Ladies’
Department), the University Correspondence College, 32, Red Lion
Square, W.C., or to one of the private addresses occasionally given
here.

BLACKBERRY.—Your lines in their beginning recall the hymn—

    “There’s a Friend for little children
      Above the bright blue sky”;

but they are not written in any metre, and do not rhyme, so they can
scarcely be called verse. The writing of lines of different lengths
below each other does not constitute metrical composition.

SOFIE ABELSBERG.—You write a good English letter. You should not say
“Since three years I study,” but “I have studied for three years”;
and you use “yet” wrongly. You should say “I still make mistakes.”
These are common errors for a foreigner, and we congratulate you on
expressing yourself so well. We insert your request.

NIL DESPERANDUM.—We are very sorry for you, as it is quite true that
the profession of teaching music is overstocked in London. We are
sure it is far wiser to go into the provinces, but we cannot tell
you of any special town where you would find an opening. It is best
to inquire among friends if possible, or your late teachers might be
able to suggest something. Perhaps some reader may help you. We should
think that in a case like yours the Teachers’ Guild, 74, Gower Street,
might be useful. The High Schools all over England employ visiting
music-mistresses.

JECKO (Constantinople).—We are sorry we do not recognise your
quotation, but we have placed it in “Our Open Letter Box.” In any case,
you could not have received a reply in our next number. The magazine
goes to press long before it reaches the hands of our readers.

I. F. N.—We are willing to ask our readers at your wish if they can
suggest four suitable mottoes for embroidering on a bed-spread. We
should recommend Coleridge’s couplet, divided as you like—

    “O sleep! it is a gentle thing
      Beloved from pole to pole.”

    _Ancient Mariner._

MIGNONETTE.—Many thanks for your kind and appreciative verses—“As Sweet
as Spring”—about THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER.

BALLOCHMYLE.—1. Unless we are mistaken, a full account of “The House of
Education” at Ambleside appeared in this magazine a year or two ago.
Write to the Secretary for details of the training if you would like
to undergo it. Your age would be all right.—2. Chromo-lithography is a
process of reproducing paintings in colours.

SE SAREN ROSE.—The poem “Divided” is by Jean Ingelow, the well-known
poetess who died not long ago. You will find it in the first volume of
her poems, which you should be able to procure from any good library.
You are quite justified in your admiration. The title of the book is,
_Poems: Jean Ingelow_: Longmans, Green, & Co.


OUR OPEN LETTER BOX.

⁂ We are greatly impressed by the kindness and courtesy of our readers
who, for the sake of absolute strangers, copy out and forward to us
long pieces of poetry. It is, however, only right for us to warn
them that it is most uncertain whether these copies ever reach the
persons for whom they are intended. We keep no register of addresses,
and cannot undertake to forward MSS., while, even if we did so, the
numbers of each copy would probably be far in excess of the demand.
If no address, or request for a copy, is given by the inquirer in
this column, it is quite sufficient to answer the question by simply
mentioning the book or magazine where the desired extract can be
found. We say this with full appreciation of the goodwill shown by our
subscribers in the matter.

“WINTON” has answers (in some cases copies) from OLD BOURNEMOUTHIAN,
MISS EDITH WILLIAMSON, C. A. H., R. E. M. JAMES, M. M., G. SHAW,
M. J. P. M., “AZZIE,” DOROTHY SHOVE, LOUIE FRANCIS, LAVINIA METCALFE,
ELLEN, BERTHA L. WRIGHT, MISS JAMES, D. MORRISH, A. G., ANNIE NICHOLLS,
EDITH H., B. MOUNTIFIELD, MISS HANLY, and DAISY. The hymn is referred
to Sankey’s _Songs and Solos_ (732), the _Christian Endeavour Hymnal_,
the _Union Mission Hymnal_, and the _Hymnal Companion_ (No. 597).

“DOUBTFUL” has answers, and in some cases copies, from M. M. HARRIS,
MRS. E. BÜRCK, SOPHIA, EVELYN CLARE, ANNIE S. HARDY, BERTHA PARKS, MISS
KNEESHAW, referring “The Noble Boy,” _alias_ “Somebody’s Mother,” to
Blackie’s _Fourth Reader_, Chambers’s _Expressive Reader_ (price 9d.),
and Nelson’s _Royal Reader_, No. 2.

HOPE has replies from M. L. SPACKMAN, “A LOVER OF MUSIC,” “MIDGET,”
and “PANSY.” “Trouble in Amen Corner” is by T. C. Harbaugh, and may be
found in the _Thousand Best Poems in the World_ (Hutchinson & Co.), and
Chambers’s _Elocution_, new edition.

ROSEMARY wishes for the words of a song beginning—

    “Mary and John, down in the distant old village.”

“GOWAN” has a copy of “The Women of Mumbles Head,” sent by M. J. P. M.
The poem is by Clement Scott, and may be found in Forsyth’s _Practical
Elocutionist_ (Blackie & Son).

Can anyone tell “JECKO” (Constantinople) the source of the following
quotation?—

    “In that hour of deep contrition
    He beheld with clearer vision
      Justice the Avenger rise.”




OUR NEW PUZZLE POEM.


[Illustration]

⁂ PRIZES to the amount of six guineas (one of which will be reserved
for competitors living abroad) are offered for the best solutions of
the above Puzzle Poem. The following conditions must be observed:—

1. Solutions to be written on one side of the paper only.

2. Each paper to be headed with the name and address of the competitor.

3. Attention must be paid to spelling, punctuation, and neatness.

4. Send by post to Editor, GIRL’S OWN PAPER, 56, Paternoster Row,
London. “Puzzle Poem” to be written on the top left-hand corner of the
envelope.

5. The last day for receiving solutions from Great Britain and Ireland
will be September 16, 1899; from Abroad, November 16, 1899.

The competition is open to all without any restrictions as to sex or
age.

       *       *       *       *       *

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

Page 692: he to be—“have to be content”.

be to he—“when he is back”.

Cappucini to Cappuccini—“Cappuccini at Amalfi”.

Page 701: primoses to primroses—“primroses were to be found”.]