[Illustration: THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER

VOL. VIII.—NO. 370.     JANUARY 29, 1887.     PRICE ONE PENNY.]




THE QUEEN’S JUBILEE PRIZE COMPETITION.

NOTABLE WOMEN OF THE REIGN OF QUEEN VICTORIA.


[Illustration: HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN.]

_All rights reserved._]


THE SUBJECT OF OUR NEXT COMPETITION IS TO BE

=The Notable Women of the reign of Queen Victoria.=


Of these, each competitor will make out a list for herself, and
regarding those whom she selects, she will be required to state,
briefly and clearly, who they were, when and where they were born, and
when and where they died—if they be dead—and to give such particulars
about what they have done as will prove their right to the title of
notable women.

ELEVEN PRIZES will be given, one to the most successful competitor
of every age from thirteen to twenty-three, inclusive. Thus, a girl
thirteen years old has a chance of obtaining the prize awarded to girls
between thirteen and fourteen; a girl of fourteen may prove the winner
of the prize given to those between fourteen and fifteen: and so on, up
to the age of twenty-three.

EACH PRIZE will consist of

=A Gold Medal-Brooch=

To be especially struck by the Editor in honour of Her Majesty’s
Jubilee. These medals will be cast in the form of brooches, with a pin
at the back for more convenient use. They have been specially designed
for THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER, and will bear on the reverse of the medal the
name of the owner. The front side of the medal will bear the design,
conventionally treated, of the heading to every weekly number of this
magazine.

CERTIFICATES OF MERIT will also be given—first, second, and third
class—and these will be awarded to girls of any age who gain the
necessary number of marks.

A SPECIAL PRIZE of a Gold Medal-Brooch will be given—for the first time
in our series of competitions—to

=Foreign and Colonial Competitors of All Ages.=

We have long recognised the fact that those who live abroad labour,
as a rule, under considerable disadvantages in competing with the
majority of girls who stay at home, and we are glad to show, by the
offer of this special prize, our appreciation of the painstaking
efforts of many readers in distant places.

FOREIGN AND COLONIAL COMPETITORS will on this occasion have longer time
allowed them for sending in their papers.

ALL READERS, EVERYWHERE, are invited to enter for this competition,
which,

=in view of the approaching Jubilee of Her Majesty,=

has a special interest. The testimony of many who have taken part
in previous competitions is that they proved sources not only of
considerable enjoyment, but of great intellectual profit. The present
one has features as valuable as any competition that has ever been
started. To engage in it can hardly fail to widen our sympathies and
increase our interest in the world around us and in the age in which we
live.

EVEN THOSE WHO FAIL to obtain either a prize or a certificate will not
have spent their time uselessly. Let them keep in mind that:

    “No endeavour is in vain,
    Its reward is in the doing;
    And the rapture of pursuing
    Is the prize the vanquished gain.”

THE NOTABLE WOMEN DEALT WITH must all be British subjects: foreigners
will not count. It is not necessary that they should have been born
after Queen Victoria came to the throne. All may be included who have
lived _any part of their lives_ in the reign of Her Majesty.

THEY MUST BE DISTINGUISHED on account of some worthy quality. They
may be famous for learning; noted as authors, musicians, or painters;
remarkable as philanthropists and public benefactors—in fact, no one
will come amiss who can be said to have in any considerable degree
attracted attention by either her virtues or her abilities.

THE NUMBER TREATED of may be what every competitor finds time and
inclination for. The more comprehensive the paper, of course the better
chance there will be of a prize or a certificate: in everything, as is
well-known, “if little labour little are our gains.” The most important
thing, however, is quality, not quantity.

THE NOTICE OF EACH NOTABLE WOMAN is in no case to exceed one hundred
and twenty words, exclusive of the name and the place and date of birth
and death.

THE ARRANGEMENT OF THEIR PAPERS to be followed by competitors is the
order of birth, not the order of death.

WHAT WE INTEND SHOULD BE SENT IN will be readily understood, perhaps,
by the following examples, in which we have given two characters
who, as they are purely imaginary, need not be looked for in any
Biographical Dictionary.


ARABELLA G. CUNNINGHAM,

_Born at Edinburgh, 20th May, 1812._

_Died at Tunbridge Wells, 7th December, 1856._

Of an old Scotch family. First attracted attention in 1835 by the
publication of her “Turns of Fortune,” a tale of which seventy thousand
copies were sold within three days. Encouraged by this success she
gave herself up to the pursuit of literature. Her most popular works,
besides that just named, are “At the Sign of the Spread Eagle,” “The
Court of Lions,” “Hammer and Tongs,” “Lady Bettina,” and “The Hero of
the White Shield.” Inherited a large fortune from her father, and being
herself the best paid authoress of her time, and of an exceedingly
saving turn, she died worth an immense sum.


GERTRUDE WILLIAMS.

_Born at Harlech (North Wales), 12th July, 1855._

_Still living._

Began the study of the violin at the age of six. Appeared as a
musical prodigy at Chester in 1864. Studied from 1865-1868 at the
Conservatorium at Leipzig. Made her _début_ in London in April, 1870,
when the beauty of her playing at once ensured her a brilliant success.
Has now for many years been recognised as the greatest of British
violinists, and is much respected for her devotion to the higher forms
of musical art. Exhibits a marked tendency towards a wandering life,
and has visited professionally not only all the European capitals, but
the chief towns of the American Continent. Is a small lively person
with dark brown hair and extraordinarily bright eyes.

COMPETITORS MUST WRITE on one side of the paper only, and, before
sending in their papers, they must number the leaves and stitch them
together at the left-hand top corner.

ON THE BACK OF THE LAST LEAF each paper must bear the full name, age,
and address of the competitor, and underneath the following must be
written by father, mother, minister, or teacher:—

“I hereby certify that this paper is the sole work and in the
handwriting of (_competitor’s full name is again to be written_), and
that her age and address are correctly stated.” (_Signature and address
of the parent, minister, or teacher._)

THE LAST DAY FOR RECEIVING PAPERS connected with this competition will
be Monday, April 25.

EXCEPT IN THE CASE OF COLONIAL COMPETITORS, who will be allowed till
Saturday, June 25.

EACH PAPER MUST BE SENT by book post—and without a letter—addressed to
the Editor, THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER, 56, Paternoster-row, London, E.C.,
and the words “Queen’s Jubilee Competition” must be clearly written in
the left-hand corner.

THE RESULT OF THE COMPETITION, so far as home readers are concerned,
will be published in the Summer Number of THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER.

[Illustration]




THE INHERITANCE OF A GOOD NAME.

BY LOUISA MENZIES.


CHAPTER IV.

TOWN OR COUNTRY.

“A letter with the London post mark, mamma,” said Eveline, “and not
from Mark.”

“I hope Mark is well,” said Mrs. Fenner, taking the letter with some
trepidation. “It is Mr. Echlin’s writing. What a long letter!”

As Mrs. Fenner’s eyes ran along the lines traced by the firm hand of
her cousin, her colour rose, a smile broke on her lips, and as she laid
down the letter the tears stood in her eyes.

“Nothing is wrong with Mark, mamma?” said Eveline, inquiringly.

“Nothing, dear; quite the contrary. But you had better read the letter;
it concerns you quite as much as me.” And Mrs. Fenner held the letter
to her daughter.

“Oh, mamma, how nice of him!” exclaimed Eveline, with sparkling eyes.
“I knew he must love Mark. How could he help it? But to think of his
wanting us to go and live in London with him and Mark—to make his house
like home, he says! What will you do, mother? What will you do?”

“What do you say, Eveline? What do you wish?”

“I? Of course I like to do what you like.”

“It is very kind of Miles.”

“I should think it was. And he puts it so prettily; as if all the
favour were on our side.”

“But, dear, I don’t know how you would like to live in a great
city, you who have always been used to open air and country life;
Manchester-square has no Sunbridge Woods within reach.”

“But it has Mark, mother; and Mark is better than Sunbridge
Woods—better than Blyfield Park. Why, mother, you know that we’d both
of us rather be with him where he is, than in the Gardens of the
Hesperides! I suppose we couldn’t keep the cottage, and just run down
to it now and then, could we?”

“I don’t think we ought to propose such an arrangement; it would be
a half-hearted acceptance of my cousin’s offer; we must either go or
stay. But I will take the letter up to the rectory; I must know what
your aunt and uncle think of it. Don’t say anything to Elga, just for a
little.”

“As you think best, mother,” said Eveline, and went out, as one in
a dream, to perform her morning household duties. No sooner did she
appear in the yard with her apron full of grain, than the fowls came
running, flying, flustering to her feet; the pigeons, who were on the
watch on the low roof of the tool-house, spread their blue wings and
dropped down among them; while Eveline’s body-guardsman, the snow-white
fox-terrier, Boz, stood gravely on the watch to preserve order, himself
the very personification of cleanliness and decorum—his bushy tail
curling over his back, every hair of his coat erect and in its proper
place, glancing with his brown eyes from his mistress to her noisy
pensioners, and keeping his little black nose well raised, with a
slight suggestion of superiority.

“Ah, Boz,” said Eveline, when the edge was a little taken off the
appetite of her feathered guests, “you little think what is hanging
over you! I wonder how you’ll like it! Who will keep old Bulbo in
order, if you go away, old dog?”

Old Bulbo was a rather aggressive Poland cock, who had been handsome,
but whose digestion had become impaired, his top-knot floppy, and his
tail-feathers ragged, while he was easily exasperated at the frivolous
impertinence of the younger generations, who stole choice morsels
under his very bill, and generally managed to escape his vengeance,
when he, like an old bully as he was, would turn to vent his spite on
the faithful partner of his roost; on which occasions Boz started into
activity, and compelled the old tyrant to keep the peace.

Boz wagged his tail in answer to his mistress’s tone rather than to
her words, and waited attentively while she gathered the pretty brown
or white eggs, swept the hen-house, making it sweet and fresh with
sprinkled lime, and ended by filling the large brown pan with clear
water which the fowls immediately muddied.

The poultry-yard settled, Boz conducted his mistress to the vegetable
garden, where Eveline gathered a basket of peas for dinner, some
currants and raspberries for dessert, quietly wondering who would
gather the fruit from those bushes next year. As she stood among the
raspberry bushes her mother came out and went down the garden to the
rectory gate. A sharp pain shot through Eveline’s heart.

“What will Uncle James say and Aunt Elgitha? Will they persuade mother
not to go? I’m sure Uncle James will miss us, and poor Githa!” and the
ready tears welled into Eveline’s eyes. “But Mark—to live with Mark, to
see him every day—to live in London, to hear beautiful music, to see
beautiful pictures, to go to Westminster Abbey, to the Temple, to St.
Paul’s!”

Eveline sat down among the roses, fairly dazed with the thick-coming
thoughts, while the bees hummed, the grasshoppers chirped, and the
roses slowly swayed in the west wind that came to them charged with the
fragrance of the mignonette.

The earth was so fair, the sky so blue, the wind so sweet, what need
was there to think of anything but the beauty and the colour and the
perfume?

Just then a chill wind blew from the north, the leaves shivered, the
murmur of the grasshoppers died away under the grass as over the church
a huge black cloud came sweeping, while another, jagged and angry, met
it from the south, and there came a sound of rolling thunder. Eveline
looked in wonder from her bower, the storm had burst so suddenly. Was
it an answer to her thought, a warning not to trust in the perishable,
not to make pleasure the law of life, but to aim at the imperishable,
the eternal? It shot through Eveline’s mind that she might at least
take such teaching from it, that if she could grasp the blessings of
family love and sisterhood it would be worse than folly to magnify the
blessings she must give up for them; but she was glad that the burden
of the choice did not lie with her, and making her way into the house,
she occupied herself in her usual studies.

Mrs. Fenner meanwhile had laid Miles Echlin’s letter before the rector
and his wife, not without certain misgivings as to how the contents
would strike them. Lady Elgitha at once saw the importance of the
question, and quickly set herself to consider how it might affect her
own household. She was personally attached to Margaret, as far at least
as she could be attached to anyone unconnected with the great house
of Manners, and she had always felt that it was respectable to have
her husband’s widowed sister living, as it were, under the shelter
of the rectory, especially as she was the widow of a man who must
have been a general and a K.C.B. at the very least, if he had lived.
Mark, too, had by a certain natural joyousness of temper unconsciously
maintained himself in her good graces, but Eveline was already rather
a difficulty to Lady Elgitha. She was decidedly so much prettier than
Elgitha that it had sometimes struck the rector’s wife of late that it
was unfortunate to have to introduce as her niece a girl who must be
more attractive than her own daughter; it would be well at least that
Eveline should be withdrawn before Elgitha came out. These thoughts
shot through Lady Elgitha’s brain while the rector was taking in the
idea that a great piece of good fortune had befallen his sister, which
must entail nothing but loss and bereavement on him.

“We shall miss you, Margaret,” he said, while the tears rose to his
eyes.

“We shall miss each other, James,” replied his sister, softly. “But
what do you and Elgitha think? It is very kind of Miles, and the
prettiest compliment he could have paid dear Mark; but we need not
accept it, you know, if you think——”

“Of course you must accept it, Margaret,” said Lady Elgitha, and there
was a touch of east wind in her voice which made the brother and sister
shrink and feel ashamed; “it would be flying in the face of Providence
not to accept such an offer. What is to become of Eveline if you die?
You can’t depend even on a pretty girl’s marrying nowadays, if she has
no fortune.”

“Yes, I think it would certainly be good for Eveline, and it would be
so nice for Mark. I am sure Miles deserves all we can do for him.”

“Of course; and when you’re tired of London, you can always run down
here, and I daresay Eveline will be glad to have Elgitha up for a week
or two in the season. It would be a good opportunity for her to have
some lessons. I’m sure, Margaret, you have much to be thankful for—Mark
so well provided for, and such an opening for you and Eveline.”

And Lady Elgitha sighed, for she caught sight of her son coming up the
path with his hat at the back of his head and his hands in the pocket
of his loose shooting-coat, looking the picture of idleness.

The poor rector had much ado to congratulate his sister. Fortunately,
he had a way of looking at events as they affected other people rather
than himself; so that the pleasure he felt in the honour done to his
sister’s son, and in the advantages which would accrue to her and her
daughter, occupied him more than the loss and desolation to himself.

When Elgitha heard the news, she was in blank despair. Rosenhurst would
be unendurable without Aunt Margaret and Eveline. No one else should
live in the cottage. She would go to school; she would be trained for a
nurse, and go to a hospital; she must do something, or she should die
of dulness, with only father and mother, and Gilbert always loafing
about.

But the end of it was that Margaret wrote to Mr. Echlin, thanking him,
and promising to spend the winter in Manchester-square, that they
might see how they liked each other, and to come at the beginning of
October. Mr. Echlin replied that he was perfectly satisfied with the
arrangement, but begged as a favour that they would say nothing about
the matter to Mark.

This was a hard condition to keep when Mark came down for his summer
holiday, and led to some amusing complications. Mark was full of the
goodness and generosity of his cousin. He did not believe he had a
single fault; and though he had had great sorrows, he was so cheerful
that you forgot he was old. “I suppose cheerfulness runs in the
family,” said the lad, with a loving look at his mother. “What paragons
grandmamma and grandpapa must have been!”

“There is much to be thankful for in the inheritance of a cheerful
temper, no doubt,” said his mother; “and I think all the Echlins I have
known have been disposed to look on the bright side of things.”

“You yourself, mother,” said Eveline, admiringly, “who have had trouble
enough to break a woman’s heart, Aunt Elgitha says.”

“But it seemed God’s own hand, Eva,” replied Mrs. Fenner, softly; “and
who was I that I should murmur? Did He not know best?”

“And very narrow means, mother.”

“And two good children, who never fretted for what they could not have.
Your cousin Miles has had more grievous sorrow than I; he has lost his
wife and lost his son, who, everyone says, was all a father could wish,
and he has no child left him.”

“Do you know, mother,” said Mark, very confidentially, “I have a notion
that he has found someone whom he thinks of bringing home? You have no
notion how the house is being brisked up. He has said nothing to me. Of
course, I could not expect to be always in such comfortable quarters.”

“Of course not, my dear. And you would be sorry to have to leave
Manchester-square?”

“Naturally. Why, I am lodged like a prince. I suppose Mr. Echlin must
be nearly sixty; but many men of fifty look older. There is no reason
why he shouldn’t—is there, mother?”

“Shouldn’t what, Mark?”

“Marry again, mother. Of course second marriages are not like first
marriages; but when a man has a big house, and is all alone. He hasn’t
said a word to me; but the best bedroom is to be done up—for he asked
me to help him choose the paper—and one of the drawing-rooms, Mrs.
Cotton said, is to be refurnished as a morning room.”

“That looks suspicious, doesn’t it, mother?” said Eveline, with saucy
gravity.

“I hope,” said Mark, following out the train of his own thoughts, “it
will not be too young a lady. It doesn’t look nice to see a man with a
bald head with a girl who might be his daughter for a wife.”

“It would be a pity,” assented Mrs. Fenner. “I wonder why men always
consider themselves so young when they marry. I remember John
Brattlebury, a cousin of your father’s, as nice a man as ever lived,
to whom it never occurred to marry until he was well past forty.
Your father innocently suggested to him the name of a lady of about
five-and-thirty, who we knew liked him, and to whom the position he
was able to offer her would have been a decided gain. You’d hardly
believe it, but he was almost offended, went down into Cumberland, and
came home with a wife of eighteen, who knew no more of his tastes and
occupations than he of hers.”

“But, mother,” said Eveline, “what was the girl thinking of?”

“Of getting a change, my dear—being mistress in a house instead of
number two or three in a string of daughters. Time is apt to seem long
at eighteen, and a middle-aged bachelor, when he comes to woo, has
many advantages. If she cannot admire the brightness of his eyes or
the elegance of his figure, she may esteem him for his experience and
intelligence, and diamonds and knicknacks are powerful persuasors to
some natures.”

“And really, mamma, if you think of it, it may not be so bad, after
all. Shakespeare says—

                ‘Let still woman take
    An elder than herself, so wears she to him,
    So sways she level in her husband’s heart.’

Don’t you remember? we read it last night.”

“I remember that Shakespeare makes Duke Orsino say so. Perhaps, as
Shakespeare had married a woman older than himself, he might set
value on the opposite qualification; but it is not fair to make him
answerable for the opinions of his characters. But now, Eva, you must
go and dress, or Aunt Elgitha will not be able to start her tennis.”

And so the pleasant August days went by, and Mark visited his old
friends, the farmers, enjoying the gathering-in of the harvest, the
golden lights of the sun, the heavy whispering of the trees, and all
the harmonies of country life, a thousand times the more for the
contrast with the city life he had been leading for the last nine
months. There was but one thing in which he was disappointed—he wanted
to spend a large part of his handsome salary in the decoration of his
mother’s cottage; but both his mother and Eveline were unaccountably
indifferent to it, and Mrs. Fenner at last put him past the idea by
saying that if there should be changes in Manchester-square, it might
be desirable, for Eveline’s sake, that she should go to town for a few
months, and then he could come and stay with them.

So Mark went back to town refreshed and happy. He was too much
engrossed with his work to note all that was being done at
Manchester-square, and too modest to ask questions; but the conviction
of impending change grew on him.

So September passed, and October, with its bracing days and shortened
evenings, was come. It was already the fifth, and Mark, after a rather
hasty breakfast, was about to start for town, when Mr. Echlin said—

“Mark, you’ll be sure to be home in time to dress for dinner. I expect
some friends—ladies.”

“Certainly, sir,” said Mark, and went his way, thinking that now it was
coming, and wondering that he had not heard from his mother for nearly
a week.

Business, which had been slack in August and September, was very
brisk again. Mark’s work was increasing in interest and importance;
he had several important proofs to read and a long journey to take
in the afternoon. It was already a quarter to six as he let himself
in at Manchester-square. He glanced into the dining-room; all looked
bright and cosy, and a crisp fire sent out a rosy, joyous, frolicsome
radiance, that was very pleasant to see. The table was laid for
four. Mark was hungry enough to regard even the dinner rolls with
satisfaction, and to eye the mats with a vague wonder as to what
dishes were to be set on them—a warm odour of roasting meat rose from
the culinary region.

“Is Mr. Echlin in, Martin?” he inquired of the butler, who was putting
a finishing touch to his table.

“Yes, sir, dinner at six sharp. The ladies are dressing.”

“Oh, indeed; they have come then?”

“Yes, sir, we druv to meet ’em at four o’clock; the train was five
minutes late.”

“Hullo! Mark, only just in,” called Mr. Echlin over the banisters.
“Make haste, lad, we’re as hungry as hunters.” And Mark ran up three
stairs at a time and plunged into the work of the toilette, too busy to
wonder who the ladies might be.

The clock struck six as he left his room. As he ran downstairs the
unwonted sound of music struck his ear; someone was playing a _Lied
ohne Worte_, one that Eveline often played in the twilight at home.
Mark was glad that one of the ladies played, and played softly, but
Martin’s inexorable gong began to boom, and he must go in.

Miles Echlin had never used the drawing-room, and when Mark opened the
door, and the great chandeliers were reflected from mirror to mirror,
he started back dazzled. Two ladies rose at his entrance and came
towards him; both called him by his name. What did it mean? Were they
in very truth his own mother and sister, the ladies dearest in the
world to his loyal heart?

The wonder of it almost took away his breath, and he gave a great gasp
as he uttered their names.

“Mother! Eveline!”

“Forgive me, Mark,” said Mr. Echlin, taking his hand, “it was selfish
of me to take you so by surprise, I ought to have told you.”

“Oh, sir, are they come to stay?” asked Mark, looking from one to the
other, still incredulous.

“To stay, to live with us if we can make the old house homelike enough
for them, or rather if they will make it homelike for me and my adopted
son.”

“Oh, sir, how good you are to me.”

“And are you not good to me? Ever since you came to me, have you not
thought, worked, and cared for me? My own dear son was taken from me,
he who must ever be first in my heart, but do not think that I cannot
love and honour loyalty and worth, that I cannot thank God for cheering
me with such a friend as you! But there is old Martin pounding away
at his gong! You all know what I would say. Come, Margaret, Mark will
bring his sister.”

He led Mrs. Fenner down with old-fashioned courtesy, and placed her in
the seat which his wife had once filled, then motioned to Eveline to
sit at his right while Mark took his customary seat on his left. There
were many larger parties in the square that night, but not one where
there were more grateful hearts, and of the silent covenant made that
night no one of the four ever repented.

With the presence of those good women, all that was happy and homelike
came back to the big house. Music and soft laughter filled its
chambers—Mr. Echlin loved to have it so. The portraits of his wife and
of his son hang where they used to hang, and some beautiful landscapes
now adorn the walls, and in Mrs. Echlin’s pretty sitting-room the
grave, sweet face of Michael Fenner looks down on the children to whom
he bequeathed the best possession, THE INHERITANCE OF A GOOD NAME.

[THE END.]

[Illustration]

[Illustration: “HE STARTED BACK, DAZZLED.”]




HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF MUSICAL FORMS.

SKETCH III.—CANTATAS AND CHURCH MUSIC.

BY MYLES B. FOSTER, Organist of the Foundling Hospital.


CANTATA.

A form belonging equally to sacred and secular music, viz., the
cantata, in all probability first emanated from desire to possess in
chamber music the recitative, invented by Peri and others, and supposed
by themselves and their admirers to be a revival of Greek art. You
will best judge of the primitive nature of the earliest cantatas, and
understand the difference between them and the compositions which
have since appeared under the same title, when I tell you that they
were short dramatic stories, declaimed or recited by one voice to the
accompaniment of a single instrument. In the seventeenth century this
simple form was extended, by the insertion, at various intervals,
of an air, the repetition of which gave the cantata the appearance
of a rondo. The Italian school of that period, already mentioned
in connection with the opera, did much to perfect this style of
composition. Foremost amongst these masters stands Carissimi, who is
credited with first adapting the cantata to church purposes. Amongst
his secular cantatas there is one written to commemorate the death of
Mary Queen of Scots. About the same time, Marcello, Cesti, and Lotti
wrote in this form, and Alessandro Scarlatti contributed very many
specimens, in which the accompaniments were elaborate and difficult.
Some of Marcello’s are published for soprano and contralto, with
clavecin accompaniment.

In the early part of the next century Domenico Scarlatti, the son
of the Alessandro above named, considerably extended the form by
making use of various movements in the one work. Pergolesi (1710-36)
also wrote several cantatas, introducing important developments. A
well-known one of his was _Orfeo ed Euridice_, written shortly before
his death. Handel wrote several for the single voice, either with
clavier or orchestral accompaniment, mostly for oboes and stringed
instruments. In the life of Handel, published soon after his death
(in 1760), the number is put down as two hundred; but this total will
include his Church cantatas, a much more advanced form of composition,
although composed when he was quite a young man.

The modern name for the primitive form of cantata is undoubtedly
“Concert aria,” or “Scena,” into which it has merged. Under the latter
titles we have splendid examples by Mozart, such as “Misero, O sogno?”
“Bella mia fiamma,” “Misera dove son!” and “Non temer,” and single
specimens by Beethoven, “Ah, perfido,” and by Mendelssohn, “Infelice.”
The most important and valuable Church cantatas are those composed by
John Sebastian Bach, consisting of five sets for every Sunday and holy
day in the year, besides many single ones, such as “God’s time is the
best,” and a sort of requiem ode for the Electress of Saxony. These
Church cantatas are for four voices and full orchestra, and have from
four to seven various movements. Bach wrote many secular cantatas as
well, two of them being comic ones. His works abound in contrapuntal
skill, and contain great beauties.

It remains to be said that in our times the word cantata is used as a
title to choral works which, if sacred and written in oratorio style,
are too short for that title or have no _dramatis personæ_; or, if
secular, such as lyric dramas set to music, are not intended to be
acted. Sir Sterndale Bennett’s _May Queen_ is a good specimen of the
latter, which may be said to bear the same relationship to opera that
the sacred cantata of the present day does to oratorio.


MOTETT AND ANTHEM.

Winterfeld, a German writer on musical matters, derives the word motett
from “mot,” the French for “a word,” referring to the verse of Holy
Scripture which constitutes a motett; whilst other learned men connect
it with the Latin verb “movere,” indicative of the livelier motion and
the briskness it possesses, when compared with the Cantus Fermus; and
there is yet a third derivation from “mutare,” to change—a reference to
the changing sentiments and emotional characteristics of these musical
settings, a noticeable feature in such stiff and formal times.

At one time the motett was made up of a theme and its treatment in
different variations, after the manner of the Spanish “moto” in poetry.
Motetts were also set to profane words in the early periods of their
history, and they were forbidden to be used in church in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries.

Dr. Stainer, in his “Dictionary of Musical Terms,” mentions the term
“motett” as being synonymous with “pulpitre” in the fifteenth century,
but for the last three hundred years the term has meant a piece of
sacred music adapted to Latin words, and to be sung at high mass in
the Roman Catholic Church, either instead of or as an addition to
the offertory, which was to be set to the music of the plainsong.
Motetts by Philip of Vitrisco date back as far as the year 1300. At
the commencement of that century the motett became a much more living
form, when represented by such composers as our English John Dunstable,
the Flemish Du Fay, and others. Following these composers came the
Netherlanders of Okenheim’s school, in the latter half of the fifteenth
century, and they more definitely separated their motetts from the
style of the masses in vogue.

In the latter there is a painful striving apparent, consequent on the
feeling, almost of duty, that severe contrapuntal exhibitions must be
displayed, whereas in the former there is breadth of style and general
fitness of things, untrammelled by this artificiality.

In the sixteenth century the Flemish writers, headed by Josquin
des Prés, made great moves onward, and gained the leading position
in musical Europe by earnest work and pure and noble endeavours.
They chose passages from the Gospels and the Book of Canticles for
their motetts, and imbued them with characteristic individuality.
At the same period the Lamentations of Jeremiah were largely drawn
upon for subjects. In this and the fifteenth centuries we find a
large collection of funeral motetts, named nœniæ, very reverent and
beautiful. One by Josquin des Prés, founded on plain chant, and written
in memory of his friend Okenheim (who was also his master), is very
fine.

Petrucci, the father of type music printing, gave most of the earliest
nœniæ to the world, many of which may be seen in the British Museum. In
the middle of the sixteenth century motetts were, perhaps, influenced
for good by the wonderful progress of the madrigal, but each part was
written with a different text, and this confusion became an abuse.
However, towards the latter part of the century that bright genius,
Palestrina, proved himself to be as great a writer of motetts as he was
of masses. He composed over three hundred to our knowledge, and in all
probability there are more than that which have been lost. Cotemporary
with this great light we find, in Italy, Morales, Anesio, Luca
Marenzio, and, above all, Vittoria, who was almost as great a motett
composer as Palestrina himself; in the Netherlands, Orlando di Lasso;
in Venice, Willaert, and, later, Croce and the two Gabrielis.

Our English writers, Tallis and Byrd, whom we shall refer to again
immediately, wrote as fine motetts as any produced by the foreign
schools, under the title, “Cantiones Sacræ.” Dr. Tye, Dr. Fairfax, and
others also added specimens to the English list. These motetts, as we
shall see, became (after the Reformation) full anthems, which were in
musical form motetts, but were set to English words. In some cases the
English words are translations from the Latin. It is curious to find
that Orlando Gibbons, in the seventeenth century, writing anthems for
the church, christened his secular part-music “Madrigals and Motets,”
thereby reverting to the old use of the term in connection with secular
words only.

In the seventeenth century the motett still flourished in the Roman
Church, but not for long, according to its old form. Mr. Rockstro
attributes the downfall of the old motett to the invention, by
Monteverde, of dominant unprepared dissonances, which “sapped the
foundation of the Polyphonic School.”

Thus, after 1660 the motett was a composition in modern tonality and
with orchestral accompaniments. Amongst composers in this style we find
Scarlatti, Pergolesi, Durante, and others, followed later on by Keiser
in Germany and Sebastian Bach, and then Graun, Hasse, and Hiller.
Handel wrote motetts in his earlier years. In modern times, as I have
had reason to point out to you in other forms, titles are appended to
works which are, to say the least, inappropriate, and the only claim
these have to the name motett is that they were originally intended
to be sung at High Mass. Such are the “Insanæ et vanæ curæ” of Haydn,
“Splendente te Deus” of Mozart, and the “O Salutaris” of Cherubini.
The term “motetus,” given in early times to the medius or middle voice
part, is probably in no way connected with the derivation of the word
motett.

The motett form appears in Church music of Queen Elizabeth’s time, and
although the anthem was gradually substituted, some of the earliest
anthems after the Reformation were in motett style, especially those of
Tallis and Byrd.

About the derivation of “anthem” there is as much dispute as there is
over the word “motett.” Some consider it to be derived from “ant-hymn,”
a kind of antiphony, though the very ancient custom of choir responding
to choir, or choir to priest, has entirely disappeared in the modern
form of anthem. This responsive or antiphonal singing may, in a
highly-developed form, yet become the anthem of the future, at any rate
in churches and cathedrals where the voices at disposal are good and in
large numbers. By some writers “anthem” is derived from ανατιθημι, to
set up (as an offering), and by some from ανθημα, a flower, the anthem
being considered the flower of the service. It is regrettable to find
that the idea of attending service for the sake of the anthem alone is
not yet extinct.

The anthem is thoroughly English; it supplied the attraction to our
Reformed Church, which the church cantatas and passion music did for
the Lutheran Church. Nearly all our eminent musicians have written
numbers of them, many examples containing the finest of English
composition. From early in the sixteenth century the anthem was
permitted as a part of Divine service, but it is not until the revision
of the Prayer Book in 1662 that we find the rubric, “In choirs and
places where they sing, here followeth the anthem,” which retains its
place to this day.

The first writers of note were Dr. Christopher Tye, who appears as a
verse-writer also, having translated the Acts of the Apostles “into
Englyshe meter”; Thomas Tallis, to whom our Church owes so much; and
William Byrd, joint organist with Tallis of the Chapels Royal. By this
period, that is, near the end of the sixteenth century, Church music
was beginning to free itself from the fetters of vague tonality and
old modes, and was gradually being clothed in clear and expressive
harmonies, and this improvement becomes most marked in the works of our
“English Palestrina,” as Orlando Gibbons has been appropriately named.
He was born in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, but most of his grand Church
compositions date from the commencement of the next century and the
reign of James I. Though some of his anthems are “verse” and have solos
in them, we may well classify this early period as that of the “full
anthem.” Viols were used as accompaniments to the verse parts, and the
organ was only added for the full choruses. I must remind you that the
organ was a very different affair to our modern instrument. It had one
advantage in its smallness, viz., that it could be carried about, being
known as the _portative_ organ, as opposed to the fixed or _positive_,
and could therefore be placed close to wherever the singers were, to
support their voices.

Passing to the latter half of the seventeenth century, we have come
through the strongest period of the history of English music. The
great madrigal school has flourished for nearly a century, and now we
find Pelham Humphrey or Humfrey, born 1647, studying in Paris under
Lulli, and under his influence helping to create a new era in anthem
composition. He died very young. Then there was Michael Wise, and Dr.
John Blow, private musician to King James II.; Dr. William Croft, his
pupil, whose anthems are so grand and solemn, and to whom, we may
mention in passing, we owe the introduction of music engraving on
pewter plates. We must also name Jeremiah Clarke, another pupil of
Blow’s, and Weldon. Anthems by all these men are still sung in our
churches.

Towering above them all stands Henry Purcell, whose earnest, devotional
Church music puts to shame much of the frivolous composition which
is nowadays devoted to that high purpose. In this age which follows
the period of the early “full anthem” writers, we have the “solo”
and “verse” anthem brought to the front. Purcell’s knowledge of the
singer’s requirements and his gift of beautiful melody enabled him to
perfect the solo anthem.

Instrumental accompaniments became more important at the hands of these
composers, and at the end of the seventeenth century the organ was
becoming a more perfect instrument, through the workmanship of Father
Schmidt and Renatus Harris, and others.

The anthems written by Handel, such as the Chandos Anthems, were
scored for larger orchestras, and were more like a combination of the
German church cantata and motett than the anthem strictly so called.
But this increase in the size of the church orchestra led to a full
band in Attwood’s Anthem for the Coronation of George IV., who, as
Prince of Wales, had been his warm-hearted patron.

In the latter half of the eighteenth century we have a few good
anthem-writers, such as Dr. Greene, who wrote over forty anthems; Dr.
Boyce, his articled pupil, whose “Cathedral Music” is a most valuable
collection of church compositions. There were also Jonathan Battishill,
Dr. William Hayes, his son Dr. Philip Hayes, the two Walmisleys, and
Attwood. Dr. T. F. Walmisley only died in 1866, and therefore some of
these compositions almost belong to our own times.

This fragmentary sketch brings us to the present form of anthem; but
before we speak of this we must mention in passing the masterly double
psalms and anthems by Mendelssohn, several of them being composed to
English words.

The country that owns such anthem-writers as Dr. S. S. Wesley, Sir John
Goss, Sir G. Elvey, Dr. Hopkins, Dr. Stainer, and Rev. Sir F. Gore
Ouseley has just reason to be proud. Many other names could be added to
this list, and the outlook seems to be most hopeful.

We are bound to notice an excrescence, going by the name of anthem,
which has been largely introduced into our cathedral services. We
allude to those arrangements of portions of masses, etc., coupled to
words totally different in sentiment to those for which the music was
originally composed, and which are strung together, like so many beads
on a string, as Dr. Monk aptly says (in Sir George Grove’s Dictionary),
“for the sake of pretty phrases or showy passages.”

Such adaptations would almost point to a scarceness of the genuine
anthem; and yet how opposite to this is the fact, and how few of the
really fine anthems of the best period of our great English school
receive the amount of hearing to which they are justly entitled! To
verify this, you have but to peruse Novello’s Catalogue of Sacred Music
with English words.


MASS. CATHEDRAL SERVICE.

The mass, or missa (“missa est,” the congregation is dismissed), has
been used, in part, at any rate, from the very earliest times, and
has been sung to most impressive and solemn music. St. Ambrose and
St. Gregory appear as the earliest compilators of the mass music.
When counterpoint was invented, Church composers clothed the early
plain-song tunes with its artistic embroideries, and polyphonic masses
arose, gradually brought by the great schools of the sixteenth century
to such a pitch of excellence that they have never since been equalled.
The mass then consisted, as it does now, of six movements, viz., the
Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei. The masses
were named after the plain-song melody upon which they were developed;
but occasionally the melody used was a profane one, so that a mass
would be named after its secular melody, as, for instance, “L’homme
armée,” an old French lovesong! and the masses founded upon an original
theme were rare, and known as “Missa _sine nomine_.” The tenor Du Fay,
already named in connection with the motett, wrote many of a very
devotional but unmelodious character. At the end of the fifteenth
century Josquin des Prés, also mentioned previously, wrote many masses,
in which, strange to say, a great want of reverence is most evident
from time to time. A purer style will be found later on in the masses
of Goudimel, Morales, and notably in those of Festa. But about this
period the abuse spoken of in treating of the motett had crept into
the mass, and the device was to give different sets of words to each
singer! Even Morales is guilty of this, mixing up, as he does, the text
of the Liturgy and an Ave Maria. Devotional feeling was sacrificed to a
desire to puzzle, and masses were esteemed according to the difficulty
of the solution of the canons employed in them.

At the Council of Trent (1562) these abuses were condemned, and
polyphonic music would have been forbidden a place in the Church,
but for one great, earnest man, and that man was Palestrina. His now
celebrated “Missa Papæ Marcelli” decided the fate and fixed the style
of Church music. In it he demonstrated that these intricacies and
learned forms might be well and devotionally used as a means to the
highest end, but not as a substitute for that great end itself. He
wrote nearly a hundred masses, and greatly influenced the future of
Church music.

William Byrd wrote a mass for five voices of great interest. Vittoria,
Orlando di Lasso, Gabrieli—each represented their different schools and
advanced their Church music on Palestrina’s great model.

After Allegri, at the end of the seventeenth century, the old mediæval
style died out, and Durante, Scarlatti, and others of that school
appear as a link between the old and new. After them, with their strong
tendencies towards elaboration of the instrumental accompaniment,
comes Bach, whose mass in B minor, now familiar to us, thanks to Mr.
Goldschmidt and the Bach Choir, stands alone. It is not only free from
ancient ecclesiastical tradition, but it is actually prophetic in its
marvellous harmonic changes and combinations. It is also in style
almost an oratorio. Later on we have magnificent masses by Haydn,
Mozart, and Beethoven, but more like sacred cantatas than masses. To
quote Mr. Rockstro, he rightly says, “Their style has steadily kept
pace, step by step, with the progress of modern music, borrowing
elasticity from the freedom of its melodies, and richness from the
variety of its instrumentation; clothing itself in new and unexpected
forms of beauty at every turn; yet _never aiming at the expression
of a higher kind of beauty than that pertaining to earthly things,
or venturing to utter the language of devotion in preference to that
of passion_.” The italics are my own, and I suppose that it is owing
to the fact that this individuality and frequent dramatic realism of
the composer usurped the abstract sense of the words used, and the
devotional idealism of the old schools, that not one note of any of
them has ever been heard within the Sistine Chapel at Rome.

The general distribution of the movements of the mass are, strange to
say, the same to-day that it was in Palestrina’s time. A mass for the
dead, called Requiem, is composed of different numbers, viz., “Requiem
æternam dona eis,” “Kyrie,” the grand hymn, “Dies iræ,” “Domini Jesu
Christo,” Sanctus and Benedictus, Agnus, and “Lux æterna.”

Of the more modern specimens, those of Cherubini and Mozart, and of the
most modern, that by Verdi, are all fine examples, the work by Mozart
standing high above all the others. It was, as you will remember,
mostly written on his deathbed. At the Reformation the mass disappeared
from the English Church, and from then until 1840 no choral communions
were written. Since the latter date, however, the English versions of
the Sanctus, Kyrie, Creed, and Gloria have been used and set to music
by most of the writers of Church music already named in connection with
the anthem.

[Illustration: A SERIOUS DISCUSSION.]




DRESS: IN SEASON AND IN REASON.

BY A LADY DRESSMAKER.


As a rule there are not many changes of dress or cut to be chronicled
this month. Everyone is thinking of the sales, and the truly wise and
economical (of which there are a great many in these days) are more
occupied in making the fashions subservient to their purchases, to
either inventing or thinking of new designs in dress. We were never
so rich in the way of materials as we are this year, though the most
popular of all effects in woollen is the serge-weaving, which is mixed
with everything—crossbars, and lines of velvet, silk cording, fancy
braids, and borders which resemble patchwork in monotone, or inlaid
wood flooring, or parqueterie. The serge with velvet crossbars and
lines on black serge are very effective and handsome. Indeed, serge
seems to have taken the place of cashmere, and is infinitely more
becoming in wear.

Ladies’ cloth is also much worn in both dark and light colours. On
these a selvedge of a different colour is left, which is sometimes
pinked-out, or edged with a cord. These are trimmed with facings,
cuffs, and collars of velvet, plush, and moiré, which is now much used
for trimmings. Besides this, there are vicuna and camels’ hair, and
a large selection of Darlington serges, and others in plain and in
stripes, which are at once cheap, ladylike, and extremely durable in
wear.

Nun’s cloth is still used with velvet trimmings, and a material
called “wool _crépon_” is used as well for evening frocks for girls,
and is trimmed profusely with woollen lace. Velveteen is not seen as
composing entire dresses, though so largely mixed with woollens of all
descriptions.

In colours worn by well-dressed people, heliotrope is still in great
favour, and is really lovely in silks, satins, and the handsome cut
velvets and _frisés_—dark sapphire blues, carbuncle, red brown, and a
mossy green, with an earthy brown and a stone-colour, which are both
useful, well-wearing colours.

Now that people are beginning to wear more colour than they formerly
did, it is needful to consider harmony in colour more than we did. For
young people this is everything. In wearing brown, for instance, it
should be harmonised by a little yellow or a lighter shade of brown.
In the same way dark-red must be harmonised with pink, and both shades
must be seen together, so as to be quite sure that they will not “swear
at each other,” as the French funnily express it. With grey a little
pale blue must be put in somewhere in the bonnet. Stone-colour will
harmonise with a pink, and heliotrope with a paler shade of itself.
With grey, blue, and slate silver ornaments look best; but with brown,
red, and green shades gold ornaments give the required harmony in
colouring.

All very bright hues should be kept away from the face, as only the
best of complexions can stand them near the skin. A portrait-painter
once told me that the colour of the hair or the hue of the eyes
should always be repeated in some part of the dress. But I fancy it may
answer for painting, but not to be exemplified in everyday life and
habiliments.

[Illustration: AN AFTERNOON VISIT.]

Now that belts are coming in again, or rather have come in, it is well
to remember that when the waist exceeds twenty-five inches round bands
are not becoming, and pointed bodices should be resorted to, and if
the front darts be cut very much bowed-in, an effect of slenderness
is given to the waist which does not really belong to it. Frills at
the neck and wrists are most becoming to thin people with long necks.
Short-necked and stout people look best with plain bands of muslin or
lace. High shoulders do not consort well with fur capes nor wide fur
collars at the neck. The long paletôts or pelisses are very suitable
to short people, as the straight lines add to their apparent height.
But even in giving these few directions towards helping my readers to
becoming and tasteful dress, I fully realise the fact that very few
people take the trouble to ascertain what they look like, and perhaps
would be grievously offended if they were to be told where the faults
of their appearance really lay.

[Illustration: NEW BLOUSE POLONAISE.]

Mantles, as I have frequently said, are all short, none of them coming
more than a few inches below the waist at the back, though all are
long in front. They are, many of them, much trimmed, though not too
much. There are braces to the shoulders, or a kind of yoke of beading,
or flat bands of beaded _passementerie_, laid on. Plush seems to be
the great material for these mantles, and will be worn not only in
the winter, but late in the spring. Some of these plush mantles are
coloured, but very few. Sapphire blue, carbuncle red, and a dark mossy
green are the most popular colours. They are trimmed with black jet—not
a very satisfactory trimming, nor very elegant.

Hoods are seen on jackets and pelisses more than on small mantles. The
new shape of sling mantelette is called “Pelerine,” and is nearly a
cape in being all round of the same length; but the edges are turned
under all round, and in front the linings show, which are of some
pale, contrasting colour. The fronts are quite of the sling shape,
and if a hood be worn with them it is lined to match. The newest
hoods are square, and of the monk order—not gathered up in any way,
to make them bunchy at the back. The newest shape of paletôt we now
call a “pelisse,” but it is really nothing but a long paletôt, or
tight-fitting jacket lengthened to the edge of the skirt. The newest
cloaks of this kind brought out this winter have hanging sleeves, and
a hood or fur facing, which wraps across at the waist, one end of the
fur crossing the other end. The side of the skirt is often opened and
then laced together with thick cords, but it may be also edged with
fur. Very long cloaks are worn as wraps for carriage use, but only in
that way; and for travelling, small mantles are much more fashionable
at present.

Jackets are worn as much as ever by young ladies, and are universally
plain and rather severe in cut. They are of two kinds, the first with a
fur trimming, wide round the neck and shoulders and on the chest, but
pointed at the waist, and tight-fitting both at the back and front.
The other jacket has a tight back and loose-fitting front, and is
either simply stitched round with the machine or bound with galloon or
leather—the last the newest and most _recherché_ of bindings. Pilot
cloth is used for jackets, as well as Cheviot homespuns, also corduroy,
Melton of various kinds, and numbers of fancy cloths under different
names. The Irish Claddagh cloth, introduced by Mrs. Ernest Hart, and
to be obtained in all colours at the depôt of the Donegal Industrial
Fund, is becoming more popular for large wrap-cloaks, little children’s
ulsters, and babies’ pelisses. Plush has been adopted as a lining for
thin mantles of silk and wool, instead of wadded silk. It is far less
clumsy, and quite as warm. In this way many ladies have made use of
their handsome summer mantles, and made them warm enough for winter. On
mild days no jacket nor mantle is used, but the long boa, or Victorine,
or else one of the new large handkerchiefs, knotted on the chest and
spread out over the shoulders. These large handkerchiefs are even to be
seen worn on the outside of the small tight-fitting jackets.

I have mentioned leather bindings on jackets. They are also used
for trimming dresses by the first ladies’ tailors. The colour of
the bands or bindings is usually of the lightest shade of the cloth
used. Polonaises are growing in popularity every day, and the spring
will probably see them well established in favour. The idea of
blouse-jackets has produced the blouse-polonaise, which I have selected
for the paper pattern of the month. It is draped at the side, but some
of the new polonaises are draped at both sides. The edges may be lined
with a light harmonising colour which will show when the wearer moves
about. Thus a pale grey vicuna would have pale rose-pink linings.
Polonaises are becoming fashionable for evening and dinner dress, and
have high Marie Stuart collars and long angel sleeves. The neck-bands
of dresses are as wide and fit as tightly as ever. They are generally
of velvet, and the cuffs also, the latter being only as wide as the
collar.

The bodices of ordinary gowns show no change in shape. The favourite
front-trimming which has taken the place of waistcoats is a long
_revers_ front, the point of the waist to the neck. In fur-trimmed
dresses this _revers_ is of fur; also the cuffs, neck band, and a band
round the skirt. Many dresses for wear in the house have ruches round
the hem; but they are not suitable for wear out of doors, as they are
perfect traps for dust. A new style is to put a _dépassant_ (the
modern name for a _balayeuse_ frill) round the edge of the dress. This
is about an inch and a-half in width, and is pleated in small single
box-pleats, and is generally of silk of the same colour as the dress.

The sketch, under the name of “An Afternoon Visit,” shows one of the
new polonaises, which buttons across the front. It is of grey cloth,
over a petticoat of very dark crimson. The young lady in the hat wears
a walking-gown, trimmed with fur, which is put on with plain bands;
the material is “ladies’ cloth.” Of the two figures in indoor costume
one shows the method of making-up striped materials, and also the new
“catogan knot,” with a puff of hair and a curled front. The other dress
has a tucked bodice, with a draped front, which simulates a polonaise;
the collar and cuffs being of velvet.

In “The Serious Discussion” we have several dresses, one for
out-of-doors, trimmed with fur, and showing the method of trimming
a short jacket which I have before described. The other dresses are
plaids, and show the way in which plain materials are mixed with them.
The bodice is of plain material, with a waistcoat-front, and cords and
buttons. The figure at the back is an illustration of this month’s
paper pattern, the new “blouse polonaise,” which is a very charming
adaptation of the “Norfolk” or pleated blouse, now so much worn; it
is both easily made and cut out, and is a very useful garment. It may
be cut long enough to reach to the edge of the underskirt, and thus
follows the fashions of the long lines now in vogue. In this way it is
more graceful, but it may be cut shorter, and in this case the skirt
must have the box-pleated frill at the edge, which is now called a
_dépassant_. The material of which our illustration is made is one of
the rough, hairy “vicuna serges,” of a light grey tone, with a darker
grey stripe. The bands of the shoulders, front, waist, and collar and
cuffs are of this dark grey, in velvet or plush; the first being the
most becoming. The ribbon-bow is of the same hue of silk and velvet
reversible ribbon. The hem of the polonaise is quite plain, and is
machine-hemmed. The paper pattern consists of nine pieces, _i.e._,
two sleeve pieces, back, front, cuffs, collar, shoulder-piece, and
front-strap. The polonaise will require about ten yards of thirty inch
material, and about half a yard of velvet and three yards of ribbon.

All paper patterns supplied by “The Lady Dressmaker” are of medium
size—viz., 36 inches round the chest—and only one size is prepared for
sale. No turnings are allowed in any of them. Each pattern may be had
of “The Lady Dressmaker,” care of Mr. H. G. Davis, 73, Ludgate-hill,
E.C., price 1s. each. It is requested that the addresses be clearly
given, and that postal notes may be crossed “& Co.,” to go through a
bank, as so many losses have recently occurred. The patterns already
issued are always kept in stock, as “The Lady Dressmaker” only issues
patterns likely to be of constant use in home-dressmaking and altering;
and she is particularly careful to give all the new patterns of
hygienic underclothing, both for children and old and young ladies, so
that no reader of the “G.O.P.” may be ignorant of the best methods of
dressing.

The following is a list of the patterns already issued, price 1s. each.

April, 1885, braided loose-fronted jacket; May, velvet bodice; June,
Swiss belt and full bodice with plain sleeves; July, mantle; Aug.,
Norfolk or pleated jacket; September, housemaid’s or plain skirt;
October, combination-garment (under-linen), with long sleeves;
November, double-breasted jacket; December, Zouave jacket and bodice;
January, 1886, Princess under-dress (under-linen, under-bodice and
underskirt combined); February, polonaise, with waterfall back;
March, new spring bodice; April, divided skirt and Bernhardt mantle,
with sling sleeves; May, Early English bodice and yoke bodice for
summer dress; June, dressing jacket and Princess frock, with Normandy
bonnet for a child of four years old; July, Princess of Wales’s
jacket, bodice, and waistcoat, for tailor-made gown; August, bodice
with guimpe; September, mantle with stole ends; October, Pyjama, or
night-dress combination, with full back; November, new winter bodice;
December, patterns of Norfolk blouses, one with a yoke, and one with
pleats only; January, 1887, blouse-polonaise, with pleats at back and
front.




THE BROOK AND ITS BANKS.

BY THE REV. J. G. WOOD, M.A., Author of “The Handy Natural History.”


CHAPTER IV.

    Another enemy of the water-vole—The pike—Pike in brooks—The
    Oxford giant pike—A sad failure—An ignominious end—The pike
    and the eel—The pike and the duck—Links in Nature—Cousins
    of the water-vole—The campagnol, or short-tailed field
    mouse—Damage which it works—Its natural enemies—the kestrel and
    the owls—How to detect and catch a campagnol—The kestrel—Its
    peculiar mode of flight—Altering the focus of the eye—The
    nest of the campagnol—Beans and the mouse—The humble-bee and
    wasp—More connecting links—Store chambers of the campagnol—Its
    bird-purveyors—The blackbird, thrush, and campagnol—The
    winter and summer nests—A beautiful specimen and remarkable
    locality—Mode of eating.

We have not yet completed the life-history of the water-vole, which, as
I remarked on page 34, involves that of several other creatures.

One of its two worst foes has just been described, and we now come
to the second—_i.e._, the PIKE, OR JACK (_Esox lucius_). N.B.—The
latter name may perhaps recall to the reader the ancient family of the
Lucys, of Charlcote Hall, Warwickshire, so mercilessly satirised by
Shakspeare. They bore upon their shield the “luce”—_i.e._, the pike,
the coat of arms being a good example of “canting” heraldry—_i.e._, in
which the blazonry of the shield contains a play upon the name of the
bearer.

There is no more inveterate foe of the water-vole than the pike. In the
stomach of a single pike were found the remains of three water-voles
and some bird, which was probably a duck.

It might be imagined that a pike large enough to swallow a water-vole
would not be likely to venture into a brook, and would restrict itself
to the river where it would have plenty of room. But experience has
shown that a very large pike will sometimes make its way into a very
small brook, partly for the sake of food, but sometimes through sheer
cunning, in the hope of evading its enemies.

By the time that a pike has attained the weight of twelve or fifteen
pounds, he has had to face many and varied dangers, and escape from
many foes.

While he is young and small his worst foes are those of his own
species. Anglers know that there is scarcely any bait so attractive to
an old pike as a small pike. All the earlier part of his life is spent
in perpetual watchfulness, he having to be always on the look-out for
prey by which he can still his insatiable hunger; while he has to be
equally on guard lest a larger pike should satisfy its hunger with him.

No pike, therefore, can attain to a large size without developing a
considerable amount of cunning, and anyone who sets himself the task of
catching such a fish will find that he must employ all his resources
of intellect, aided by experience, before he can delude the fish even
into touching the bait. In spite of its large size, the fish manages to
elude observation in a most puzzling manner, and it is no easy matter
to make sure of its position. An old fox or old rat is scarcely more
cunning and full of devices than an old pike.

The largest pike that I ever saw at liberty was in a small tributary
streamlet of the Cherwell river, near Oxford.

A pike of enormous dimensions had for some time been reported as
having been seen in various parts of the Cherwell, the general rumours
giving its weight as at least thirty pounds. All the anglers of the
neighbourhood had tried to capture this mighty prize, but had failed.
Contrary to the habit of most large pike, it did not seem to have
established itself in any particular spot, but roamed about from place
to place.

Now, the Cherwell itself is but a very small river, so that the
locality of a large fish might appear easily discoverable. But it is a
very “weedy” river, and its banks are edged with willows, whose long,
red, plume-shaped roots hang into the water from the banks, and form
admirable hiding-places for the fish.

One day I was trying my fortune at trolling in the Cherwell, with a
six-inch gudgeon for bait, and, on coming to a tributary stream, walked
along the bank until I could find a spot narrow enough to be jumped.

Coming to a deep-looking pool, I dropped in the bait, by way of not
wasting time, and almost immediately felt the bait taken by a pike.
Following the golden rule then, and perhaps now, in force among
anglers, I sat down on the bank, watch in hand, in order to wait
through the weary ten minutes prescribed by custom, and which almost
seem to drag themselves out into as many centuries.

Barely half the time had elapsed when a huge head rose to the surface,
and the bait was blown out, as it seemed, into the water, the head
sinking with a swirl of water where it disappeared. On examining the
rejected bait, which had naturally been seized crosswise, I found that
it was pierced from head to tail with the teeth of the pike.

I learned that the big fish was afterwards ignominiously taken with a
net in one of these tributary brooks, so that its cunning was baffled
at last. I also learned that the fish had repeatedly treated other
anglers as it treated me, holding the bait for a short time in its
mouth and then rejecting it.

So it is clear that the water-vole will by no means be safe from the
pike when it is the inhabitant of the brook instead of the river.

Moreover, it does not need a very large pike to devour a full-grown
water-vole. The pike can swallow an animal which seems quite
disproportionate to its size. A young pike of barely five inches in
length was seen swimming about with the tail of a gudgeon projecting
from its mouth. The gudgeon was quite as long as its captor, and there
is no doubt that if the fish had been let alone the pike would soon
have digested the gudgeon sufficiently to swallow it entirely.

The late Frank Buckland mentions that a pike weighing eight pounds
was caught in the River Itchen. After it was taken out of the water
it disgorged a trout of a pound weight. This must have been a sore
disappointment for the captor, who would think himself defrauded of a
pound weight in his angling record.

The reader will remember that a heron and a cormorant lost their
lives by capturing an eel which was too large for them, and it is
a remarkable fact that a pike has been known to suffer a similar
fate. It can easily be understood that an eel, twisting itself about
convulsively in the struggle for life, should coil itself round a
bird’s neck long enough to cause its death by strangulation; but it
seems almost impossible that a pike, being a fish, and therefore
breathing by gills, should be suffocated while in the water by an eel.

Yet in the Fisheries Exhibition of 1883 there were two very remarkable
stuffed groups, illustrating the voracity of the pike. In one of them
a pike weighing ten pounds had attacked an eel weighing only one
pound less. Now, an eel of nine pounds weight is a very large one,
lithe, active, and muscular as a snake, and by no means a despicable
antagonist. The pike had begun to swallow the eel, but the latter in
its struggles forced its way out of the mouth through the gills, and
thence into the water beneath the right gill-cover. But it could go no
farther, the teeth of the pike having almost met through its body.

The result was fatal to both. The body of the eel having been forced
beneath the gill-cover, the gills could not perform their office, and
so the pike was as effectually suffocated for want of breath as were
the heron and the cormorant. The dead bodies of the pike and eel were
found on the bank of the River Bure in October, 1882.

The second group consisted of a pike and a duck. The pike had attacked
the duck as the bird was diving, and had tried to swallow it. It
succeeded in getting the head, neck, and part of the breast down its
throat; but the duck, in its struggles for life, had naturally spread
its wings. These formed an insurmountable obstacle to the fish, and
the result was that the duck was drowned and the pike suffocated, both
having died for lack of respiration.

       *       *       *       *       *

So the “plop” of the water-vole into the brook from the bank has
not been to us the mere splash of a frightened animal into the
stream. It has opened for us many trains of thought, and taken us
into several sciences. It has shown us something of the links which
connect it with man, birds, and fishes, and so has led us into
ornithology and ichthyology. It has shown how the inventions of man
have their prototypes in the animal kingdom. Comparative anatomy and
physiology have also been shown to form portions of the life-history
of the familiar animal, and have demonstrated the truth of the axiom
enunciated on page 34, that no animal and no branch of science can
stand alone.

       *       *       *       *       *

Like other beings, the water-vole has its relatives, two of whom will
come within the range of our subject. Being small creatures, they go by
the popular name of mice, just as their larger relative is popularly
called a rat. These are the FIELD-VOLE and the BANK-VOLE, both of which
we may expect to find on the banks of our brook, especially when the
banks are clothed with shrubs. The former of these animals is a very
old acquaintance of mine, and when I was a lad I could go into a field
and make almost certain of catching a field-vole (_Arvícola agrestis_)
within about ten minutes.

[Illustration: A CORMORANT STRANGLED BY AN EEL.]

This little animal looks very much like a water-vole seen through the
wrong end of an opera-glass, except that the fur is redder and the ears
are longer in proportion to the size of the head. The tail is only
about one-third as long as the body—a peculiarity which has earned for
it the popular name of “short-tailed field-mouse.” A more appropriate
name for it is “campagnol.”

Even in this country the campagnol is apt to be one of the worst foes
of the agriculturist, especially at harvest and seed time.

Not only does it devour the ripe corn in the field, but it makes its
way into ricks and barns, and eats large quantities of the gathered
corn. Moreover, just after the seed-corn has been sown it digs the
grains out of the ground, thus doing mischief which is often attributed
to the sparrow and other small birds. In France, however, where not a
kestrel, or, indeed, any unprotected bird, can be seen, the campagnol
can carry out his depredations without hindrance, and consequently
increases until it becomes an actual plague. In the Department of Aisne
alone a few years ago the fields were honeycombed with the burrows
of the animal, and the farmers spent some seventy thousand pounds in
ridding their fields of the nuisance. First poison was laid down; but
so many hares and rabbits were killed that another plan had to be
tried. Stacks of hay and straw were then made, containing quantities of
poisoned carrots, turnips, and beetroot. The agriculturists, therefore,
had to pay heavily for doing that which the kestrel would have done
to a great degree, if they had suffered it to live and carry out its
appointed work in preserving the balance of Nature.

The owls, again, are determined enemies of the campagnol, more than
half the food on which they and their young live being composed of
these mischievous little animals. Fortunately for the owls, their
nocturnal habits save them from the destruction which would have
befallen them had they sought their food in the light of day.

If we wish to see this pretty little creature, we have only to watch
carefully the field through which our brook runs, and we shall be
almost certain to find it. But we must know where to look and how to
look.

The favourite locality of the campagnol has already been mentioned; but
the detection of the little animal requires some practice. A novice in
the art may traverse a low-lying field, and hunt along the banks of
the brook from daybreak to dewy eve, and never catch a glimpse of a
campagnol. Another will go into the same field, and in a quarter of an
hour will produce several specimens.

Those who wish to catch it must know its ways. It is not of the least
use to hunt up and down the field in chase of the campagnol, and those
who wish to see it must reverse the old aphorism about Mahomet and the
mountain. They cannot go to the campagnol, for it will keep out of
their way; but if they will wait patiently, the campagnol will come to
them.

The secret for catching the campagnol is as follows:—

Go into any field which is bounded by a brook, and lie down, taking
care that the sun faces you; otherwise your shadow will be thrown on
the grass, rendering the detection of the animal extremely difficult.

When you have arranged yourself in an easy posture, keep your eyes on
the ground, and try to look between the green blades, so as to see the
colour of the soil. On a first trial you may probably wait until your
patience is exhausted, and yet see nothing. But do not be disheartened,
and try again, as nothing but practice will give the needful skill.

Only a small portion of ground can come under your observation as you
recline on your arm, and a few minutes ought to make you acquainted
with the colour of every inch of the soil. Presently you will become
aware that a little patch of soil is redder than it was a minute or two
ago. Bring your free hand down smartly on the spot, and you will find a
campagnol in your grasp.

Immediately afterwards you will find that the campagnol has teeth, and
knows how to use them. But if you understand the animal’s ways, you
will seize it without danger of being bitten, just as if you know the
nettle’s ways you can grasp it without danger of being stung.

Like its larger relative, the campagnol, when suddenly startled, loses
its presence of mind, and remains for a moment or two without motion.
During that moment of consternation, shift your grasp so that the body
of the animal rests in the palm of the hand, while the finger and thumb
seize the sides of the head, so that the creature cannot turn its head
to bite. The knack is soon learned, though perhaps at the expense of a
bite or two, and the shifting of the grasp becomes instinctive.

Want of practice soon causes the eyes to become slow to detect the
creature which steals so silently among the grass-blades, and the ready
knack of the fingers is equally apt to fail just when it is wanted.
However, a little practice soon restores the keenness of sight and
deftness of touch, and in a short time the campagnol will be unable
to pass under the observer’s eyes without detection, or to escape the
grasp of his fingers without capture.

So stealthily does the campagnol glide among the grass stems, that the
field may be swarming with them, and yet their presence will not even
be suspected by man. This fact brings us to another illustration of the
assertion that the life-history of one animal always involves that of
others.

The natural food of the KESTREL (_Tinnúnculus alaudârius_) largely
consists of the campagnol, so that where the one is seen the other will
probably be at no great distance. High in air the kestrel hovers with
quivering wings, its bright eyes directed downwards, and scanning the
field below. Suddenly it drops down to the ground, rises with something
in its claws, and flies away. It has seen and caught a field-vole, and
is carrying it home to its young. From its custom of balancing itself
in the air with its head to the wind, it is often known by the name of
“windhover.”

With what astonishing sight must not the kestrel be gifted to perform
such a feat! It is difficult enough for a human being to watch a square
yard of ground so carefully that a field-vole shall be seen as it
glides among the grass. How wonderful, therefore, must be the powers
of vision which enable the bird to watch a large field, to detect from
that height the little, dusky animal, and pounce down upon it with
unerring swoop!

How astonishing must be the optical mechanism of those eyes which at
so great a distance from the prey can act like telescopes, and yet can
alter their range so rapidly that in the few seconds which are consumed
in making the stoop, they have accommodated themselves to an entirely
different focus.

In his “At Last,” C. Kingsley mentions that in passing through a
tropical forest the traveller is frequently checked by some creeper
which hangs in the path, and which is not seen because the eye cannot
focus itself with sufficient rapidity. Yet the traveller is only
proceeding at a walking pace, whereas the stoop of the kestrel on its
prey is swift as the fall of a stone through the air, and in a second
or two the eye has to accommodate itself from a range of many yards to
that of a few inches.

The value of the kestrel in keeping down the numbers of the field-vole,
and so aiding in preserving the balance of Nature, can hardly be
over-estimated.

There have been cases where the field-voles had increased to such a
degree that pitfalls had to be dug for their capture, and they had to
be destroyed artificially, because the kestrels and other predacious
birds and animals had been almost extirpated.

Other enemies to agriculture are also destroyed by the kestrel.
Mr. Johns mentions an instance where the stomach of a kestrel was
opened, and was found to contain, beside a field-vole, nearly eighty
caterpillars, twenty-four beetles, and a leech!

Now, we will return to our field-vole. Like the squirrel and several
other rodents, it makes two nests, one for the winter and the other for
the summer.

The winter nest is mostly made at some distance from water, is formed
at the end of a burrow, and seldom reaches more than a few inches below
the surface of the ground. It is to this winter nest that the poet
Burns refers in his exquisite stanzas addressed to a mouse whose nest
had been destroyed by his ploughshare, and beginning,

    “Wee, sleekit, cow’rin’, tim’rous beastie.”

Such, indeed, is the fate of many a winter nest. Supposing, however,
that the creature should be snapped up by the kestrel while out in
search of food, the nest will be deserted, but it will not be wasted.
There are always beings who are glad to find a ready-made burrow which
will save them the trouble of excavating one for themselves. Among them
are several species of wasp and humble-bee, most of whose nests are
made in the deserted burrow of the campagnol.

Here, again, is an example of the manner in which the life-histories of
dissimilar animals are linked together. Few persons would think that
there could be any connection between the wasp and the kestrel, and yet
our walk along the banks of our brook has shown us that such is the
case, and that the connecting link is the campagnol.

Like the water-vole, the campagnol lays up a store of winter
provisions, not in its living-room, but in a chamber excavated for the
purpose. The treasure-house sometimes contains a very miscellaneous
store, the fruit of the hawthorn and wild rose being the staple.

Cherry-stones mostly form a large proportion of the stores, as many
as three hundred having been found in a single chamber. The mode in
which the campagnol obtains the cherry-stones would hardly be suspected
except by those who are in the habit of watching the varied phases of
animal life.

The chief purveyors of cherry-stones are the blackbird and thrush.

Both these birds are exceedingly destructive among the cherry crops, as
I know from personal experience. My study overlooks a number of fine
cherry-trees, one of them being so close to the house that by leaning
out of the window I can touch the fruit with an ordinary walking-stick.
As soon as the fruit ripens, the thrush and blackbird hold high
festival, eating the cherries from the branches and feeding their young
with the ripe fruit.

It is really amusing to watch the proceedings of the birds, especially
the unmerciful manner in which the young birds peck their parents when
they considered that they are not fed fast enough. Neither young nor
parent is in the least afraid of me as I sit at the open window, so
that I can see every movement.

Sometimes the entire cherry is pulled off the branch, but when the
fruit is very ripe the soft portion only is eaten, the stone still
being attached to the stalk. In either case, the stone will be sure,
sooner or later, to fall to the ground, whence it is picked up by the
campagnol and added to its store for the coming winter.

Here, again, is a link connecting together the life-histories of the
blackbird, thrush, and campagnol. Furthermore, it affords an example of
the care that is taken that nothing on the earth shall be wasted.

Whenever a living being has no further use for anything which once was
connected with its life-history, there is sure to be some other animal
which wants it and is waiting for it.

We have already seen how the abandoned winter nest of the campagnol
is utilised by the wasp or humble-bee, and we now see that when the
blackbird and thrush have abandoned the cherry-stones as useless to
them, there is the campagnol waiting for them and ready to carry them
off to the store-chamber which it has previously prepared.

[Illustration: A PIKE STRANGLED BY AN EEL.]

Beside the winter nest, there is the summer nest, which is primarily
intended for the reception and nurture of the young. This, like the
corresponding nest of the squirrel, is made of slight materials and
loose structure, so that the air is freely admitted. It is generally
composed of grass blades, which have been torn in strips by the
campagnol. It is globular in shape, and is mostly placed on the ground,
amid concealing grass or herbage.

There is, however, before me a photograph of the nest of a campagnol,
which was discovered in a very remarkable position, and made of very
unusual materials. It was found in a garden store-house at Castle
Carey, by the Rev. W. Smith-Tomkins, Vicar of Durstow. He kindly sent
me a copy of the photograph, together with the following description—

    “Bedford Villa,
      “The Shrubbery,
        “Weston-super-Mare.

    “August 8th, 1886.

    “This nest of the short-tailed field-mouse was found by me a
    few years ago on a heap of barley straw, which was used to
    cover a small store of potatoes. Its chief interest to the
    finder, in addition to its beauty, consists in this. It was
    all manufactured out of one kind of raw material, namely, the
    leaves of the barley straw, which the maker shred up into thin
    threads according to her taste, so as to suit the different
    parts of the structure. There was no other material available
    for use.

    “The mouse had found its way into the storehouse through a
    hole under the wall. I am sorry to say that she was killed
    when found, and before the nest had been used for its proper
    purpose. Two or three weeks before I had looked over the place,
    and she had not commenced operations.

    “On referring to ‘Homes without Hands,’ I find it stated by
    Mr. J. J. Briggs that he could never find an entrance to the
    interior (the nests being closed up, as you say is the case
    with the nest of the harvest mouse). I infer from this, that it
    is due to its incompleteness that the entrance in this case is
    open and visible, and that its structure is therefore so open
    to inspection.”

With the description and photograph Mr. Tomkins sent a few portions of
the nest, some of the barley leaves being of their original width, and
others split up into fibres as fine as ordinary sewing cotton. In a
subsequent letter he states that the hole through which the campagnol
made her entrance into the house opened into the stable yard of a
neighbour.

Its mode of eating the provisions which it stores is rather remarkable.
It would naturally be supposed that, as other beings (including man)
do, it would eat the thick, soft, and sweet exterior of the “hip” or
fruit of the wild rose, and reject the hard, small seeds, with their
fluffy envelope. But it does just the contrary, eating the seeds and
rejecting the exterior.

When in America in 1884, I saw a flock of pine grosbeaks busily feeding
upon the berries of the mountain ash at Worcester. Very pretty they
looked, the rosy plumage of the two or three males contrasting boldly
with the dark, sombre green of the many females. I should not have
noticed them but for their mode of feeding.

It was at the beginning of February—the very depth of a New England
winter. I had to make my way up a rather steep hill, and over paths
which, by reason of constant traffic over snow, were as slippery as
ice. Many persons are in the habit of scattering sand or pulverised
brick on the paths, and seeing, as I fondly thought, a few yards
of the latter material, I gladly made my way towards it. To my
disappointment—on that ground at least—I found that the red material
was not brick, but the soft, external part of the mountain ash berry,
the birds only eating the seeds, and allowing the rest of the fruit to
fall to the ground.

Then, the campagnol has a remarkable way of eating the cherry stones.

When the squirrel eats a nut, it nibbles off a little piece of the
sharp end, inserts the edges of its incisor teeth in wedge fashion, and
splits the nut in two. The campagnol begins like the squirrel, but when
it has bitten off the end of the cherry-stone, it does not split the
shell asunder, but in some way of its own contrives to get the kernel
out.

(_To be continued._)

[Illustration]




MERLE’S CRUSADE.

BY ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY, Author of “Aunt Diana,” “For Lilias,” etc.


CHAPTER XVI.

MOLLY.

One afternoon, much to Hannah’s delight, I took the children to
Wheeler’s Farm. Rolf did not accompany us; Mrs. Markham had sent up
word to the nursery that morning that he was to drive with her into
Orton. He had complied with this order rather sulkily, after extracting
from me a promise that I would play soldiers with him in the evening.

It was rather a hot July afternoon, but we put Joyce in the
perambulator, and Hannah and I carried Reggie by turns, and in spite
of the heat we all enjoyed the walk, for there was a lark singing so
deliciously above the cornfields, and the hedgerows of Cherry-tree-lane
were gay with wild flowers, and every few minutes we came to a peep of
the sea.

I recognised Hannah’s description when we came in sight of the old
black-timbered house; there was the pear tree in the courtyard, and the
mossy trough; a turkey cock Gobbler, of course, was strutting about in
the sunny road, and from the farmyard came the cackling of ducks and
the hissing of snow-white geese. Just then a little side gate opened,
and a robust-looking woman in a sun-bonnet came out, balancing two
pails of water with her strong bare arms. Hannah exclaimed, “Well,
Molly!” and Molly set down her pails and came to meet us.

She kissed Hannah heartily with, “Glad to see thee, lass,” and then
shook hands with me.

“Come in, come in, and bring the children out of the sun,” she said,
in a kind, cheerful voice. “Father is smoking his pipe in the kitchen,
and will be fine and glad to see you all. Eh, but I am pleased to have
you at Wheeler’s Farm, Miss Fenton. Hannah says she has a deal to be
grateful to you for, and so have we all for being good to our girl.”

I disclaimed this, and sang Hannah’s praises all the time we were
crossing the courtyard to the porch.

Molly shook her head, and said, “Nay, she is none too clever,” but
looked gratified all the same.

She was a plain, homely-looking woman, as Hannah said, with high cheek
bones and reddish hair, but she looked kindly at the children and me,
and I think we all liked her directly.

“Look whom I am bringing, father,” she exclaimed, proudly, and Michael
Sowerby put down his pipe and stared at us.

He was a blue-eyed, ruddy old man, with beautiful snow-white hair, much
handsomer than his daughter, and I was not surprised to see Hannah, in
her love and reverence, take the white head between her hands and kiss
it.

“You will excuse our bad manners, I hope,” he said, pushing Hannah
gently away, and getting up from his elbow chair. “So these are Squire
Cheriton’s grandchildren. He is fine and proud of them, is the squire.
Deary me, I remember as if it were yesterday the squire (he was a young
man then) bringing in their mother, Miss Violet, to see me when she
wasn’t bigger than little miss there, and Molly (mother I mean) said
she was as beautiful as an angel.”

“Mother is beautifuller now,” struck in Joyce, who had been listening
to this.

The old farmer chuckled and rubbed his hands.

“Beautifuller, is she? Well, she was always like a picture to look at,
was Miss Violet, a deal handsomer and sweeter than Madam, as we call
her. Eh, what do you say, my woman?” for Molly was nudging him at this
point. “Well, sit ye down, all of you, and Molly will brew us some tea.”

“There is Luke crossing the farmyard,” observed Molly, in a peculiar
tone, and Hannah took the hint and vanished.

I sat quietly by the window with Reggie on my lap, talking to Michael
Sowerby and glancing between the pots of fuchsias and geraniums at a
brood of young turkeys that had found their way into the courtyard.

Joyce was making friends with a tabby cat and her kittens, while Molly,
still in her white sun-bonnet and tucked up sleeves, set out the
tea-table and opened the oven door, from which proceeded a delicious
smell of hot bread. She buttered a pile of smoking cakes presently,
talking to us by snatches, and then went off to the dairy, returning
with a great yellow jug of milk thick with cream, and some new laid
eggs for the children.

I did not wonder at Hannah’s love for her home when I looked round
the old kitchen. It was low, and the rafters were smoke-dried and
discoloured, but it looked so bright and cheery this hot July
afternoon, with its red tiles and well-scrubbed tables, and rocking
chairs black with age and polish. The sunshine stole in at the open
door, and the fire threw ruddy reflections on the brass utensils and
bright-coloured china. A sick chicken in a straw basket occupied the
hearth with the tabby cat; a large shaggy dog stretched himself across
the doorway, and regarded us from between his paws.

“It is Luke’s dog, Rover; he is as sensible as a human being,” observed
Molly, and before we commenced tea she fetched him a plate of broken
meat from the larder, her hospitality extending even to the dumb
creatures.

A wooden screen shut us off from the fire. From my place at the table
I had a good view of the inner kitchen and a smaller courtyard with a
well in it; a pleasant breeze came through the open door.

As soon as the children were helped, Hannah came back looking rather
shamefaced but extremely happy, and followed by Luke Armstrong. He
greeted us rather shyly, but seated himself at Molly’s bidding. He was
a short, sturdy-looking young fellow, with crisp, curling hair and an
honest, good-tempered face. He seemed intelligent and well-mannered,
and I was disposed to be pleased with Hannah’s sweetheart.

I found afterwards from Molly when she took me into the dairy that
Michael Sowerby had consented to recognise the engagement, and that it
was looked upon as a settled thing in the household.

“Hannah is the youngest of us girls, and a bit spoiled,” observed
Molly, apologetically. “I told father it was all nonsense, and Hannah
was only a chit, but it seemed he had no mind to cross her. The folks
at Scroggin’s Mill is not much to our taste, but Luke is the best of
the bunch, and a good, steady lad with a head on his shoulders. He was
for going to London to seek his fortune,” continued Molly, “for Miller
Armstrong is a poor sort of father to him, and Martin elbows him out of
all chances of getting any of the money; but Squire Hawtry, of the Red
Farm, where Lydia lives as dairymaid, has just lost his head man, and
he offered Luke the place. That is what he has been telling Hannah this
afternoon in the farmyard; so if Hannah is a good girl, as I tell her,
and saves her bit of money, and Luke works his best, Squire Hawtry will
be letting them have one of the new cottages he has built for the farm
servants, and a year or two may see them settled in it to begin life
together.” And here Molly drew a hard work-roughened hand across her
eyes as though her own words touched her.

“I am very glad for Hannah’s sake,” I returned. “She is a good girl,
and deserves to be happy.”

“Ah, they are all good girls,” replied Molly. “Hannah is no better
than the rest, though we have a bit spoiled her, being the youngest,
and mother dead. There’s Martin at Scroggin’s Mill wants Lydia, but
Lyddy is too sensible to be listening to the likes of him. ‘No, no,
Lyddy,’ I say, ‘whatever you do, never marry a man who makes an idol
of his money; he will love his guineas more than his wife; better be
doing work all your life and die single as I shall, than be mistress of
Scroggin’s Mill if Martin is to be master.’”

“You give your sisters very good advice,” I returned.

“I have not much else to give them,” was the abrupt answer; “but they
are good girls, and know I mean well. The boys are rather a handful,
especially Dan, who is always bird-catching on Sunday, and won’t see
the sin of it. But there, one must take boys as one finds them, and
not put ourselves in the place of Providence. They want a deal of
patience, and patience is not in my nature, and if Dan comes to a bad
end with his lame leg and bird-traps, nobody must blame me, who has
always a scolding ready for him if he will take it.”

I saw Dan presently under rather disadvantageous circumstances, for as
we came out of the dairy who should come riding under the great pear
tree but Mr. Hawtry, with a red-headed boy sitting behind him, with a
pair of dirty hands grasping his coat. I never saw such a freckled face
nor such red hair in my life, and he looked at Molly so roguishly from
under Mr. Hawtry’s shoulder, there was no mistaking that this was the
family scapegrace.

“Good-evening, Molly,” called out Mr. Hawtry, cheerfully; “I am
carrying home Dan in pillion fashion, because the rogue has dropped
his crutch into the mill dam, and he could not manage with the other.
I found him in difficulties, sitting under the mill hedge, very tired
and hungry. You will let him have his tea, Molly, as it was accident
and not mischief. I forgot to say the other crutch is lying in the
road broken; it broke itself—didn’t it, Dan?—in its attempt to get
him home?” and here Mr. Hawtry’s eyes twinkled, but he could not be
induced, neither could Dan, to explain the mystery of the broken crutch.

“You will come to a bad end, Dan,” remarked Molly, severely, as she
lifted down the boy, not over gently; but she forbore to shake him, as
he was wholly in her power—a piece of magnanimity on Molly’s part.

Mr. Hawtry dismounted, perhaps to see that Dan had merciful treatment;
but he need not have been afraid, Molly had too large a heart to be
hard on a crippled boy, and one who was her special torment and pet.
Molly could not have starved a dog, and certainly not red-headed Dan.

He was soon established in his special chair, with a thick wedge of
cold buttered cake in his hand. Scolding did not hurt as long as Molly
saw to his comforts, and Dan looked as happy as a king in spite of his
lost crutches.

Mr. Hawtry came into the kitchen, and when he saw us I thought he
started a little as though he were surprised, and he came up to me at
once.

“Good-evening, Miss Fenton; I did not expect to see you here, and my
little friend, too,” as Joyce as usual ran up to him. “What a lovely
evening you have for your walk home! You did not bring Miss Cheriton
with you?”

“No; she has visitors this afternoon; the children and I have had our
tea here, and now it is Reggie’s bed-time.”

“Shall I call Hannah?” he returned, hastily, for I was putting Reggie
in his perambulator. “I saw her walking down the orchard with Luke
Armstrong and Matthew.” And as I thanked him he bade Molly good-bye,
and, putting his arm through his horse’s bridle, in another moment we
could hear a clear whistle.

Hannah came at once; she looked happy and rosy, and whispered to
Molly as we went down the courtyard together. Mr. Hawtry was at the
horse-block; as he mounted he called me by name, and asked if the
little girl would like a ride.

I knew he would be careful, but all the same I longed to refuse, only
Joyce looked disappointed and ready to cry.

“Oh, nurse, do let me,” she implored, in such a coaxing voice.

“My horse is as quiet as a lamb. You may safely trust her, Miss
Fenton,” he said so persuasively I let myself be over-ruled. It was
very pretty to see Joyce as he held her before him and rode down
the lane. She had such a nice colour, and her eyes were bright and
sparkling as she laughed back at me.

It was very kind of Mr. Hawtry. It seemed to me he never lost any
opportunity of giving children pleasure. But I was glad when the ride
ended, and I lifted Joyce to the ground.

She clasped me tightly in her glee. “It was so nice, so werry nice,
nursey dear,” she exclaimed.

As I looked up and thanked Mr. Hawtry, I found that he was watching us,
smiling.

“I am afraid your faith was not equal to Joyce’s,” he said, rather
mischievously. “I would not let Peter canter, out of pity for your
fears.”

“I beg your pardon,” I stammered, rather distressed by this, “but
I cannot help being afraid of everything. You see the children are
entrusted to me.”

“I was only joking,” he returned, and he spoke so gently. “You are
quite right, and one cannot be too careful over children; but I knew I
could trust old Peter,” and then he lifted his hat and cantered down
the lane. He could not have spoken more courteously; his manner pleased
me.

It caused me a little revulsion when Mrs. Markham met us at the gate
with a displeased countenance. She motioned to Hannah to take the
children on to the house, and detained me with a haughty gesture.

“Nurse,” she said, harshly, “I am extremely surprised at the liberty
you take in my sister’s absence. I am quite sure she would be
excessively angry at your taking the children to Wheeler’s Farm without
even informing me of your intention.”

“I mentioned it to Miss Cheriton,” I returned, somewhat nettled at
this, for Gay had warmly approved of our little excursion.

“Miss Cheriton is not the mistress of the house,” she replied, in the
same galling tone. “If you had consulted me, I should certainly not
have given my consent. I think a servant’s relatives are not proper
companions for my little niece, and, indeed, I rather wonder at your
choosing to associate with them yourself,” with a concealed sneer
hidden under a polished manner.

“Mrs. Markham,” I returned, speaking as quietly as I could, “I should
certainly not have taken the children to Wheeler’s Farm without my
mistress’s sanction. I had her free permission to do so; she knew the
Sowerbys were highly respectable, and, for my own part, I wished to
give pleasure to Hannah, as I take a great interest in her.”

“I shall certainly write to my sister on the subject,” was her answer
to this. “You must have entirely mistaken her meaning, and I owe it to
her to watch over her children.”

My temper was decidedly rising.

“You need not trouble yourself,” I replied, coldly, “my mistress knows
everything I do. I should have written to her myself to-night; she has
perfect confidence in me, and I have never acted against her wishes; my
conscience is quite clear about this afternoon, but I should not have
taken Rolf without your permission.”

“I should hope not,” still more haughtily, but I would not listen to
any more; I was not her servant—I could not have served that hard
mistress. I found nothing to reverence in her cold, self-absorbed
nature, and without reverence, service would be bitter drudgery.

As I passed down the avenue a little sadly, I came upon a pretty scene;
a tea-table had been set under one of the elms, and Gay had evidently
been presiding over it, but the feast had been long over. She was
standing by the table now, crumbling sweet cake for the peacock. Lion
was sitting on his haunches watching her, and Fidgets was barking
furiously, and a little behind her stood Mr. Rossiter.

Mrs. Markham swept up to them, and I could hear her say in a frosty
voice that showed evident ill-temper, “Why has not Benson removed the
things? It is nearly seven, and we must go in to dress for dinner; you
know Mr. Hawtry is coming.”

“I was not aware of it, Adelaide”—how well I knew that careless
voice!—“but it is of no consequence, that I can see; Mr. Hawtry is
always here.”

“He cannot come too often,” in a pointed manner. “We all think highly
of Mr. Hawtry, I know.”

“Oh, are you going, Mr. Rossiter? Well, perhaps it is rather late.”

“What are you doing, Gay?” so sharply that though I had reached the
house I heard her, and turned my head to look.

Benson and the under-footman were coming out of the side door, but Mrs.
Markham stood alone under the trees. Gay was sauntering down the avenue
with the young curate still at her side, and Lion was following them,
and I wondered if Mrs. Markham saw her stop and pick that rose.

I went up to the nursery rather thoughtfully after that. I knew girls
were odd and contrary sometimes. Mr. Rossiter was very nice; he was a
good, earnest young man, and I liked his sermons; but was it possible
that Gay could seriously prefer him to Mr. Hawtry, or was she just
flirting with him _pour passer le temps_, after that odious custom of
some girls? But I could not believe it somehow of Gay Cheriton; she
was so simple, so unselfish, so free from vanity. It needed a coarser
nature than hers to play this sort of unfeeling game. “We shall see,” I
said to myself, as I put Reggie into his cot, and then I sat down and
wrote to Mrs. Morton.

(_To be continued._)




ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.


EDUCATIONAL.

DAUGHTER OF GENTLEMAN FARMER.—The book for which you inquire is “The
Englishwoman’s Year-Book,” published by Hatchard, Piccadilly, London,
W. We believe it may be had in parts. The yearly volume is about
half-a-crown.

JOSIE.—We advise you to write to the London School of Medicine,
30, Henrietta-street, Brunswick-square, London, W.C., for all
information you require on the subject of your letter. You should
state the fact of your having passed the College of Preceptors, the
senior local Cambridge and Oxford examinations, and the science
subjects (elementary) set by the South Kensington authorities; also
name your age, and address the dean of the school, Mrs. Elizabeth
Garrett-Anderson, M.D. This school is in connection with the Royal Free
Hospital, Gray’s Inn-road, W.C.

SPOTTED CRASH.—We think you are mistaken as to the origin of the name
Billingsgate. The name “Billing” belongs to an old Teutonic tribe or
clan, whose traditions are old enough to be mythical. It is probable
that some of its members may have been amongst those Low German
adventurers who conquered Britain and made it England. This conjecture
explains many names beginning with Billing in this country, besides
Billingsgate.

HEATHER BELL.—We regret that we cannot help you in your quest in any
way.

CINDERELLA.—It would depend upon what examination you went in for, of
course. Girton College is at Cambridge. It is for women over eighteen
years of age. The entrance examinations are in March and June. The
address of the secretary is 22, Gloucester-place, Hyde Park, London, W.

MIZPAH.—We should advise you, as you are so young, to go in for
teaching as a profession, and to study at a training college, or at
the College of the Home and Colonial School Society, Gray’s Inn-road,
W.C., or else at the Teachers’ Training Society, Training College,
Fitzroy-street, W. Governesses’ situations are yearly more and more
difficult to obtain, and it is better to be trained so as to command
school situations of a high class.

K. B.—1. The ancient name of Constantinople was Byzantium. The present
city occupies its site, but was named after Constantine the Great, who
built it. 2. Cardinal Wolsey erected Christ Church College, Oxford,
Ipswich, and also Hampton Court. A Life of King Robert “the Bruce” was
written by the Scottish poet, Barbour, in a poem called the “Brus.”


ART.

A TOMATO.—See article in _Silver Sails_ (Summer Number for 1881) on
crystoleum painting. The 12th of April, 1873, was a Saturday.

JANE.—If you really wish to learn drawing and painting, buy a shilling
manual on perspective and study from natural objects. Begin with some
simple object, such as a village pump or wayside stile, but do not
attempt such composite subjects as that sent for our opinion until you
can accomplish the former subjects fairly well.

CLOE.—As a rule, if a girl shows any taste for using her pencil, in
however trivial a way, she imagines that she could make money by it;
but she forgets, like the swarms of verse-writers, that ideality to a
very considerable degree is requisite for both the poet and painter.
If you have a gift for designing, as well as the practical skill, you
might find an opening amongst the lace manufacturers of Nottingham and
other places, amongst the cotton printers at Manchester, or the silk
manufactories at Macclesfield. It could be available for wall-paper
printers, for carpet weaving, and for pottery. Turn your attention to
one of these openings.

MISS FIENNES, of Castle-hill, Reading, Berkshire, conducts a girls’
club, called the Daub Society, to which members (amateur beginners)
send an original painting or drawing every month. The annual
subscription is one shilling, and the members adopt fancy names.


MISCELLANEOUS.

J. W. must accept our best thanks for her kind letter and the assurance
that the “girls’ own mothers” take as much delight in our paper as the
girls themselves.

KARTOFFEL.—“What is the best thing to do if anything is seen in a
haunted house?” Shut your eyes, and don’t see it.

SWETSCHE.—To invent “a cure for sleeplessness” would be to become a
millionaire. If we were so fortunate we could not promise to take you
into partnership, but would advertise our decoction widely.

COUSIN.—You have fallen into a careless and injurious mode of walking.
You should plant your feet straight on the ground, and might also have
a little brass or iron heel put on those of your shoes. If your blue
serge dress be so soiled with dust, you had better get it re-dipped by
a dyer. They can do so without your unpicking the dress.

FIREFLY.—You seem to have overtaxed your brain-power during these
examinations, and you need rest; change of air, good diet, early
retirement to bed at night, and late rising (say at 8 a.m.) might in
time restore the powers of memory. At the same time, you should obtain
the advice of an experienced physician.

MILLICENT THORNTON.—The quotation commencing—

    “Absence of occupation is not rest,”

is taken from Cowper’s poem “Retirement,” line 623. You will probably
find the other poem in some popular reciter. You write well for your
age.

E. M. SEARLE.—The Latin words, _Nocturna versate manu, versate diurno_,
mean, “Turn (them) over with nightly hand, turn (them) over by day.”
The words are from Horace. The word “them,” which is understood, refers
to examples of Grecian style.

[Illustration: TEMPTATION.]

POTTS.—Your brother’s “eating dinner enough for two” does not thereby
give evidence of a fine constitution. Some lean folks eat enormously,
but, as the Scotch express it, “put their food into an ill skin;” they
do not assimilate it, and it does them but little good, and so they are
always craving for more. There are other reasons for voracious eating,
for which a doctor’s advice would be most desirable. It is a disgusting
sight, in any case, to see anyone eating double what others do, and
it should be checked, not gratified, in youth, if not attributable to
disease, in which case recourse should be had to medicine.

MOSES.—The Psalms, as given in the Book of Common Prayer, were not
_altered_, but only a different version from the translation used
in our Bibles was employed, called the Vulgate or Latin version,
attributed to St. Jerome, about 384. There was an older version of
the Holy Scriptures called the Italic, said to have been made in the
beginning of the second century, little more than one hundred years
after Christ. Gutenberg and Fust were the first who printed the Vulgate
translation, probably about 1455, and that by Fust and Schœffer in 1462.

MARY ELIZABETH T.—The evil thoughts that seem forced into your mind
against your will, of which you are ashamed, over which you grieve, and
against the recurrence of which you pray, are temptations of the devil
and his wicked ministers. They are clearly not your own; they are, as
it were, whispered in your ears. So long as you pray to be delivered
from them, and heartily strive to drive them away, their guilt does not
lie at your door. Ask for deliverance, and humbly claim it in the name
of the Lord Jesus, and “He is faithful that promised.” See St. John
xiv. 12, 13, 14, and xvi. 23, 24.

A GARDENER.—Sow the hardy annual’s seeds in February, and in March all
the perennials and biennials, and the half hardy annuals in a hot-bed.
There are several varieties of honeysuckle, and all of them may be
propagated by cuttings.

BLANK had better write for the directory to the matron, London National
Training School for Cookery, Exhibition-road, South Kensington,
S.W. The fee for the training for the post of cookery instructor is
twenty-one guineas for the full course of twenty weeks; plain cookery,
eight guineas for fourteen weeks. The Edinburgh School of Cookery,
6, Sandwick-place; hon. secretary, Miss Guthrie Wright; also trains
teachers in cookery for a fee of fifteen guineas the course, from
November to April.

AN ANXIOUS ONE.—You do not give sufficient information for us to judge
what you are fit for, and you had better read the series of articles in
vol. v., entitled “Work for All.”

TARENTELLE.—Twopenny-piece, 1797 (weighing 2 oz. av.), worth 1s. to
5s.; penny, same date (1 oz. av.), 1s. to 2s. 6d. The other coins are
worth from 6d. to 2s.

POMPEY.—The “Heaven-sent Minister” was William Pitt, 1759-1806.

CATHERINE A. M.—We think the tale about the tramcar tickets, and the
getting of a deaf and dumb child into an asylum or home by means of a
collection of 10,000 of them, must be placed by the side of many other
such figments of the imagination. The pity is that sensible people like
yourself should be misled by them. Tramcar tickets can be made over,
and there is a special machine for performing the nefarious work.

DUNEDIN.—Many thanks for your kind letter. There does not seem to be
anything to answer in it, however, so we merely acknowledge its kindly
expressions.

C. S. L.—The idea is a good one, but we fear we could not impose such a
weight on our own over-burdened shoulders. As a rule, you may depend on
the catalogues of the Religious Tract Society, the Christian Knowledge
Society, and others of the kind. Would they not help you if you wrote
for them?

RAY.—If she have asked to have you taken to see her, waive all
ceremony and go. Mutual family interchanges of visiting will follow.
It would be in better taste on your part to call yourself Mrs. John
B——, rather than cause a jealous feeling or one of injury on the part
of a mother-in-law. Do all things “that make for peace,” “in honour
preferring one another.” You write fairly well.

GUILDA.—The second “h” is mute in the word “height,” but not in the
word “width.” We congratulate you on gaining a certificate.

RUBY.—Sometimes old copies of bound magazines may be had at secondhand
or reduced prices at booksellers’ stalls. You should study the rules of
metrical composition before you attempt to write verses.

A TROUBLED MOTHER.—It is a difficult matter upon which to advise you,
and you do not say where you live. The first thing to do is to give
the girl a good education, and also to include music and singing. As
she grows older she may forget her youthful ideas. You might write for
advice to Mr. C. E. Todd, Macready Mission House, Henrietta-street,
Covent Garden; or, if in London, you might go and see him, perhaps.

A SUFFERER might try mustard oil to rub on for her rheumatism. It
sometimes does wonders for it, and is to be got at any chemist’s, and
is sold by the ounce. Rub on with the palm of the hand, round and round.

DAISY.—Dandriff may be cured by using a wash of one pint of water and
half an ounce of glycerine. Rub well into the skin of the head twice
a day (this can be done with a sponge), without wetting the head too
much. Another wash is composed of one pint of water and one ounce of
borax, used in the same manner. Dandriff is considered to be caused
by digestive troubles, especially when accompanied by watering of the
eyes, nose, or mouth.

SWYGS.—We thank you for the kind feeling that prompted the giving of
your advice for the benefit of sufferers. But for certain reasons, into
which we cannot enter, we must decline to make our paper a means of
advocating mesmerism. You write a good hand.


       *       *       *       *       *

⁂ _The Editor regrets to say that the poem entitled “The Beggar’s
Christmas,” which appeared in_ Feathery Flakes, _was copied from_
Little Folks _for January, 1886, and sent to him by J. H. A. Hicks, as
his own original composition. The copyright belongs to Messrs. Cassell
and Co., and to them apologies for this unwarrantable reproduction are
due._

       *       *       *       *       *

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

Page 276: miror to mirror—“mirror to mirror”.

Page 279: aud to and—“and this improvement”.

Page 288: Gutenburg to Gutenberg—“Gutenberg and Fust”.

Schœfer to Schœffer—“Fust and Schœffer”.]