1884 ***




[Illustration:

CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART

Fifth Series

ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832

CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)

NO. 50.—VOL. I.      SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1884.      PRICE 1½_d._]




A GLACIER GARDEN.


The glacier garden lies far away on a steep hillside by the Lake of
the Forest Cantons. Close to the picturesque town of Lucerne, a little
path leads past the sandstone crag on which is hewn Thorwaldsen’s
famous monument, to the small inclosed space, overshadowed by trees,
where have recently been discovered vestiges of the most remote days
in the youth of our old mother-earth. Hidden away amongst tangled fern
and bright green grass, we see huge surfaces of native rock, some
furrowed with parallel lines, others, with curious petrifactions of
the sea; and giant boulders smoothed and polished that do not in the
least resemble the surrounding rocks, but which are travellers from the
Alps, left stranded here by the glaciers in the last great Ice Age. It
is indeed a wonderful garden, with a wonderful history, and although,
as unscientific observers, we cannot trace the different phases of
its development in the dim geological past, still, standing by these
gray old stones on which have been laid the softening and romantic
influences of countless ages, it is as if we had pages of the world’s
history unrolled before our eyes.

The proofs of past glaciers are all around us in the grindings and
scratchings on the rocks—in the ice-worn stones—and still more in
the deep smooth circular hollows, which are perhaps the most perfect
known specimens of the singular phenomena called glacier-mills. These
erosions have been found also in Scandinavia and in the Jura Mountains,
and are caused by the rapid whirling of a stone by a stream from the
melting ice, which in the course of ages scoops out ever deeper and
wider these cavities in the rock. But in this little garden we can
trace the origin of the glacier-mills, from the tiny erosion just
commenced, to the grand basin, twenty feet in diameter, and more than
thirty feet deep, on whose smooth walls are clearly marked the spiral
windings caused by the whirling of the stone perpetually from east to
west. If you take up the glacier-stone that lies at the bottom of this
mill, you will see not only how strangely round and polished it has
become, but also that it is composed of totally different rock, and
must have been transported hither by the great Reuss glacier from the
granite slopes of the St Gothard.

To look at these polished cavities, nobody would dream that they were
the mere evidences of the eddying action of an ice-stream upon a small
fragment of rock, and yet this is exactly what geology teaches us they
really are; indeed, there is no rock or mineral, even the flint and
agate, but what is permeable in some degree by the action of water; and
like granite and marble, most stones are softer and more easily wrought
before they are dried and hardened by air-seasoning. Are not similar
effects of the action of torrents in the erosion of rock seen in almost
every gorge through which rushes a mountain torrent? It seems all but
incredible that to a little rippling rivulet is due the tremendous
erosion of many alpine ravines, with their great height and precipitous
walls. But science tells us very strange tales, even that the mountain
streams in the present day are depressing the ridges of the Alps
and the Apennines, raising the plains of Lombardy and Provence, and
extending the coasts far into the waters of the Adriatic and the
Mediterranean. Thus it is easy to understand how, at that remote period
when a vast ice-sheet covered not only our garden but all Switzerland
from the Alps to the Jura, the loose stones which had become detached
from the moraine, and were met by some barrier in the ice whirled about
by rushing water, ground down first the ice, then the rock, and in the
wear and tear of unnumbered centuries grew round and smooth like the
basins in which they revolved.

It is very seldom that loose fragments of rock exercise a protective
power upon the ice; but instances have been met with on the higher
glaciers of large stones warding off the rain and the radiation of
the sun from the ice immediately beneath them; so that as the glacier
wastes and lowers in the course of time, these glacier-tables remain
fixed upon elevated pillars of ice, which sometimes reach to a height
of ten or twelve feet above the general level.

At Lucerne, it is impossible to forget, as we wander about the paths
in this archaic garden, that countless years before the great glaciers
planed away the old flora from off the face of the land, there was a
period of tropical heat and tropical vegetation which succeeded the
earliest epoch in the existence of our globe. Petrifactions of the
first stages of life are distinctly visible upon, the rocks—relics of a
primeval ocean.

But with the story of the rocks there is mingled no trace of human
interest. For them Time has stood still and the seasons brought no
change, until a few years ago, when the ground being excavated for the
foundations of a new house, these unsuspected relics were brought to
light from amongst the sand and pebbles and ice-worn boulders. These
relics are unconnected even with the first traditions of the people of
the Alps, and had remained in quiet slumber beneath the glacial débris
for long ages before the earliest settlers raised their pile-dwellings
above the blue waters of the lake. Evidence, indeed, has been afforded
that the lacustrine dwelling-places were inhabited by generations of
men two thousand, or, as some authorities affirm, six thousand years
before the Christian era. Amongst the piles of oak, or beech, or fir
wood, rising occasionally in three or four tiers, one above another, in
the accumulated waste of animal and vegetable life found at the bottom
of the lake, were stone celts and other implements of bone or flint,
memorials of a people who perished at a period beyond the reach of the
most distant annals; very old, in an historical point of view, although
in a geological estimate they are but of yesterday. For what is the
antiquity of the earliest of these relics compared with that of the
latest records plainly written upon the smooth surface of the rocks?

In the glacier garden we find not only the indefinable charm of a vast
antiquity, but a suggestiveness of the strange contrast between the
present and the past. On the one hand there is busy life, noise, warmth
upon the winding shores of the placid lake, magnificent mountains
girdled by forest trees, and woven in and out with verdant pastures and
far-off snow—all things lovely of the earth present before our eyes; on
the other hand, we have a glimpse into the remote and mysterious past,
when the sun shone down upon an illimitable white world of snow and ice.




ONE WOMAN’S HISTORY.


CHAPTER XII.

Miss Gaisford had found a quiet nook in the lower grounds of the hotel,
well out of view from the windows, where there was little likelihood of
being disturbed by the ordinary run of visitors. Now and then, a newly
married couple, or a pair of turtle-doves who were not yet married, but
hoped to be before long, would invade her solitude; but such momentary
interruptions served rather to amuse her than otherwise. ‘Here comes
another peripatetic romance,’ she would remark to herself. ‘Now, if
those two young people would only come and sit down beside me, and
tell me all about it, first one telling me a bit and then the other,
till I knew their story by heart, they would do me a real kindness,
and save me a lot of invention. All newly married couples ought to be
compelled to write their Love Memoirs, which should afterwards be bound
in volumes (calf), and kept in a sort of Record Office, where we poor
story-tellers could have access to them whenever we happened to be hard
up for a plot.’

To this sheltered nook a table and chair had been brought from the
hotel, and here, on this Friday forenoon, Miss Gaisford was busy
writing. But she laid down her pen more frequently than was usual with
her when so employed, and had little fits of musing between times.

‘I’m not i’ the mood this morning, that’s certain,’ she said at last.
‘My thoughts seem all in a muddle. I can’t get Mora out of my head.
She puzzles me and makes me uneasy. It’s mental illness, not bodily,
that keeps her to her room. Colonel Woodruffe had a long talk with her
on Wednesday, and then drove her back to the hotel, which he would
scarcely have done, I think, if he had been decisively and finally
rejected. There’s a mystery somewhere; but Mora is a woman whom one
cannot question. I have no doubt she will tell me all about it when she
feels herself at liberty to do so. Meanwhile, it’s a good lesson in
curbing that curiosity which certain cynical moralists of the inferior
sex have had the unblushing effrontery to affirm to be the bane of
ours.—But this is frivolity.’ She dipped her pen in the inkstand, and
running her eyes over the few lines last written, read them half aloud:

‘“Next moment, Montblazon’s equipage, which was drawn by six coal-black
steeds, and preceded by two outriders in livery, drew up at the
palace gates. As the Duc alighted from his chariot, a woman, young
and beautiful, though in rags, pressed through the crowd till she
was almost near enough to have touched him. ‘For the love of heaven,
monseigneur!’ she cried in piteous accents. A gorgeously attired lackey
would have thrust her back, but an imperious gesture of Montblazon’s
jewelled hand arrested him. There was something in the expression of
the woman’s face which struck him as though it were a face seen in a
dream long ago. Montblazon, who knew not what it was to carry money
about his person, extracted from the pocket of his embroidered vest a
diamond—one of a handful which he was in the habit of carrying loose
about him to give away as whim or charity dictated—and dropped it
into the woman’s extended palm. Then without waiting for her thanks,
he strode forward up the palace stairs, and a few moments later found
himself in a saloon which was lighted by myriads of perfumed wax tapers
set in sconces of burnished silver. Montblazon, who towered a head
taller than any one there, gazed round him with a lurid smile.”’

‘Yes, I think that will do,’ said Miss Pen as she took another dip of
ink. ‘“Lurid smile” is not amiss.’

She was interrupted by the sound of footsteps. She looked up, and as
she did so, a shade of annoyance flitted across her face. ‘I thought
that I was safe from her here. I wonder how she has found me out,’ she
said to herself.

The object of these remarks was none other than Lady Renshaw. It was
quite by accident that she had discovered Miss Gaisford. The news
told her by Mr Etheridge had excited her in no common degree; there
was no one in the hotel that she cared to talk to; so, finding it
impossible to stay indoors, she had sought relief in the open air. She
was expecting Bella and Mr Golightly back every minute; meanwhile, she
was wandering aimlessly about the grounds, and brightened up at the
sight of Miss Penelope. Here at least was some one she knew—some one
to talk to. She advanced smilingly. ‘What a number of correspondents
you must have, dear Miss Gaisford,’ said her ladyship after a few words
of greeting. ‘You seem to spend half your time in writing.’ She was
glancing sharply at Miss Pen’s closely covered sheets of manuscript.

‘Yes, I do write a good deal,’ answered the latter as she began to
put her sheets in order. ‘I rather like it. Between you and me, when
Septimus is busy other ways, or is enjoying his holiday, I sometimes
try my hand at writing a sermon for him.’

‘Really now! And do the congregation never detect the difference
between your discourses and his?’

‘I don’t think they trouble their heads a bit about it. So long as we
don’t make use of too many hard words, and get the sermon well over in
twenty minutes, they are perfectly satisfied.’

Lady Renshaw was in possession of a certain secret, and although she
had given her word that she would not reveal it for the present, it
was too much to expect of poor human nature that she should not make
some allusion to it, if the opportunity were given her, especially in
conversation with another of her own sex.

‘I understand that we are likely to have one or two important arrivals
at the hotel this evening,’ she remarked with studied indifference, as
she shook a little dust off the flounces of her dress.

‘Indeed. A Russian Prince, an Ambassador, an Emperor travelling incog.,
or whom?’

‘Dear me, no!—nobody of that kind. But my lips are sealed. I must not
say more.’

‘Then why did you say anything?’ remarked Miss Pen to herself.

‘Still, when you come to know, I feel sure that you will be
surprised—very greatly surprised. Strange events may happen here before
to-morrow. But I dare not say more, so you must not press me.’

‘I won’t,’ responded Miss Pen emphatically.

‘Why, I declare, yonder come my darling Bella and Mr Golightly! I’ve
been looking out for them this hour or more.—You will excuse me, my
dear Miss Gaisford, I’m sure.’

‘Certainly,’ was the uncompromising reply.

Her ladyship smiled and nodded, and then tripped away as lightly and
gracefully as a youthful elephant might have done.

‘Now, what _can_ the old nincompoop mean?’ asked Miss Pen of herself.
‘That there is some meaning in her words, I do not doubt. She is no
friend of Mora, I feel sure. Can what she said have any reference to
her? But I’m altogether in the dark, and it’s no use worrying. If
there’s trouble in the wind, we shall know about it soon enough.’

       *       *       *       *       *

‘He has proposed—I know it from his manner,’ exclaimed Lady Renshaw to
her niece as soon as they were alone in the hotel; ‘so it’s no use your
telling me that he hasn’t.’

‘I had no intention of telling you anything of the kind,’ answered the
girl demurely.

‘What did you say to him in reply?’

‘Very little. You told me not to say much. Besides,’ added Bella slily,
‘he seemed to like to do most of the talking himself.’

‘Men generally do at such times.—But didn’t the young man say anything
about speaking to me?’

‘O yes, aunt.’

‘And very properly so, too. But you need not refer him to me just
at present; I will give you a hint when the proper time arrives.
Meanwhile, I hope you will not allow yourself to get entangled to such
an extent that you won’t be able to extricate yourself, should it
become necessary to do so.’

Bella was taken with a sudden fit of sneezing.

‘Mr Archie Ridsdale’s affair is by no means a _fait accompli_,’
continued her ladyship; ‘and we shall see what we shall see in the
course of the next few hours.’ She nodded her head with an air of
mystery and tried to look oracular.

Presently Bella pleaded a headache and escaped to her own room.

       *       *       *       *       *

Clarice was at the station at least twenty minutes before the train by
which Archie was to travel could by any possibility arrive. It showed
great remissness on the part of the railway people, considering how
anxious she was for her sweetheart’s arrival, that this very train
should be five minutes and fourteen seconds late. Such gross disregard
of the feelings of young ladies in love ought to be severely dealt with.

At length the train steamed slowly in, with Archie’s head and half his
long body protruding from the window, to the annoyance of every other
passenger in the compartment. He was out of the train before any one
else, and as it glided slowly forward before coming to a stand, those
inside were favoured with a sort of panoramic glimpse of a very pretty
girl being seized, hugged, and unblushingly kissed by a young fellow,
to whom, at that moment, the code of small social proprieties was
evidently a dead letter.

‘What about your father?’ asked Clarice as soon as she had recovered
her breath in some measure and had given a tug or two to her
disarranged attire.

‘What about him?’ queried Archie, who was looking after his portmanteau.

‘Of course he has not come down by this train, or you would have
travelled together. But I suppose you know he’s expected at the
_Palatine_ to-night—at least so Mr Etheridge told me.’

‘Etheridge! is he here?’

‘Yes; didn’t you know? He reached here a few hours after you left for
London. He brought a letter for you from your father all the way from
Spa.’

Archie scratched his head: even heroes go through that undignified
process occasionally. ‘Upon my word, I don’t know what to make of the
governor,’ he said. ‘He seems to get more crotchety every day. Here,
according to what you say, he sends poor Etheridge all the way from Spa
as the bearer of a letter which any other man would have intrusted to
the post; then he apparently changes his mind and telegraphs for me to
meet him in London. To London I go, and there wait, dangling my heels;
but no Mr Governor turns up. Then Blatchett receives a telegram from
somewhere—by-the-bye, he never told me where he did receive it from—in
which I am instructed to return to Windermere immediately, and am told
that my long-lost papa will meet his boy there. It’s jolly aggravating,
to say the least of it.’

‘Mr Etheridge says that Sir William may perhaps want to see me. O
Archie, I was never so frightened in my life!’

He soothed and petted her after the fashion which young men are
supposed to find effectual in such cases, and presently they drew up at
the hotel.

They went at once to the sitting-room, the only inmates of which they
found to be Lady Renshaw, Bella, and Mr Golightly. The last had come
to inquire whether Miss Wynter would go for a row on the lake after
dinner. If she would, there was a particular boat which he would like
to engage beforehand.

Lady Renshaw was doubtful. She was inclined to think that Bella had
caught cold on the lake in the morning. She had sneezed more than once.
It would scarcely be advisable, her ladyship thought, for Miss Wynter
to venture on the water again in the chill of the evening. Besides, the
clouds looked threatening, and to be caught in a storm on the lake, she
had been told, was dangerous.

In short, without exactly wishing to discourage Mr Golightly, she was
desirous of damping his ardour in some measure for the time being. Till
she should be able to judge how events were likely to shape themselves,
he must not be allowed too many opportunities of being alone with
Bella; perhaps even, at the end, it might become necessary to give him
the cold shoulder altogether.

Lady Renshaw was in the midst of her platitudes when Archie and Clarice
entered the room. On their way from the station Clarice had spoken of
her sister’s indisposition, so that Archie was prepared not to find
Madame De Vigne downstairs; but probably he had hardly counted upon
coming so unexpectedly on her ladyship. As, however, she was there, the
only possibility left him was to look as pleasant as possible.

He greeted her with as much cordiality as he could summon up at a
moment’s notice, and then he turned to Miss Wynter, whose pretty
face he was really pleased to see again. There was a hidden meaning
laughing out of his eyes as he shook hands with her. It was as though
he had said: ‘You naughty girl, I should like to spoil your little
game, just for the fun of the thing, but I won’t.’

He did spoil it, however, a moment later, all unwittingly. Turning to
Dick, who appeared to be gazing abstractedly out of one of the windows,
he gave him a hearty slap on the shoulder. ‘Dulcimer, old chappie, how
are you? Delighted to see you again.’

Next moment he could have bitten his tongue out.

‘Dulcimer!’ shrieked her ladyship, whose ears had caught the name.

The young people turned and stared at each other in blank dismay. Dick
shrugged his shoulders, and was the first to recover his _sang-froid_.
The moment had come for him to take the bull by the horns.

‘Dulcimer!’ again exclaimed her ladyship in a tone of hopeless
bewilderment, that was at once both ludicrous and pathetic, as she
glanced at the dismayed faces around her.

‘Even so, Lady Renshaw. I am Richard Dulcimer, at your service.’ He
spoke as quietly as though he were mentioning some fact of everyday
occurrence.

‘You, that Richard Dulcimer—that impudent pretender—that—that
cockatrice, who used to follow my niece about in London wherever she
went! No, no’—peering into his face—‘I cannot believe it. You are
amusing yourself at my expense.’

‘Nevertheless, unless I was changed at nurse, I am that cockatrice,
Richard Dulcimer. As any further attempt at concealment would be
useless, if your ladyship will permit me, I will enlighten you in a few
words.’

She only stared at him, breathing very hard, but otherwise showing by
no sign that she heard what he was saying.

‘I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Wynter on several occasions in
London,’ resumed Dick. ‘Whether your ladyship believes it or not, I
fell in love with her, hopelessly and irremediably. I am a poor man,
and you scouted my pretensions, and forbade your niece ever to speak
to me again. It is not in my province to blame your ladyship for doing
that which you deemed to be for Miss Wynter’s advantage; but it by no
means followed that I should fall in with your views. I heard that you
and Miss Wynter were coming to this place, and I determined to follow
you. Had I not made some change in my appearance, you would at once
have recognised me, and my plans would have been frustrated. I took off
my beard and moustache, dyed my hair and eyebrows, donned a clerical
costume which I happened to have by me for another purpose, and trusted
to my good fortune to escape detection. The rest is known to your
ladyship.’

‘The rest—yes. You said that your name was Golightly, and you
introduced yourself to me as the son of the Bishop of Melminster, which
shows plainly what a wicked wretch you must be.’

‘Your ladyship must excuse me if I set you right as regards the facts
of the case. I said that my name was Golightly. So it is—Richard
Golightly Dulcimer; but I never said, nor even hinted, that I was
the son of Bishop Golightly. It was your ladyship who arrived at that
conclusion by some process of reasoning best known to yourself.’

‘Oh!’ was all that her ladyship could find to say at the moment.

Archie and Clarice stole quietly out of the room.

Lady Renshaw turned to her niece. ‘Am I to presume, Miss Wynter, that
you have been a party to this vile fraud?’ she asked in her iciest
tones. ‘Am I to understand that you have known all along that this
person was Mr Dulcimer, and that you have been cognisant of this wicked
conspiracy?’

Bella hung her head.

‘Your silence convicts you. It is even so, then. I have nourished a
viper, and knew it not. But, understand me, from this time I discard
you; I cast you off; I have done with you for ever!’

Tears sprang to the girl’s eyes. ‘O aunt, forgive me!’ she exclaimed as
she sprang forward and tried to clasp her ladyship’s hand.

The latter drew back a step or two and waved her away. ‘Touch me not!’
she said. ‘Henceforth, you and I are strangers. You have chosen to
sacrifice me for the sake of this impostor. Marry him—you can do no
less now—and become a pauper’s wife for the rest of your days. That is
your fate.’

Lady Renshaw turned without another word, drew her skirts closer around
her, and stalked slowly out of the room.

The weeping girl would have hurried after her, had not Dick put his arm
round her and held her fast.

‘No,’ he said; ‘you shall not go just yet. She wants to make you
believe that she is an ill-used victim, whereas it is you who have been
the victim all along. Yes, the victim of her greed, her selfishness,
and her willingness to sacrifice you for the sake of her own social
advancement. What would she have cared whom you married, or whether you
were happy or miserable, if only, by your means, she could have climbed
one rung higher on the ladder of her ambition! Here is the proof: Now
that she finds you are no longer of use to her for the furtherance of
her schemes, she casts you off with as little compunction as she would
an old glove. Dearest, she is not worth your tears!’

But Bella’s tears were not so readily stanched, and for a time she
refused to be comforted.


CHAPTER XIII.

Half an hour later, as Lady Renshaw was sitting alone in her room,
musing in bitterness of spirit on the mutability of human affairs, a
message was brought her. Sir William Ridsdale’s compliments to Lady
Renshaw, and would her ladyship favour him with her company for a few
minutes in his apartments?

She rose with a sigh. Her anticipated triumph was shorn of half its
glory. Archie Ridsdale might be a free man to-morrow, and it would
matter nothing now, as far as she was concerned. Bella had made a fool
of herself, and doubtless Archie had all along been a party to the
deception. This thought coming suddenly, revived her like a stimulant.
What would her disappointment be in comparison with his humiliation
when he should learn that which his father had to tell him! Then there
was that haughty Madame De Vigne. For her, too, the hour of humiliation
was at hand. As she thought of these things, while on her way to Sir
William’s room, Lady Renshaw’s spirits rose again. She felt that life
had still some compensations for her.

A staid-looking man-servant ushered her into the room. She gazed round;
but there was no one to be seen save Colonel Woodruffe, who was a
stranger to her, and Mr Etheridge. The latter rose and advanced with
his thin, faint smile.

‘I was given to understand that I should find Sir William Ridsdale
here,’ said her ladyship in a somewhat aggrieved tone.

‘I am Sir William Ridsdale, very much at your service,’ was the quiet
reply of the smiling, white-haired gentleman before her.

Probably in the whole course of her life Lady Renshaw had never been so
much taken aback as she was at that moment. She literally gasped for
words, but none came.

‘Will you not be seated?’ said the baronet; and with that he led her to
a chair, and then he drew up another for himself a little distance away.

‘I will give your ladyship credit for at once appreciating the motives
by which I was influenced in acting as I have acted. I came here
incognito in order that I might be able to see and judge for myself
respecting certain matters which might possibly very materially affect
both my son’s future and my own. Archie was got out of the way for a
day or two; and the only person who knew me not to be Mr Etheridge was
my old friend here, Colonel Woodruffe, to whom, by-the-bye, I must
introduce your ladyship.’

‘It was really too bad of you, Sir William, to hoax us all in the way
you have done,’ simpered her ladyship when the process of introduction
to the colonel was over. She did not forget that elderly baronets have
occasionally fallen victims to the wiles of good-looking widows. ‘But
for my part, I must confess that from the first I had my suspicions
that you were not the person you gave yourself out to be. There was
about you a sort of _je ne sais quoi_, an impalpable something, which
caused me more than once to say to myself: “Any one can see that that
dear Mr Etheridge is a gentleman born and bred—one who has been in
the habit of moving in superior circles. He must have known reverses.
Evidently, at one period of his life, he has occupied a position very
different from that of an amanuensis.”’

‘Madam, you flatter me,’ replied the baronet with a grave inclination
of the head. ‘As I have had occasion to remark before, your ladyship’s
acumen is something phenomenal.’

The widow was rather doubtful as to the meaning of ‘acumen;’ but she
accepted it as a compliment. ‘And now, dear Sir William, that you have
come and seen and judged for yourself, you will have no difficulty in
making up your mind how to act.’

‘My mind is already made up, Lady Renshaw.’

‘Ah—just so. Under the painful circumstances of the case, you could
have no hesitation as to the conclusion at which you ought to arrive.
What a fortunate thing that I happened to find that scrap of paper in
the way I did!’

‘Very fortunate indeed, because, as I remarked this morning, it might
have fallen into the hands of some one much less discreet than your
ladyship. As it happened, however, although I did not say so to you at
the time, it told me nothing that I did not know already.’

‘Nothing that you did not know already!’ gasped her ladyship.

‘Nothing. Madame De Vigne, of her own free will, had already
commissioned her friend, Colonel Woodruffe, to tell me without
reservation the whole history of her most unhappy married life.’

‘What an idiot the woman must be!’ was her ladyship’s unspoken comment;
but she only stared into the baronet’s face in blank amazement.
Recovering herself with an effort, she said with a cunning smile:
‘People sometimes make a merit of confessing that which they can no
longer conceal. You will know how to appraise such a statement at its
proper worth. You say that your mind is already made up, Sir William. I
think that from the first there could be no doubt as to what the result
would be.’

‘Very little doubt, indeed,’ he answered drily. ‘For instance, here is
a proof of it.’

He rose as he spoke, and crossed to the opposite side of the room,
where was a window set in an alcove, which just at present was
partially shrouded by a heavy curtain. With a quick movement of
the hand, Sir William drew back the curtain, and revealed, to Lady
Renshaw’s astonished gaze, Mr Archie Ridsdale sitting with a skein of
silk on his uplifted hands in close proximity to Miss Loraine, who was
in the act of winding the silk into a ball. The young people started
to their feet in dismay as the curtain was drawn back. It was a pretty
picture. ‘There’s no need to disturb yourselves,’ said Sir William
smilingly; ‘I only wanted to give her ladyship a pleasant surprise.’
With that he let fall the curtain and went back to his chair.

‘A pleasant surprise, indeed! You don’t mean to say, Sir William’—— Her
ladyship choked and stopped.

‘I mean to say, Lady Renshaw, that in Miss Loraine you behold my son’s
future wife. He has chosen wisely and well; and that his married life
will be a happy one, I do not doubt. In the assumed character of Mr
Etheridge, I made the acquaintance of Miss Loraine, so that I am no
stranger to her sweet temper and fine disposition. If anything, she is
just a leetle too good for Master Archie.’

Lady Renshaw felt as if the ground were heaving under her feet. In
fact, at that moment an earthquake would hardly have astonished her.
Most truly had Sir William been termed an eccentric man: he was more
than eccentric—he was mad! She had only one shaft more left in her
quiver, but that was tipped with venom.

‘Then poor Archie, when he marries, will be brother-in-law to a person
whose husband was or is a convict,’ she murmured presently, more as if
communing sorrowfully with herself, than addressing Sir William. Her
eyes were fixed on the cornice pole of one of the windows; and when she
shook her head, which she did with an air of profound melancholy, she
seemed to be shaking it at that useful piece of furniture. Sir William
and Colonel Woodruffe exchanged glances. Then the baronet said: ‘Will
you oblige me, Lady Renshaw?’

He led the way to the opposite end of the room, where anything they
might say would be less likely to be overheard by the young people
behind the curtain. ‘Yes, as your ladyship very justly observes,’
said the baronet, ‘when my son marries Miss Loraine, he will be
brother-in-law to an ex-convict—for the fellow is alive—to a man whom I
verily believe to be one of the biggest scoundrels on the face of the
earth. It will be a great misfortune, I grant you, but one which, under
the circumstances, can in nowise be helped.’

‘It will be one that the world will never tire of talking about.’

‘Poor Madame De Vigne! I pity her from the bottom of my heart; and you
yourself, as a woman, Lady Renshaw, can hardly fail to do the same.’

Lady Renshaw shrugged her shoulders, but was silent.

‘What a misfortune for her, to be entrapped through a father’s
selfishness, when a girl just fresh from school, into marriage with
such a villain!’ resumed the baronet. ‘But in what way could she
possibly have helped herself? Alas! in such a case there is no help
for a woman. When—years after he had robbed and deserted her, and had
fallen into the clutches of the law—she received the news of his death,
it was impossible that she should feel anything but thankfulness for
her release. Time went on, and she had no reason to doubt the fact of
her widowhood, when suddenly, only three days ago, her husband turned
up—here! I have told you all this, Lady Renshaw, in order that you may
know the truth of the case as it now stands, and not be led away by any
distorted version of it. Ah, poor Madame De Vigne! How was she to help
herself?’

‘That is not a question I am called upon to answer—it is not one that
the world will even condescend to ask. The fact still remains that she
is a convict’s wife, and as such the world will judge her.’

‘Yes, yes; I know that what we term the world deals very hardly in such
matters—that the innocent are too often confounded with the guilty.
But in this case at least, the world need never be any wiser than it
is now. The secret of Madame De Vigne’s life is known to three people
only—to you, whom a singular accident put in possession of part of it;
to Colonel Woodruffe; and to myself. Not even her sister is acquainted
with the story of her married life. Such being the case, we three have
only to keep our own counsel; we have only to determine that not one
word of what we know respecting this most unhappy history shall ever
pass our lips, and loyally and faithfully carry out that determination,
and the world need never know more of the past life of Madame De Vigne
than it knows at the present moment. As for the fellow himself, I shall
know how to keep his tongue quiet. I am sure that you agree with me,
dear Lady Renshaw.’

A vindictive gleam came into her ladyship’s eyes. The time had come
for her to show her claws. Such a moment compensated for much that had
preceded it.

She laughed a little discordant laugh. ‘Really, Sir William, who would
have thought there was so much latent romance in your composition?
Who would have dreamt of your setting up as the champion of Beauty in
distress? To be sure, if you persevere in your present arrangements,
this Madame De Vigne will become a connection of your own, and regarded
from that point of view, I can quite understand your anxiety to hush
up the particulars of her very ugly story. Family scandals are things
always to be avoided, are they not, Sir William?’

‘Always, Lady Renshaw—when practicable.’

‘Just so. But as Madame De Vigne, thank heaven! will be no connection
of mine either near or distant, you will pardon me if I hardly see
the necessity for such extreme reticence on my part. The world will
get to know that I have been mixed up to a certain extent in this
affair—somehow, it always does get to know such things—and I shall
be questioned on every side. What am I to say? What reply am I to
make to such questions? Am I to tell an untruth, and say that I know
nothing—that I am in absolute ignorance? Or am I to prevaricate, and
insinuate, for instance, that Madame De Vigne is a lady of the highest
respectability and of unblemished antecedents—a person, in short, whom
any family might be proud to count as one of themselves? You will
admit, Sir William, that the position in which I shall be placed will
be a most embarrassing one?’

‘Most embarrassing indeed, Lady Renshaw—almost as much so, in fact, as
if some one were to say to you: “I was past your grandfather’s shop in
Drury Lane the other day. The place looks precisely as it did forty
years ago. Nothing is changed except the name over the door.” That
might be rather embarrassing to you, might it not?’

All at once Lady Renshaw looked as if she were about to faint. The
rouge on her cheeks showed up in ghastly mockery of the death-like
pallor which had overspread the rest of her face. Her lips twitched
convulsively. She sat staring at Sir William, unable to utter a word.

‘In most families, Lady Renshaw, nay, in most individual lives,
there are certain secrets, certain private matters, which concern
ourselves alone, and about which we would infinitely prefer that the
world, and perhaps even our most intimate friends, should remain in
happy ignorance. It could be no gratification to your ladyship, for
instance, if the circle of your acquaintance were made aware that
your grandfather started in life as a rag and bone merchant in the
fashionable locality just named—“Solomon Izzard” was the name painted
over his door—and that your ladyship first saw the light under the
roof of that unsavoury emporium. No; certainly that could be no
gratification to you. Your father at that time was just beginning to
lay the foundation of the fortune which he subsequently accumulated as
a speculative builder. My father owned certain house property in the
neighbourhood, and he employed your father to look after the repairs.
Hence it was that, on two occasions when little more than a youth, I
was sent with business messages to the Lane, and it was on one of those
occasions that I first had the distinguished pleasure of meeting your
ladyship. You were a mere child at the time, and your father used to
call you “Peggy,” if I mistake not. He was holding you in his arms,
and you struggled to get down; but he would not let you go. “She wants
to be off with the other children,” he said to me; “and then she gets
playing in the gutter, and makes a nice mess of herself.” Those were
his exact words. Your ladyship will pardon me for saying that you
struck me at the time as being a remarkably pretty child, although it
is possible that your face might with advantage have been a little
cleaner than it was.’

Never before in the whole course of her life had Lady Renshaw had
the tables turned on her in such fashion. Scalding tears of rage and
mortification sprang to her eyes, but she bit her lip hard and kept
them back. At the moment, she felt as if she could willingly have
stabbed Sir William to the heart.

She sat without uttering a word. What, indeed, could she find to say?

‘Come, come, Lady Renshaw,’ resumed Sir William smilingly; ‘there is
no occasion for you to be downhearted. The best thing that you and I
can do will be to draw up and sign—metaphorically—a treaty of peace,
to which Woodruffe here shall act as witness. The terms of the treaty
shall be these: you on your part shall promise to keep locked up in
your bosom as a sacred secret, not even to be hinted at to your dearest
friend, that knowledge respecting the married life of Madame De Vigne
which has come so strangely into your possession; while I on my part
will promise faithfully to keep undivulged those particulars concerning
your ladyship’s early career of which I have just made mention—which,
and others too that I could mention, although you could in nowise help
them, I feel sure that you would not care to have published on the
housetops. Come, what say you, shall it be a compact between us?’

‘As you please,’ she answered sullenly as she rose from her chair,
adding with a contemptuous shrug, ‘I have no wish to injure Madame De
Vigne.’

‘Nor I the slightest desire to humiliate Lady Renshaw.’

Was it possible that this man, whose tongue knew how to stab so keenly,
could really be the same individual as mild-mannered, soft-spoken Mr
Etheridge, who had seemed as if he could hardly say Bo to a goose!

Her ladyship seemed to hesitate for a moment or two; then she said:
‘I will see you again to-morrow—when you are alone,’ with a little
vindictive glance at the impassive Colonel Woodruffe.

‘I shall be at your ladyship’s command whenever and wherever may suit
you best.’

He crossed to the door, opened it, and made her one of his most stately
bows as she walked slowly out, with head erect and eyes that stared
straight before her, but with rage and bitter mortification gnawing at
her heartstrings.

‘We have still that scoundrel of a Laroche to reckon with,’ said Sir
William quietly to the colonel as he shut the door upon her ladyship.




RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ANGLO-INDIAN CHAPLAIN.

BANGALORE—THE ENGLISH CANTONMENT.


About a mile distant from the old fort and city of Bangalore are
the English cantonment and modern native town. Conceive a field or
parade-ground a mile and a half in length and a quarter of a mile
in breadth, lined on each side by avenues of large beautiful trees,
overshadowing the encircling footpath and carriage-drive. Along the
southern boundary of this parade-ground are the houses and shops of
the Europeans and Eurasians; whilst to the north are lines of barracks
for both European and native troops, from the midst of which rises
prominently the tower of St Andrew’s Church, which is, or was, the
finest and highest building in Bangalore. Many are the beautiful roads
stretching away from this parade-ground into the country, where are the
picturesque dwelling-houses of civilians and officers, whose encircling
gardens all the year round are in perpetual bloom—for Bangalore,
though in a tropical region, has an Italian climate. The fortunate
Europeans who are stationed there are not scorched up by the terrible
heat under which their unlucky countrymen must swelter at Madras and
in the southern plains; and Christmas comes to them at Bangalore, not
wreathed with snowflakes and pendent with icicles, as it does to us,
but beautiful with roses and variegated garlands of flowers.

It was rather a novel thing for my friends Dr Norman Macleod and Dr
Watson to be taken on a New-year’s day, as I took them in 1868, to a
magnificent show of flowers and fruits in the ‘Lall-baugh’ Gardens of
Bangalore. In his usual happy style, the celebrated Norman thus relates
his visit: ‘The European quarter is as different from the Pettah as
Belgravia is from the east end of London. Here the houses are in their
own compounds with shrubs and flower-gardens quite fresh and blooming.
Open park-like spaces meet the eye everywhere, with broad roads as
smooth and beautiful as the most finished in England. Equipages whirl
along, and ladies and gentlemen ride by on horseback. One catches a
glimpse of a church tower or steeple; and these things, together with
the genial air, make one feel once more at home; at all events, in a
bit of territory which seems cut out of home and settled in India.
There are delightful drives, one to the Lall-baugh laid out in the
last century by Hyder Ali. Our home feeling was greatly intensified
by attending a flower-show. There was the usual military band; and
crowds of carriages conveyed fashionable parties to the entrance.
Military officers and civil servants of every grade were there, up
to Mr Bowring, Chief Commissioner of Mysore. The most remarkable and
interesting spectacles to me were the splendid vegetables of every
kind, including potatoes which would have delighted an Irishman; leeks
and onions to be remembered, like those of Egypt; cabbages, turnips,
cauliflowers, peas, beans, such as England could hardly equal; splendid
fruit, apples, peaches, oranges, figs, and pomegranates; the display
culminating in a magnificent array of flowers, none of which pleased
me more than the beautiful roses, so redolent of home. Such were the
sights of a winter’s day at Bangalore.’

Around the English cantonment, more especially on the north side of
it, is the modern town of Bangalore, containing about sixty or seventy
thousand inhabitants, who are chiefly Tamulians, the descendants of
those native camp-followers and adherents who accompanied the British
forces from Madras and the plains of the Carnatic when they conquered
and took possession of the land. There are likewise at Bangalore a
goodly number of English and Irish pensioners, who have chosen rather
to abide in India than come back to this country; and certainly, with
scanty means, they are better off there in a warm and genial clime than
they would be here, with our long and dreary cold and icy winters. And
when those pensioners are sober and industrious, they have abundant
opportunities in India to enable them to support themselves and their
families in great comfort, and even to become what we Scotch people
call ‘bein folk.’ I could give many pleasing instances from amongst
them of ‘success in life.’ I knew three Scotch gentlemen who were
highly respected bank agents, and who had gone to India as artillerymen
in the Honourable East India Company’s service. But although it be
thus a pleasant fact that many of our pensioned soldiers have done
well and prospered in India, yet it is melancholy to relate that a
goodly portion of them are sadly wanting in sobriety and industry, and
consequently their continued stay in that country is not for good,
but for evil. So impressed was I with this that, when asked by a high
military official for my opinion as to whether the government ought
to give greater encouragement to the time-served soldiers to settle
permanently in India, I at once and decidedly said No; because, when
freed from military discipline, their lives too frequently were such
that they lowered the prestige of the English name, and helped to
injure the salutary respect which the natives have hitherto had for
their white-faced rulers.

In a pretty little village near Madras, called Poonamalee, as well
as in Bangalore, there dwell very many of those pensioners with
their families. I was wont to pay periodical visits to this place on
professional duty; and certainly I found it at first not only strange
but grotesque to see young men and maidens and numerous children,
with faces as black as a minister’s coat, but yet bearing some good
old Scottish name, and speaking the English with an accent as if they
had been born and bred in the wilds of Lochaber. My beadle, as sable
a youth as could be, was a M‘Cormick, and proudly claimed to be an
Inverness-shire man. I remember, towards the close of the Mutiny,
of driving with my wife, on a moonlight evening through a beautiful
‘tope’ of palm-trees, when suddenly our ears caught the distant strain
of the bagpipes. There was no mistaking it; faint though it was, we
could distinguish it floating and wailing through the silent night as
_M‘Clymont’s Lament_. Gradually the music became louder, until we were
able to discover whence it emanated. I got out of the carriage before
an opening in the trees, and winding my way by a narrow path, I came
at last to a small bungalow where a man was strutting up and down the
veranda playing on a genuine pair of Scottish bagpipes. His garments
were white, but his face was perfectly black. He was astonished at my
appearance, and so was I at his; and my astonishment was not diminished
when in answer to a question as to his name, he replied to me in a
pleasant Argyllshire accent: ‘My name is Coll M‘Gregor, sir; and my
father was a piper in the forty-second Highlanders, and I believe he
came from a place they called Inveraray.’ Poor M‘Gregor! from that
night I knew him well. Black though he was, he was a most worthy man;
and one of the last sad duties I performed ere leaving India was to
visit him when dying in the hospital, and to bury him when dead amongst
the sleeping Scotchmen in St Andrew’s churchyard.

In the _Illustrated London News_ there is a picture entitled ‘Recruits’
which gives a very faithful representation of the composition of the
British army. A smart recruiting sergeant is leading away captive a
batch of young men—the thoughtless, reckless shopboy, the clownish
rustic, the discontented artisan, and the downcast ‘young gentleman’
who has wasted his substance in riotous living. The picture rekindles
in my memory several instances of the last-mentioned type. In the
following stories, it will be seen, from obvious reasons, that where
names are mentioned, these are fictitious.

There is a clump of trees in the immediate vicinity of Bangalore which
is known as ‘the Dead-man’s Tope.’ In it there is a solitary grave,
that of a young Scotchman. For many years the natives alleged that his
‘ghost’ was to be seen walking mournfully amongst the trees, for they
said he could not rest until his appointed years had been fulfilled.
He had been a corporal in a Scotch regiment stationed in Bangalore,
beloved by all his comrades, but unfortunately hated by the sergeant
of his company. At last, goaded by the unjust treatment he received
from this sergeant, he struck him down in a moment of passion. In those
days, discipline was stern; the young corporal was tried, and condemned
to be hanged in the presence of the whole garrison. The execution
took place; but so great was the feeling against the sergeant, that
he had to be sent away from the regiment down to Madras, protected
by a military escort. The general officer who told me this story was
a witness of this sad scene, and was the interpreter to the native
soldiers of the reason of the execution. That young corporal belonged
to Glasgow, and was connected with many respectable families in the
city.

Here is a happier tale. John Home, after many years’ service in the
Honourable Company’s artillery, retired on a pension, and settled at
Bangalore. He became editor of a small local paper, and so for a few
years was a prominent member of the community. He married, and had an
only son. This boy was but an infant when the father died, his death
being hastened by intemperate living. On Home’s private writing-desk
being opened, his relations found, to their amazement, a sheet of
paper with the handwriting of the deceased telling his real name—for
Home was a fictitious one he had assumed on his enlistment—and whence
he came, and where his relatives were to be found. These disclosures
were made, so the paper said, for the only reason that perhaps on some
future day they might benefit his boy; and were it not for this hope,
the secret would have gone down with him to the grave. Strange to say,
not many months elapsed when an advertisement appeared in an Edinburgh
paper signed by a legal firm, asking for information about this very
man, giving his real name. Of course the Edinburgh gentlemen were at
once communicated with; and after all the evidences were submitted,
and no doubt well scrutinised, the claim of the widow and her child
was acknowledged. The boy was brought home and educated; and I trust
still is, what he was a few years ago, the proprietor of a ‘snug little
estate.’ Such is some of the romance of the ‘rank and file’ of our army.




COLONEL REDGRAVE’S LEGACY.


IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER III.

The spinster sisters held a council of war on the day following the
events we have described. They were not disappointed at the failure of
the marriage proposals to Miss Fraser; for that young lady was by no
means the kind of guardian they would select for their brother as a
bulwark against the troubles and vexations of this mortal life. The way
was now more clear than ever for the success of their original plan.
Septimus had learned their ideas and wishes, and had gradually become
more amenable to reason. The beauty and talent of the handsome widow
had been fully descanted upon. Nor were her monetary qualifications
lost sight of by the practical Penelope. The question of suitability as
to age had been delicately but firmly touched upon by both the sisters.

‘Mrs Fraser is only ten years your junior, Septimus, and that is the
difference which should always exist between husband and wife. Indeed,
I see no objection to even a greater disproportion, but that is the
minimum necessary to conjugal happiness. I am certain that Mrs Fraser
has a _tendresse_ for you, and that any proposal from you would meet
with every encouragement.’

Septimus left the room considerably mollified, and immediately after
he had done so, Penelope turned to her sister, and said: ‘I trust,
Lavinia, you approve of all I have been saying to dear Septimus?’

‘Entirely, my dear sister; but’—— Lavinia paused.

‘You have always a “but,” Lavinia. Pray, speak out.’

‘Well, I have a suspicion that Mrs Fraser has a lurking sentiment for
Mr Lockwood.’

‘Good gracious, Lavinia! you certainly conceive the most extraordinary
notions.’

‘I do not say for a single moment that the sentiment is reciprocated,’
replied Lavinia.

‘Why, Frank Lockwood is young enough to be her son!’ indignantly
exclaimed Penelope.

‘Hardly, Penelope, unless Mrs Fraser was marriageable at the age of
six,’ Lavinia continued. ‘Then I cannot help thinking that Frank is in
love with Blanche.’

Penelope made a gesture of assent. ‘That is highly probable, and would
account for her rejection of Septimus.’

Finally, the sisters mutually agreed that it would be politic to
prepare Mrs Fraser for the possible proposal of their brother.

We trust the reader will not contemptuously label the spinster sisters
as ‘matchmakers;’ for surely matchmaking is a fitting task for the
angels, if it be true, as we are often told, that marriages are made in
heaven.

At this moment the widow chanced to enter the drawing-room where
the sisters were sitting. Her features still showed traces of the
disappointment she had recently experienced.

‘We have not seen you all the morning, Mrs Fraser.’

‘I awoke with a slight headache, and sought the solitude of the Chine,
my sole companion a book,’ replied the widow.

‘I trust you are better?’ said Lavinia.

‘Yes, thanks. I never enjoy Tennyson so much as when surrounded by
murmuring foliage, and my ears filled with the sound of falling waters.’

‘How charming to have preserved your sentiment till _now_,’ said
Penelope in marked tones.

This remark may seem ill calculated to put the widow in a good-tempered
frame of mind. But Miss Redgrave had uttered it advisedly. The more
fully Mrs Fraser was impressed with her own increasing years and
fading charms, the more likely she was to listen to the suit of the
elderly-looking Septimus.

For a moment the widow coloured, as if in anger. ‘That is not exactly a
complimentary remark, my dear Miss Redgrave.—Now, don’t apologise, for
I am not in the least offended. How can I be, when I have a daughter,
not only marriageable, but actually engaged to be married!’

The sisters simultaneously left off their needlework, and gazing in
astonishment at the speaker, sat as mute as the twin sisters carved in
stone in the sandy Egyptian desert.

‘Yes; Mr Lockwood has asked my consent to his marriage with Blanche,
and I have graciously accorded the same. Heigh-ho! it will be a great
trial for me, when the hour of parting comes.’

‘I congratulate you most sincerely, my dear Mrs Fraser,’ exclaimed
Penelope. ‘We have known Frank from a child. He is everything that a
man should be, clever, accomplished, with good prospects, and of high
moral principles.’

The widow sighed. ‘I shall be very lonely. I have not an affectionate
sister as you have; and when a woman has once known the happiness
of married life, and the comfort and protection of an affectionate
husband, life is indeed a blank when she is left utterly alone.’

Like a second Wellington, Penelope saw her chances of a successful
attack. In love and war, the occasion is everything. She gently laid
her spare fingers on the plump hand of the widow, and softly whispered:
‘Why should you be utterly alone, dear friend?’

Mrs Fraser directed an inquiring glance in response at the speaker.

‘We know of one who would be only too happy to be your companion for
life,’ pursued Penelope. ‘Of a suitable age, amiable, and rich.’

The countenance of the widow was suffused with a soft blush as she
said: ‘Where shall I find this earthly treasure?’

‘In this house, Mrs Fraser. Our beloved brother, Septimus.’

Mrs Fraser had much ado to avoid making a wry face, as she mentally
contrasted the white-haired ‘brother’ with his vacuous expression of
countenance, and the black-haired Frank Lockwood, with his bright
intelligent glance and fascinating smile. But it was now quite as
probable that she would marry the Emperor of China as the solicitor of
the Redgrave family; so she softly murmured; ‘I had no suspicion of
anything of the kind.’

Rapidly the widow reviewed all the attendant circumstances of the case.
Von Moltke himself would have envied her comprehensive glance at the
pros and cons of an important conjuncture of events. Septimus was of
good family, of suitable age, possessed of ample means, and last, but
not least in the eyes of the widow, was not too clever; and therefore,
in all probability easily manageable, that indispensable desideratum in
a husband. We are not sure that Mrs Fraser was correct in her deduction
on this point, for foolish people are frequently obstinate, under the
false idea that they are thereby displaying firmness.

‘If I were to accept Mr Redgrave on the instant, in consequence of your
recommendation, my dear Penelope, neither he nor his sisters would
respect me. I have always found great pleasure in the society of your
brother, and have a great respect for his character. More, I am sure,
my dear Penelope, you would neither expect, nor wish me to say.’

Both the sisters cordially kissed the blushing widow, and expressed
themselves as quite satisfied with the avowal, Penelope adding: ‘I have
more than a presentiment that in a few weeks we shall be enabled to
give you the kiss of a sister.’

No more was said on the present occasion.

The widow retired to her chamber, and as she contemplated her
features in the glass, soliloquised: ‘No—at forty, one must not be
too particular; and there are twenty thousand excellent reasons why I
should change my name from Fraser to that of Redgrave.’

It is needless to say that the sisters did not allow the grass to grow
under their feet with respect to the proposed alliance between the
families of Redgrave and Fraser. Much stress was laid by them in their
conversations with the widow as to the shyness of their brother, and
the necessity of some encouragement being extended to him. At length
Septimus screwed his courage to the sticking-place and resolved to
learn his fate. By a singular coincidence, he found the widow seated
on the identical bench occupied on a similar occasion by her youthful
daughter. An involuntary sigh escaped him as he mentally instituted a
comparison between the sylph-like figure of Blanche and the more portly
form of her mother. As he sat down by her side in response to her
invitation, he felt his courage oozing away. On the former occasion,
he had been bold as a lion; but in the presence of the keen-witted
woman of the world, he fully realised his mental inferiority. Some
commonplaces ensued, and then Mrs Fraser, laying down the newspaper
which she held in her hand, suddenly observed: ‘What is your opinion of
thought-reading, Mr Redgrave? Do you believe in it?’

‘I scarcely know whether I do or not,’ responded Septimus. ‘Do you?’

‘Implicitly,’ replied the widow. ‘Shall I give you a specimen of my
powers?’

‘I should be delighted. Can you read my thoughts?’ said Septimus.

‘I can. But you must promise two things: That you won’t be offended at
my guess; and that you candidly admit whether I am correct in my guess.’

‘I promise.’

‘Give me your hand.’

Septimus placed his trembling fingers in the strong grasp of the widow.
‘You are at this moment contemplating matrimony.’

‘That is correct,’ said Septimus.

‘The lady is a widow.’

‘Wonderful!’ cried Septimus. ‘Can you tell me her name?’

‘My powers do not extend so far,’ returned Mrs Fraser.

‘Your successful guess, my dear Mrs Fraser, has helped me out of a
great difficulty.’

‘How so?’

‘You have half-performed my task for me. Do you think a lady, handsome,
rich, and well-bred, and still comparatively young, would consent
to unite her fortunes with mine? I am some ten or a dozen years her
senior. I have been a bachelor all my life, and may have thus acquired
peculiar ways. But I would settle the whole of my cousin’s legacy upon
her, if she would take pity on my solitary state. Dear Fanny, can you
not guess, without thought-reading, the name of my enslaver?’

The widow looked down and managed to blush becomingly, and impart a
slight tremor to the hand which still held that of Septimus.

‘I will not affect to misunderstand you, Mr Redgrave; you are making my
unworthy self an offer of marriage.’

‘And you accept it?’

‘I do.’

Septimus sealed the contract by a chaste kiss on the cheek of the
widow, and felt a sensation of inexpressible relief that the Rubicon,
for good or evil, was passed.

‘I may now tell you, dear Septimus, that Blanche is also engaged.’

‘I know it.’

‘Impossible! I only knew it myself forty-eight hours ago!’

‘Do not ask me at present, dear Fanny. I learned the fact by an
accident.’

The widow presently retired to her chamber, under the plea of nervous
agitation, but in reality to inform her daughter of her engagement. But
it was reserved for Septimus to perform that pleasant duty. Scarcely
had Mrs Fraser retired, when Blanche appeared on the terrace. ‘Have you
seen mamma, Mr Redgrave?’

‘Mrs Fraser has this moment left me.—Blanche, I have a favour to ask of
you.’

‘Of me!’

‘That you will not breathe a syllable to your mamma that I proposed to
you three days ago; at least, not for the present.’

‘Certainly, Mr Redgrave.’

‘You will at once see the necessity for my request, when I tell you
that I have this day proposed to another lady and been accepted.’

Blanche indulged in a merry peal of laughter, which she found it
impossible to repress. ‘Pray, forgive me, Mr Redgrave. I congratulate
you that you have so speedily recovered from your late rejection.’

‘Yes, Blanche, as I could not be your husband, I have resolved on being
your father.’

Blanche remained petrified with astonishment for a few seconds, then
exclaiming: ‘I must go at once to dear mamma and congratulate her,’
prepared to enter the house.

But Septimus seized her hand and said: ‘Now, tell me the name of _your_
future partner. Though I shrewdly suspect, yet I think in my new
position as your father I am entitled to know for certain?’

‘Mr Frank Lockwood,’ replied the blushing girl, as she broke away and
ran into the house.

There was not a happier circle round a dinner-table in the island than
that assembled in Oswald Villa that evening. The engaged couples were
mutually satisfied with their matrimonial prospects, while the spinster
sisters saw the wish of their hearts gratified in the engagement of
their beloved brother with so suitable a person as Mrs Fraser. But at
that moment a cloud was forming on the horizon which was destined to
effect a great change in the fortunes of the betrothed couples.




A SAMPLE OF MARSALA.


Time was, long ago, when certain of us thought that Spain was the place
where the then despised Marsala wine was made. Struggling to obtain
the favour and recognition of the public, and held as a kind of humble
cousin of sherry, cheaper to buy and meaner in all its conditions,
Marsala had no honour in England some thirty years or so ago. Those who
gave it gave it for need; and for the most part tried to pawn it off
as its more aristocratic relation, thinking that no one would suspect
the truth when that silver label, shaped like a vine-leaf with ‘Sherry’
cut out in Roman capitals in the centre, was hung round the neck of the
heavy cut-glass bottle. And as sherry was certainly a Spanish wine,
the false reasoning born of association of ideas made one think that
Marsala also was a Spanish wine.

The way to Marsala from Palermo is exceedingly interesting. The country
is beautiful with all the grand Sicilian beauty—broken foregrounds,
noble mountain forms, the dark-blue sea, of which the splendour is
enhanced by the gray green of the olives and the contrast of the golden
hue given by the lemon-trees hanging thick with fruit. All the waysides
along the railroad are rich in flowers, making the land look as if
enamelled. Rugged capes and fertile plains, small smooth exquisite bays
and inland mountains, orange-gardens and vineyards, fields of pale
lilac flax, woods of beech and ilex, and rivers running down in song
to the sea—there is not a feature of Southern scenery wanting on this
lovely way. And the sea, where the white sails of passing ships gleam
in the sunlight like the wings of birds, is as beautiful as the land,
where here a ruined temple crowns a height, and there a modern mansion
stands sheltered on the slopes. Among the beautiful things of the sea
is the uninhabited rocky island called ‘The Island of Women’ (_L’isola
delle femmine_). The legend is that in old times, when pirates
abounded, the ‘Barbari’ used to seize such hapless Sicilian women as
they found wandering by the shore, and lodge them on this island till
they had finished their fighting on shore; when they would return and
carry off their prey.

In time the beauty of the lovely road fades away, and the country
becomes utterly uninteresting. Still, even when there is no more
flowery charm and no more golden colour, there is always association,
and the way up to Segesta and Solinunto, with the ruined temple visible
on the crest of the mountain, brings before the mind the long train of
glorious images by which the ancient history of Sicily is thronged.
For we are skirting the base of Mount Eryx, now Monte Giuliano,
whence Acestes the king came down to meet Æneas when he landed on his
return from Carthage; and where Æneas—so they say—founded the town of
Acesta, which afterwards became Egesta, and is now Segesta. And all
the well-known story repeats itself. ‘Selinus rich in palms,’ and ‘the
shallow waters of Lilybæum’ which were ‘left behind;’ the race, and the
beauty of the contending youths; poor Dido’s sad story; the death and
burial of Anchises, the father whom Æneas saved from burning Troy by
carrying on his shoulders—it is all living and palpitating as in those
youthful days when imagination touched the pages with light, and made
the dead words breathe with love and sorrow and passion. It is worth
coming here, if only to realise Virgil and his matchless poem! But we
draw up at a station, and the present puts the past to flight—the real
blots out the ideal born of imagination and poetry.

Armed _carabinieri_ are at every station. This is not usual either
in Sicily or elsewhere in Italy, where soldiers keep order at the
stations, but are not so numerous nor so heavily armed as these. The
district about Trapani, however, in which we are, has not a good
name; and the government knows what it is about when it takes extra
measures of precaution for the safety of travellers. That it does take
these extra measures insures the safety of the wayfarers. At Marsala
itself, the whole train is taken possession of before it has well come
to a stand, and long before the passengers have got out. The crowd
swarms into all three classes indiscriminately; and there is much
rough pushing and hustling, but no actual brutality. Still, it is
sufficiently like the return of ’Arry from a Crystal Palace fête to be
unpleasant; though for all that, the Italian ’Arry is a good-natured
soul, with no malice in him. What he wants in malice, however, he makes
up in garlic. There has been an Easter-week procession here—it is
‘Holy Thursday’—and all the neighbourhood has sent its young men, each
township and village its quota, till they have come in their hundreds,
and have to be taken back again the best way they can.

Near Marsala is one of the three promontories which give Sicily its
name of Trinacria—Cape Lilybeo, the very Lilybæum whose ‘shallows
blind,’ ‘dangerous through their hidden rocks,’ caused Æneas to land on
the ‘unlucky shore’ of Drepanum. Here in calm weather you can see the
remains of houses beneath the sea, as at Pozzuoli, near Naples. But the
point of the whole visit is the wine-stores of Ingham—the largest and
most important of all the Marsala wine-factories. These stores seem to
be interminable; and the perspective of arches, from each side of which
branch out these huge above-ground cellars, is a sight at once strange
and picturesque. The _balio_ or inclosure wherein the whole concern
stands—storehouses, workshops, dwelling-house, garden, fields, &c.—is
really like a fair-sized estate. To ‘walk in the grounds’ is quite
enough exercise for any moderate-minded pedestrian. The oldest two
stores date from 1812, and are the parents of all that have come after.
They are picturesque little places now, covered with glossy dark-green
ivy and flame-coloured bougainvillia; but, like the fathers and mothers
of prosperous families, they are set aside as comparatively useless in
the presence of their stalwart children.

In going through the stores, one is struck not only with the number,
but also with the enormous size of the wine-vats. Some are of huge
proportions, not quite equalling the famous Tun of Heidelberg perhaps,
but coming pretty close to it, and holding wine to the worth of an
astounding figure. The value of one store alone comes up to a moderate
fortune; and there are thirty in all. Once a boy went to sleep in one
of those weird receptacles, and was not found till the next morning.
The fumes had overpowered him, but he came out none the worse. Some
of the wine given us to taste is fifty years old, and is delicious in
proportion to its age and preciousness; and some of the finer sorts
of younger date are unsurpassed in any wine-store extant. Then there
is the huge vat of _vino cotto_ or _vino madre_; and there is the
distilling apparatus, which is very beautiful and dainty. The Custom
House is jealous and exact. It seals up all with a letter-lock, waxen
seals and silken threads; so that no tampering is possible with the
retorts or the receivers. The cool obscurity of the cellars, where
these immense vats are ranged like so many transformed giants, gives
one a sense of restfulness and shelter; while out of doors, the sun,
lying keen and bright on wall and pavement, casting shadows as sharply
defined as if purple paper had been cut with a pair of scissors and
thrown on the ground, has the sentiment of passionate vitality peculiar
to Sicily. Men in coloured shirts, with blue or red sashes round their
waists, add to the general picturesqueness of the scene; and the white
wings of the pigeons shining like silver against the blue sky, complete
a chord of colour to be seen only in the South—that fervid South where
to live is sufficient enjoyment, and where artificial wants as we
have them are neither known nor appreciated, being of the nature of
encumbrances and superfluities. For what else is wanted than the sun
and the sky, the fruits and the flowers, the charm and the glory of
nature? Nevertheless, the material luxury of the North and West is
invading the hitherto frugal and, in one way, ascetic South; and France
and England both, are being imitated even so far as Marsala, where once
the house was held as merely a place of refuge where tired Christians
might sleep at noon and at night, but in nowise as a place of enjoyment
worth the spending of thought or money to make beautiful.

From the vats full of their golden treasure to the casks in process of
making, the transition is natural. Here, again, light and colour give
a certain charm, making a novelty of that which is so well known at
home. For cask-making in Marsala is very much the same as cask-making
in England; and only the men, with very minor details in the method
of manipulation, are different. It is the same drying of the wood,
the same setting of the staves, the same hammering on of the hoops in
regular succession of blows, and we fancy the same kind of white oak,
of which the staves are made, shipped from America for England as well
as for Marsala. Hans Christian Andersen might have written a sprightly
sketch of the oak as it stood in its virgin forest, with grizzlies and
panthers, pretty woodchunks and sweet wild birds all about, till it was
cut down by the forester; packed into a raft and started down the Big
River by the lumberman; brought over to Europe by the huge steamship;
made into casks, and filled with the golden juice of grapes beneath
the glorious sky of Sicily—the wine to be drunk at the marriage of the
bride, the birth of the heir, the death of the master. The place where
they clean the barrels, some in the old-fashioned way of hand-rocking,
with chains inside; the sheds where they cut the hoops and make the
bolts—the drill and the circular saw going through iron and wood like
so much butter or cheese; those where they steam the barrels and those
where they mark them—these, too, come into the day’s work of visiting
and inspection; as well as the cooking-place and the dining-shed for
the three hundred men employed.

These men are noticeably clean and smart in appearance; they are, too,
as industrious as they look; for no loafers are allowed, and he who
does not know how to work with a will soon receives his dismissal.
The touch of English energy and English precision is plainly visible
throughout—with one result, that, unlike Southern workmen, as generally
found, these do not care to keep all the holidays which are so frequent
in Roman Catholic countries. They work about ten and a half hours in
the day; and each man is searched and numbered on coming in and going
out.

The word Marsala recalls the time when the Saracens ruled the land,
just as Mongibello for Etna, Gibbel Rossa at Palermo, and all
Sicilian agricultural and irrigatory terms recall them. It is really
_Marsh-Allah_, ‘the port of God.’ Round about our _balio_ are many
interesting things, principally the caves where, not so long ago, a
murderer hid in perfect safety, and where in lawless times brigands and
outcasts took refuge and found security. They are interminable, and it
is impossible to visit them all; but our guide takes us through some of
the most practicable, where we have occasion for a little gymnastic
exercise here and there among the broken rocks and steep sharp pitches.
An army of brigands might hide away here undetected and unseen.
Fortunately, at this time there are none to hide. No organised band of
brigands exists anywhere in Sicily, and the stranger is absolutely safe.

Besides these caves, there is a strange folly in the shape of a
ballroom and banqueting-room cut out of the living rock. There are
tables and the place for the musicians, benches and divisions, all
made in the rock underground. These odd rooms have been used, and it
is to be supposed enjoyed. When we see them, the only guests are black
beetles, a couple of dirty little lads as unkempt as wild Highland
cattle, and a half-maniacal shock-headed Dugald kind of creature, with
an atmosphere of garlic, which makes us rejoice when we turn out once
more into the fresh air blowing over the breezy flower-clad upland,
with the blue sea in front and the bright sun overhead.




CONCERNING FLORIDA.


A contributor, who is conversant with his subject, sends us the
following important items, which we commend to young men who
contemplate emigration.

‘Heads of families,’ says our correspondent, ‘with “little to earn
and many to keep,” with several sons growing up and having a desire
to go abroad and see the world, will be glad to know that there are
ways for providing for the olive branches other than sending them to
Australia or Manitoba to earn merely nominal wages as farm-labourers.
Until recently, the United States depended almost wholly upon the
enterprise of foreigners for their supply of oranges; but, as if by an
inspiration, the discovery has been made that they can, amongst the
numerous other industries for which they are remarkable, grow their own
oranges, and that, too, of better quality, both in size and flavour,
than those which are imported. The great and unequalled facilities for
cheap and rapid transportation have opened up nearly the whole of the
peninsula of Florida to settlement; and what was only recently very
correctly described as a vast expanse of swamps, lakes, and sluggish
rivers, is now a vast system of drainage-canals and railways.

In Florida, four hundred pounds will buy forty acres of land, ten of
which may be cleared, fenced, and planted with orange-trees. A house
may be inexpensively erected at an average cost of ten pounds per room.
The orange-tree will bear five years from the bud, or ten years from
seed; but a man left in charge—say the son of the owner—would have no
difficulty in supporting himself by the sale of small fruit, which,
coming to perfection in the middle of winter, commands the best prices
in the New York and other Northern markets. In ten years, oranges are
handsomely remunerative, and the crop steadily increases in value with
every succeeding year. For those who cannot wait so long, the lemon
and lime may prove more attractive, as they bear much sooner. They are
almost as profitable, though not quite so hardy.

The list of things which can be grown profitably in Florida is
so long and various as to include such dissimilar articles as
potatoes, cocoa-nuts, plantains, guavas, mangoes, tomatoes,
pine-apples, pumpkins, water-melons—which frequently weigh a
hundredweight—grape-fruit, citron, cotton, sugar, strawberries, coffee,
tea, tobacco, mulberries, pears, quinces, apples, Scuppernong grapes,
&c. The woods and forests which have been slumbering all these years
are now alive with settlers, who are actively employed felling timber,
clearing land, erecting fences, planting groves, building houses, and
in numerous ways expending their energy on the improvement of the
land. The old cry, “Go west,” has been changed to, “Go south;” and
now thousands of families from the Northern States are there, having
orange and lemon groves, with pretty cottages simply but comfortably
furnished, situated on the banks of rivers and lakes.

For the man who is fond of outdoor exercise and has a taste for
gardening, the life in Florida has a charm all its own, for
fruit-growing is nothing but gardening on an extensive scale. The soil
in Florida has the most unpromising appearance, looking like nothing
so much as silver sand. Yet what a charm it possesses! Seeds put in
this apparently hopeless material spring up almost immediately; and
cabbages, lettuces, radishes, and turnips may be eaten three weeks from
sowing in the middle of January. Fish of large size, from ten pounds
upwards, abound in the rivers and lakes, and being easily caught, make
a very welcome addition to the larder. Deer, wild turkeys, quail, and
numerous other kinds of game have not yet learned to shun the haunts of
men.

Extensive drainage-works have made available for settlement vast tracts
of land which have probably been submerged for centuries, but which
now, thanks to the remarkable system of drainage-canals, is as dry
and firm and as healthy to live upon as the best land in the State. A
pretty site judiciously chosen on the banks of a lake will eventually
enormously enhance the value of the property when the surrounding
country is settled up. The plan suggested for persons of small means is
to take up forty acres. Having ten acres cleared and planted at once,
the whole might be fenced in, and a comfortable house built in the
middle of the allotment. The remaining thirty acres can be brought into
cultivation by degrees, and in the meantime will serve to graze cattle
and sheep, which, being turned into the grove at night, fertilise it in
the most effectual and inexpensive manner.’

       *       *       *       *       *

Another correspondent has favoured us with the following notes:

‘Upon landing at New York City in the beginning of April of the present
year, the weather was particularly disagreeable—cold, rainy, and
sleety, and I was only too glad to leave the inclement North for the
bright sunny South.

On the morning after landing at New York, I took my ticket for
Jacksonville, Florida, and on the journey, stopped a few hours at
Washington, and also spent a night at Savannah, Georgia; reaching
Florida, the land of flowers, romance, and orange groves, in three days
from the time of leaving New York.

Florida was first discovered by Sebastian Cabot in 1497, and after
various vicissitudes in its history, became one of the United States
in 1845. It is gratifying to know that the undoubted advantages and
attractions of this country are becoming better known, and more and
more appreciated, by all classes both in the United States and England.
A great amount of English capital and English energy is now being
attracted to Florida, which is a country offering inducements to the
capitalist, sport to the sportsman, novel and romantic scenery to
the tourist, health to the invalid, and very considerable advantages
to the intelligent emigrant. The area of Florida comprises sixty
thousand square miles; and the soil is adapted to an infinite variety
of products, such, for instance, as corn, oats, rice, beans, peas,
potatoes, turnips, cabbages, strawberries, tomatoes, melons, cucumbers,
oranges, lemons, limes, peaches, figs, &c.; and in South Florida,
cocoa-nuts, pine-apples, bananas, and other fruits and vegetables
too numerous to mention. The climate is charming. In winter, the
thermometer seldom goes below thirty degrees, or in summer above
ninety; and although the State is the most southern of the United
States, hot nights or oppressive days are comparatively rare. This is
accounted for by its peculiar position, shape, and surroundings. The
constant breezes, either from the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico,
purify the atmosphere, and render the Floridian climate enjoyable the
whole year; and I may add, that after a four years’ residence in the
State, I know of no disease that is indigenous or prevalent.

Jacksonville is situated on the grand St John’s River, and is the
largest and most important city in Florida. It has a population of
over twenty thousand, and will ere long take rank with Savannah or
Charleston in commercial importance. This is the point at which all
Northern visitors enter the State, and from which they radiate in
search of health, work, or sport. Here there are fine buildings, shops,
churches, schools, and about one hundred and fifty boarding-houses and
hotels, the latter being filled during the winter months with invalids,
principally consumptives.

The most absorbing question of interest to the greatest number now,
however, is the great money-making business of orange-growing, which
is peculiarly adapted to the Florida soil and climate. Since I first
visited the State (in 1873), this industry has gone far beyond the
commercially experimental stage, and I have been an eye-witness to its
undoubted success. It is particularly interesting and instructive to
travel over districts now, and observe _bearing_ orange groves, the
owners of which are securing handsome incomes, where ten years ago not
a tree was planted. In Orange County, many emigrants who first went
to Florida for their health, have improved sufficiently to earn their
living and raise an orange grove in addition. Many of them took up one
hundred and sixty acres of land under the Homestead Law, and selling
off portions of it to later comers, have realised enough money to
cultivate the balance retained. Others, who knew a trade, worked part
of their time for their neighbours, and spent their unemployed hours
in planting an orange-tree here or there for themselves, until they
finally had a five or ten acre grove, of sixty trees to the acre, which
when bearing would give them an annual income of from three hundred to
one thousand pounds. Owing to recent railway and shipping facilities,
a man nowadays may—if his land is well selected—grow early vegetables,
&c., without interfering with his orange-trees, and ship them north to
Baltimore, Philadelphia, or New York, and realise profit sufficient to
enable him to pay his expenses whilst his grove is coming into bearing;
for it must be borne in mind that the Floridians can grow any vegetable
in winter which the Northerners grow in summer; and the Northern people
are quite willing to pay a high price for such luxuries as peas,
tomatoes, or strawberries at Christmas.

These are some of the attractions Florida holds out to the man who has
industry, perseverance, and ordinary intelligence.’




ARSENIC IN DOMESTIC FABRICS.


Chronic poisoning by arsenic in domestic fabrics is without doubt
an important subject, affecting the public to such an extent as to
render attention to the question essential. Serious illness frequently
arises from this cause, in some cases even attended by fatal results.
A very general effect is a lowered condition of the system, such as
to render the individual more susceptible to the attacks of other
diseases. Action has been taken by the Medical Society of London, the
Society of Arts, and the National Health Society, on the question of
the prohibition of arsenic in articles manufactured for domestic use,
such as wall-papers, dyed furniture materials, paint, distemper, &c.
The fact is remarkable, that although this question has been thus
brought prominently before the public, those supposed to be interested
in the sale and use of arsenic have hitherto maintained a judicious
silence, manufacturers abandoning the use of arsenical colours to a
very large extent, instead of defending it. This silence has, however,
now been broken by Mr Galloway, M.R.I.A., who deals with the question
from a chemical point of view, describing his own special mode of
manufacturing emerald green in an article in the _Journal of Science_.
Mr Galloway asks: ‘Has it ever been conclusively proved that persons
who inhabit rooms stained with emerald green suffer from arsenical
poisoning?’ Notwithstanding the fact that Mr Galloway leaves the
question unanswered, as though it were unanswerable, the reply shall
now be given—though in certain quarters it is still doubted—that it
_has_ been proved, and that by the careful observation of medical men
of eminence in all parts of the country.

Proof of the injurious effect of arsenic in domestic fabrics is found
in the development of certain symptoms in the patient exposed to an
arsenical fabric, followed by recovery on removal of the fabric in
question. The occurrence of these circumstances in a sufficient number
of cases leads to the conviction that the arsenical fabric was the
cause of the malady. We act on similar proof with regard to sewer-gas;
no one has ever absolutely seen the injurious action, but the fact
of various diseases of a particular character frequently following
a discharge of sewer-gas into a residence, has convinced medical
men that the gas, or some germ contained in the gas, is the cause of
illness, and that it is therefore desirable to exclude it from our
homes.

As above stated, the same conclusion is arrived at, from the same
line of argument, with regard to arsenic; and this proof alone would
be sufficient. But with regard to arsenic, there are opportunities
of observing what may be classed as experimental proofs, such as
could not possibly occur in illness arising from sewer-gas. This
further proof consists in the frequent alternate recurrence of illness
and recovery—illness on exposure to, and recovery on removal from,
arsenical surroundings, followed by final recovery on substitution of a
non-arsenical fabric in place of that containing the poison.

Change of air is in all probability often credited with the benefits
arising from removal from some unsanitary condition of residence,
office, or workshop.

The effect on men employed in hanging or removing arsenical wall-papers
is another proof of their injurious quality: men have frequently to
leave their work unfinished, being too ill to continue under the
poisonous influence.

Arsenic in domestic fabrics is so easily dispensed with, that there
is no valid reason for the continued use of these poisonous colours.
Several paper-stainers have for years conscientiously excluded all
arsenical colours from their works, yet have still maintained their
position in the open market, thus deciding the question both as to cost
and quality of non-arsenical wall-papers. It is an interesting question
to medical men and chemists, how it is that these minute quantities of
arsenic, or of some combination of arsenic with other ingredients, when
breathed, should be so injurious, when larger quantities can be taken
into the stomach as a medicine with advantage. This question, however,
is of no consequence to the patient. His course is simple enough:
having found out the cause of illness, get rid of it, and be thankful
it can be got rid of at so small a cost.

Arsenic also is found in the dust of rooms papered with arsenical
papers, thus proving the presence of arsenic in the atmosphere.

Mr Galloway alludes to a curious and interesting fact, namely, that men
can be employed on arsenical works, some without being affected at all,
others suffering much less than might be expected. The same singular
fact of the immunity of those constantly exposed to evil influences
is illustrated in the case of men employed in cleansing sewers; they
work continually in the very atmosphere of the sewers, but do not
suffer from those diseases which arise from the escape of sewer-gas
into houses. No one, however, in consequence of this fact, doubts
the importance of good sanitary arrangements, notwithstanding that
these involve a considerable outlay. The exclusion of arsenic, on the
contrary, costs nothing, and, moreover, there is nothing to be gained
by the admission of these poisonous colours into our houses. The simple
antidote for arsenic in domestic fabrics is therefore—exclusion.

Those desiring to see further details, illustrative cases, and modes
of testing for arsenic, will find them in the pamphlet _Our Domestic
Poisons_ (Ridgway), or in the lecture under the same title, delivered
at the International Health Exhibition, and published by the Executive
Council. For more numerous cases of illness, especially in the families
of medical men, see the Report of the Committee of the Medical Society
of London.




WASHING BY STEAM.


It may interest many housewives to know that dirty clothes can be
thoroughly and effectively washed by means of steam, with a much
less expenditure of time and trouble than by the old way of boiling
and rubbing. Anything that lessens the labour and discomfort of
washing-day will be welcomed as a boon by every housewife. Numerous
washing-machines have been before the public for many years, and
have been used with more or less success, and we venture to describe
one constructed on this principle which has given satisfaction to
ourselves. The chief merits of the Steam-washers made by Fletcher of
Warrington, and Fingland, Leeds, &c. are—rubbing and boiling of clothes
are done away with, and with their method, no servant or housewife
need spend more than three hours over a fair fortnight’s washing.
Fingland’s Washer (Morton’s patent) consists of a fluted copper
cylinder, made to revolve in a strong polished copper case or box.
Into the cistern-shaped box, water is put to a depth of three inches,
then caused to boil by means of a gas-fire below. The construction of
the Washer is based upon the fact of the expansion of the water into
steam. The water is continually throwing off a large quantity of steam,
which forces its way through all parts of the clothes in the cylinder,
and in so doing slackens and carries away the dirt. The articles, duly
soaked in water overnight, are put into the cylinder; a few finely cut
pieces of soap are laid between each layer; then the lids of cylinder
and box are closed, and the handle is turned once or twice. It now
stands until the water is boiling, when the handle may be slowly turned
for ten or fifteen minutes, reversing the motion occasionally. The
steam having permeated the clothes in the cylinder, they may be taken
out and rinsed first in cold, and afterwards in blued cold water. The
water in the cistern needs to be changed every fourth or fifth boiling.
Prints, flannels, and woollens require slightly different treatment.
The clothes come out pure and clean after rinsing, and an ordinary
washing can be accomplished in one-third of the usual time, and at less
expense. Attachment with an india-rubber tube to an ordinary gas-pipe
will usually give sufficient gas; but sometimes it is better to have a
thicker pipe than usual with a special connection.




PARTING WORDS.


    Although my early dream is o’er,
      I ask no parting token;
    Nor would I clasp thy hand before
      My last farewell is spoken.
    How coldly fair, thy thrice-false face
      Dawns on my sad awaking;
    No anguish there mine eyes can trace,
      Though this fond heart is breaking.

    Be as thou wert before we met;
      Heave not one sigh, but leave me;
    Those studied looks, that feigned regret,
      Can nevermore deceive me.
    The faltering tones that mock me so,
      Betray the fears that move thee;
    Cease to degrade thy manhood.—Go!
      I scorn thee while I love thee.

    Shall I forget the rapturous hours
      Of my too radiant morning—
    The hand that culled the dewy flowers
      My girlish brow adorning?
    Ah, no! for she who scorns thee now,
      Will miss its dear caresses;
    And sorrow to remember how
      It decks another’s tresses.

    Alas! this tortured soul of mine,
      Though by thy treason riven,
    Can never cast thee from its shrine
      Unwept, or unforgiven.
    Nay, I, when youth and hope depart,
      The mournful willow wearing,
    Must still deplore that shallow heart
      That was not worth the sharing.

    And have I sold my peace for this?
      Or am I only dreaming?
    To wake beneath thy thrilling kiss
      From this most cruel seeming.
    Oh, bid my fainting heart rejoice;
      One word would make it stronger;
    Then wherefore mute, thou magic voice?
      Say, am I loved no longer?

    The world thou hast deceived so long
      May smile on thee to-morrow;
    While I alone must bear the wrong,
      The bitterness and sorrow!
    O cruel world! O world unjust!
      That passes by unheeding,
    Where love betrayed and blasted trust
      Low in the dust lies bleeding!

    Go thou thy way; deceive it still!
      (Its praise is false and hollow);
    Ascend to fortune’s loftiest hill,
      No ban of mine shall follow.
    The memory of these days will be
      To me a life’s regretting.
    Most faithless lover! what to thee?—
      Only an hour’s coquetting.

    Shame, shame! to look, to breathe, to live,
      To mock my loving madness!
    The thought alone that I forgive,
      Should fill thy soul with sadness.
    No wonder heaven should strike thee blind,
      To see me bowed before thee;
    Most shameless wretch of all mankind
      How, how could I adore thee?

    In haste to go! Oh, cruel one!
      Stay, stay, a moment only!
    How shall I face, when thou art gone,
      The world, so vast, so lonely?
    Thy words are like my passing knell:
      Ah me, and must we sever?
    Forget that I have loved thee well—
      Adieu! adieu for ever!

       *       *       *       *       *

Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON,
and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.

       *       *       *       *       *

_All Rights Reserved._

       *       *       *       *       *

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

Page 799: arsensic to arsenic—“testing for arsenic”.]