Whole book · 11 sections
Vol. XX.—No. 1023.]
[Price One Penny.
AUGUST 5, 1899.
[Transcriber’s Note: This Table of Contents was not present in the original.]
SELF-CULTURE FOR GIRLS.
THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.
SUNSHINE: A SUMMER SERMON.
GRILLING AND DEVILLING.
VARIETIES.
HOW WE MANAGED WITHOUT SERVANTS.
THE FIRE OF LOVE.
OLD ENGLISH COTTAGE HOMES; OR, VILLAGE ARCHITECTURE OF BYGONE TIMES.
SHEILA’S COUSIN EFFIE.
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
By LILY WATSON.
OPEN-AIR SKETCHING.
All rights reserved.]
After all the serious advice we have given to our readers as to the literature that is to make them wise, it is pleasant to write of self-culture through the study of the best poetry.
It is, however, not by deliberately taking poetry as a vehicle of education, hunting up every allusion, parsing difficult sentences, and picking the whole thing to pieces, that readers will fall under its sway and know the power of its magic spell. We have often mourned in secret at the prevailing fashion of “getting up” this, that, and the other poem for examinations, and have wondered what such an introduction to English literature is worth. Of this method of handling the work of poets one may use Wordsworth’s phrase:
Is it desirable, then, to pass by allusions without comprehending them? Have we not praised the aspiring student who wants to know, for instance, who was the
or who it was
We can only say that, whereas anxiety to understand whatever one reads intelligently is to be commended, no individual knowledge about a masterpiece of poetic genius is to be put in place of the masterpiece itself. And we unhesitatingly condemn the practice of using poems as vehicles for lessons in grammar, Grimm’s Law, or any other technical matter whatsoever. For instance, if Wordsworth’s “Excursion” has any meaning for your heart and mind, do not read it with notes which stop you four times in the first three lines, with the derivation of “landscape,” the explanation of “downs” and other kindred matters, which are undoubtedly useful, but should not be learnt by the medium of an immortal poem. If you need lessons in this elementary sort of thing, we should advise you to find them elsewhere.
If you have to read one of Shakespeare’s plays edited by such admirable commentators as Mr. Aldis Wright or Mr. Verity, do not adopt the method of the girl who covered up the text, lest it should divert her attention from the notes! But the notes are the most important matter to the minds of thousands of middle-class girls and boys, because it is on the notes they are going to be examined.
A suggestive and amusing essay on this subject for elder readers is to be found in Reviews and Essays in English Literature, by the Rev. D. C. Tovey, M.A., Clark Lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge.
The well-known couplet:
is true of the poet. And does the utilising of Shakespeare as a class-book make him beloved by the young? We are afraid it does not. Yet do not throw notes aside—only remember—do remember!—they touch nothing but the form; the spirit of poetry eludes them altogether.
We may imagine two students of a poem brought into comparison. The one regards it as a task alone; she has conscientiously learnt by heart the notes of an erudite commentator, has looked up every allusion, can expatiate on “Grimm’s Law,” and give instances of its working. The other can do none of these things; she has found the volume in some library, has pored over the poem till it has become part of her inner life; its music rings in her ears; she loves it passionately, and it haunts her inner consciousness like sweet, strange music. If both girls are suddenly examined for the “Cambridge Local,” the latter will fail and the former will pass. Yet the latter is the one for whom the poem has really done its true work. We are not denying that she would be the better for the technical knowledge possessed by the other; but if one has to choose between them, she it is who really understands her poet.
Love and knowledge should go hand in hand, as Browning has taught us by his legend of Paracelsus and Aprile; but the modern tendency in much-examined young people is to dwell so largely on the knowledge that the love flies away.
Read and love poetry as much as you can. It will open and enlarge your mind; feed and enlighten your imagination; make life beautiful to you, and teach you of the greater things that lie beyond life.
One sometimes hears a girl remark in a self-satisfied voice, “Oh, I don’t care for poetry!” Dear young friend, are you aware that Goethe said:
(He who has no ear for the voice of poetry is a barbarian, be he who he may.) And there is considerable truth in the statement. No one would be proud of physical partial deafness and blindness; they constitute nothing to be elated about in the mental sphere. If you “do not care for poetry,” you had better at least give yourself a chance of caring for it by reading some poem on a subject which seems likely to appeal to you. In this way you may find out that you have an unsuspected capacity of being touched by this music. If you do not appreciate Milton, you may enjoy a simple poem by Coleridge; if Tennyson does not please you, Rudyard Kipling’s stirring words may cause your heart to throb and your eyes to melt; if Browning is too obscure, Tennyson’s melody may charm you; if Keats and Shelley are too mystical, Scott’s “Marmion,” or “Lady of the Lake,” may prove fascinating. In any case, give yourself every chance of entering into your immortal and divine heritage of “truth and pure delight.”
The greatest literature of all ages has a tendency to become poetry, as you will see if you consider the Hebrew Psalms, Homer, Æschylus, Sophocles, Virgil “lo buon maestro,” and Dante his pupil, Shakespeare, Goethe. Poetry is the language in which highest aspirations, loftiest truths, naturally clothe themselves. Coleridge’s definition in Table Talk is worth remembering.
“I wish,” he says, “our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry: that is, prose—words in their best order; poetry—the best words in their best order.”
We must not, however, be led away into a disquisition on the extremely difficult question of the true nature and scope of poetry, but must give a few hints to the reader. Here much depends, and must always depend, on individual taste and habit of mind.
Dante, the great poet of the Middle Ages, should be read and studied by all who have the necessary time and capacity, but unfortunately no translation can render the poetry of the original. It is worth while to learn Italian in order to read the “Divine Comedy,” but if that is impossible, it is also worth while to read it in Dean Plumptre’s, Cary’s, or Longfellow’s translation. Longfellow’s is absolutely literal, but truth compels us to state it is often very unmusical. For “self-culture” the intelligent study of this great poet is a mighty instrument. To enter into Dante’s thought is to enter into the view of human life and human civilisation as it appeared to the greatest man of the time, and anyone who can understand the historical allusions of the “Divine Comedy” need not blush for her knowledge of history.
Do not take Shakespeare “as read.” That is even worse than concerning yourself principally with the notes on his plays! There are small editions of separate plays, such as Cassell’s sixpenny edition, too numerous to mention, which are small enough to slip into the pocket, and may form a companion on a wearisome journey. The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, The Tempest, Richard II., may be quoted as good plays to begin with if your knowledge of the poet of poets is scanty. But you may study Shakespeare all your life without exhausting the wealth contained in his pages. Every succeeding generation sees more and more meaning in what he says, because he is true to the inner life of the human heart. The life is there. The lessons that can be drawn from the life are practically endless.
The constant issue of fresh cheap editions of the plays is a good sign. Perhaps Milton is not so much read nowadays; and yet you cannot afford to neglect him. If you are alarmed at the length of “Paradise Lost,” begin with some of his shorter poems and sonnets; and if you do not read right through Spenser’s “Faerie Queen,” you will find many beautiful scenes and thoughts here and there.
We have spoken of the great Florentine poet and the study of Italian; it will not perhaps be quite out of place to hint to students of German that a rich reward lies before them if they can master the language sufficiently to enjoy the lyric poems of Goethe, the higher flights of Schiller, and many others. The “Erl-König” (Erl King) by Goethe and the “Farewell of Joan of Arc to the Mountains” from Schiller’s play, The Maid of Orleans, were great favourites of the writer in her girlhood. German poetry is true music, whatever may be said to the contrary by those who only half know the language.
Space fails us to write in full of modern English poetry. Wordsworth, Scott, Longfellow, Tennyson, Browning, Mrs. Browning, Keats, Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Arthur Hugh Clough, William Morris, are names of varying fame, but each name brings unspeakable associations to those who know and love the poet through his work. Surely one of these may become to you a teacher who will help and inspire.
Wordsworth will transport you into the world of nature. How much those are to be pitied who live in the “stony-hearted” street, far from the sweet influences of wood and meadow, moor and mountain, lake and waterfall! These exiles from the true home of man may find solace in the poet of nature.
Thus Matthew Arnold apostrophises the little river that washes the Grasmere churchyard. The epitaph to Wordsworth in the Grasmere church so aptly describes his work that we cannot refrain from quoting it here.
“To the memory of William Wordsworth, a True Philosopher and Poet: who, by the special gift and calling of Almighty God, whether he discoursed of Man or Nature, failed not to lift up the heart to Holy Things: tired not of maintaining the cause of the Poor and Simple; and so in Perilous Times was raised up to be a Chief Minister, not only of noblest Poesy, but of high and sacred Truth.”
Robert Browning, unlike Wordsworth, is a dramatic poet at heart. We do not mean that his plays are his best work, but that he has unerring skill in reading the human heart and translating into poetry its loves, hates, fears, and ambitions. If you will try to understand him, do not be discouraged by obscurity, but begin by some of the shorter, simpler, and yet characteristic poems in the volume of Selections.
As for Tennyson, who sings alike of man and of nature, you will probably be more readily lured to his pages than to those of Wordsworth or Browning. If you are in sorrow, In Memoriam may prove a faithful comforter.
It is impossible, of course, to expatiate on all the poets named and many others who are not named; a volume would not be sufficient. All one can say is—read for yourself, and if you are ambitious for self-culture, remember that the reading of the best poetry will do more for you than can possibly be expressed by any words here.
There are two minor poets whose works you will probably much enjoy—Jean Ingelow and Coventry Patmore. The “Angel in the House” by the latter is greatly esteemed by Mr. Ruskin.
“Teach your children poetry,” says Lord Macaulay; “it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom, and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.” And the rugged old philosopher, Carlyle, speaks thus of the influence of poetry on any living human creature—
“Tones of sphere-music and tidings from loftier worlds will flit round him if he can but listen, and visit him with holy influences, even in the thickest press of trivialities or the din of busiest life.”
(To be concluded.)
By ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO, Author of “Other People’s Stairs,” “Her Object in Life,” etc.
CHRISTMAS AGAIN.
he missive in Lucy’s hand was no simple workman’s clumsy bill. It was a sheet of blank paper.
“What can this mean?” said Lucy, turning it about, while Miss Latimer and Tom watched her.
“You may be sure it ought to be the bricklayer’s bill, but that he has put in the wrong piece of paper,” observed Miss Latimer.
“Or it may have come from that stupid fellow we found in the area,” said Tom. “Perhaps his next tipsy fit has taken this form, and he is under the delusion that he has written a letter to Jane Smith.”
“That is not unlikely,” Lucy admitted, still turning the paper about. “The letter has been posted at this district office, and there is no maker’s name on the envelope. Anyhow, there it goes,” and she tore it in two and dropped it into the waste-paper basket.
“I wonder if Clementina would notice the strange-looking letter,” said Miss Latimer. “I’m always afraid of something stirring her superstitions and making her take flight to her Highland hills on the score that ‘Babylon’ is too terrible a place to stay in.”
That was all. It was but a nine minutes’ wonder. Yet they remembered it afterwards.
Early in December there came a letter from Mrs. Grant in Peterhead. Lucy and the captain’s wife had kept up a slight correspondence during their husbands’ absence on the Slains Castle. Each had always written to apprise the other of any news she had received. Once or twice, indeed, when unexpected opportunities for ship’s letters had arisen, the busy captain had contented himself with sending a message to his wife viâ his passenger’s home epistle. Mrs. Grant had always promptly and cordially acknowledged these curtesies on Lucy’s part. But she was not naturally a letter-writing woman. Her missives were always of the briefest, and never until now had she taken the initiative.
Mrs. Grant’s letter seemed, on the face of it, both as cheerful and as brief as usual. She “supposed Lucy had heard nothing lately, as she knew she would have let her know if she had.” “Sailing vessels are often out of their reckoning for weeks and weeks,” she added. She dropped a word of congratulation that Lucy’s own welcoming day was assuredly near at hand now, and of half-comic self-condolence that hers was so much farther off. “In my case, too, one suspense is no sooner over than another begins,” she wrote. “But that’s the lot of the sailor’s wife, and I know it was all in my bargain when I took the captain.”
There certainly seemed nothing in that letter to alarm Lucy, and she marvelled at a strange uneasiness which she felt stirring within her. Was she intuitively aware of some anxiety on the part of Mrs. Grant, which she had studiously kept out of her words? Lucy wrote a prompt reply, saying that she had heard nothing yet, but was daily looking for tidings. She tried to make her letter cheerful, and wondered whether Mrs. Grant, in her turn, would read anything between the lines.
Lucy scarcely liked to think of the approaching Christmas Day. If Charlie had returned, it would be a day of supreme joy; if timely sea news came in, it would be one of gladdest thanksgiving. But if——! There Lucy paused, and turned aside as from a great mist advancing to enfold her. Yet she must make her little plans to be fit for the fulfilment of her hope. Not to do so, would seem like creating an omen of prolonged separation and anxiety. So she and Miss Latimer sent out a Christmas bidding to Mr. Somerset, Lucy saying with pathetic playfulness that under the circumstances she scarcely knew whether she ought to issue her invitations in her own name only or with Charlie’s joined thereto. “For he may be among us on that day yet,” she added. Writing down her hope seemed to make it more tangible.
Mr. Somerset called in reply to Lucy’s invitation. He told her that in accepting it, he was accepting a real kindness. Without it, this Christmas might have been very lonely and desolate for him. His old landlord lay at the point of death, and consequently the whole household was saddened and absorbed.
“How much sadness there is in the world!” sighed Lucy. “And how terrible it is that there is a sort of consolation in realising that one is not the only burdened and anxious soul. It seems a selfish and cruel feeling to find comfort in that thought!”
Mr. Somerset looked up brightly.
“Yes, it seems so,” he said. “I used to think so, and probably it is so in the spirit in which the idea may sometimes be suggested and received. Yet I have learned to understand that it does not have a selfish and cruel origin. I think I have discovered what the idea springs from, and how it is that such a thought may really soothe and strengthen. After all, what is the very depth of woe—its unendurable sting?”
Lucy mused.
“I think it is the failure of our faith,” she said gently. “The chilly feeling that God has let go of us and that there are none to help.”
“Exactly so,” answered Mr. Somerset, “and I daresay all of us have known that feeling more than once. It calls our very humility and littleness to its aid, so that we ask, ‘Who am I that God should remember me?’ But can any sane mind look upon another, the lowest, the worst and the most abject, and deliberately say, ‘Who is he that God should remember him?’ I think not. We can feel that would be the vilest blasphemy against God. It would at once strip God of all that makes Him good, ay, or great either, with that wonderful greatness, before which earth’s highest and lowest and best and worst are all the same. No, Mrs. Challoner, in realising the fellowship of others in suffering, we at once realise that God must know all about it, and that there must be some wise purpose in it, and if so for that other, then for ourselves too.”
“Did not some philosopher say that death, being universal, could be no evil?” asked Lucy.
“I think it was the poet Schiller said so,” returned Mr. Somerset, “and I believe it is the consciousness of this, however little realised, which keeps life brave and bright and sane in the perpetual presence of death. The ‘solidarity of humanity,’ though the phrase is one which they may scarcely understand, is the secret treasure of the humble. It never occurs to them to be surprised and shocked when those evils befall them which they always knew befell others. In their eyes ‘it is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth to Him good,’ always ‘good,’ you may observe. ‘It is all in the day’s work,’ they tell one, when their lot is hardest.”
Lucy thought of Mrs. May, and of the strength and comfort she had gathered, more than a year ago, from that good woman’s calm outlook on events, and her fixed conviction that there is inward strength at command sufficient to lift us elastic after any outward blow. It seemed to Lucy that she too might rise equal to the sublime suspenses and sorrows of life if only her strength and spirits were spared the perpetual corrosion of petty cares and worries which fretted them away as moths consume a garment. Then the wiser reflection came—that neither were such petty cares and worries special to her; they too entered into every lot; one could not doubt that brave cheery Mrs. May had her full share. The same inward strength must be as ready and able to bear the perpetual little trials as the occasional great ones, if only we invoke it and know how to use it. The great ocean of Divine love and strength is always waiting to flow into our smallest trials, if we would but hold them ready.
Once more the Institute holidays began. Lucy had now made arrangements for continuing her services there into the next year, under a running “quarter’s notice.” She had in readiness all her little gala preparations with which to greet Charlie’s return, however unexpected it might happen to be.
Of late she had seen very little of the Brands. She knew that Jem had made a great success in some of his speculations. In newspapers she saw that his name was held in prominent place at “financial” meetings, and she noticed mention of Florence as among the guests at showy social functions. Taking up a “society paper” by chance, she actually read an account of her sister’s toilette! To Lucy’s ideas, such a thing was an indecent intrusion into the affairs of a private lady. When Florence called on her, elate over all these things, she could not congratulate her, and Lucy felt that her simple silence chafed Florence. Even as the boy-boarder, poor Tom, “degraded” Lucy in Florence’s eyes, so, from Lucy’s standpoint, these vanities degraded Florence. The sisters were drifting ever further apart. Lives with aims and aspirations diametrically opposed cannot keep together, however household love and the memory of old associations may yearn that they should do so. Nay, the more these struggle against the separating tide, the more ghastly is their shipwreck likely to be. There is “a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.” The most poignant tragedy of life comes in just here. For whatever love has ever been, will persist, and has to learn to rest patient in the faith that “God seeketh again that which is passed away.”
Christmas morning came. Miss Latimer had her Christmas offering of daintily hemmed net ruffles, just the sort of thing which Lucy had now no time to make. There was the usual budget of Christmas letters and parcels. A book for Hugh, from “his father’s friend Wilfrid Somerset,” sent by post, because Mr. Somerset knew that a “post parcel for his very self” would bulk so largely in a child’s delight; and a magnificent hand-painted glove and handkerchief sachet in white satin from Jem and Florence.
What significance there was in those gifts! Miss Latimer and Mr. Somerset gave with theirs a wee bit of themselves, the kind consideration for a tired woman’s inability to serve herself, and for the eager vanity of a little child. But that costly and delicate sachet could have had no proper place in the little house with the verandah at any time, and certainly could have no function in the life of a working woman-artist, who bought no gloves but dark “suedes,” and who could scarcely find time or spare energy to dust her books! Lucy expressed a desperate admiration of the thing’s delicate beauty, and so did Miss Latimer. There was nothing else to say. Each knew the other was not deceived as to her estimate of the thoughtlessness of such a gift.
“But poor Florence means to be so kind,” Lucy urged upon herself. “That is in her taste, and it would suit her own white-and-gold bedroom. She cannot realise the difference between us! We always used to have everything alike. And she means to be kind!”
Lucy secretly pressed a yearning kiss on the soft white thing, ere she refolded it in its dainty papers, from which, she knew, it would not be taken again for a long time. They rend us terribly, do these thoughtless favours in which a kind intention seems to blunder. Possibly this pang of remorse for seeming ungraciousness and ingratitude might sometimes be lessened if we could look deeper into the matter. It might have been spared to Lucy had she known that Florence had neither chosen nor even bought this gift. It had been sent to Florence herself, but she had just received another, much handsomer, so after writing a gushing note of thanks to the donor, she had promptly forwarded it to Lucy!
Mr. Somerset himself arrived in due time. Lucy sat amid her little circle with a smiling face, but they all felt that she must feel a keen disappointment that, after all, she still remained the sole head of the household. They pressed upon her all the cheer possible.
“After all, the weary waiting time is all behind you,” said Mr. Somerset. “Only fancy if last year you could have felt as you may now, that all which remains is but a few days more or less.”
“We’ll have to be quite sure that we recognise Mr. Challoner when he appears,” put in Miss Latimer playfully, pointing to Charlie’s portrait over the fireplace. “Remember he has had long voyagings through sunny seas even since that was taken, and his present self may be as much of an improvement on that as that is on the pale invalid who went away.”
“You have made a supreme effort to win this triumph, Mrs. Challoner,” remarked Mr. Somerset. “It may all seem easy to you now it is ending so beautifully. But you made the effort in the dark, not knowing how it might end.”
“But it was right to do, and that was Lucy’s part, and the disposing of it is God’s,” said Miss Latimer. “We must not do evil that good may come. But we must do right, however its ending may seem to us.”
“But possibly right is somewhat different with different people,” remarked Mr. Somerset. “What was right for our friend here to do was an action right only in those as brave and capable as she is.”
“I am no casuist,” returned Miss Latimer. “My idea of right is that it is what each person knows he or she ought to do and can do.”
“Ah, but there is a great deal in that ‘can do,’” smiled Mr. Somerset.
“None know what they can do till they try,” retorted Miss Latimer.
“Dr. Ivery has been so kind,” said Lucy. “He had sent two or three times to inquire after Charlie’s progress. So when I got that photograph I thought I ought to let him see it. I said I hoped he would excuse me for bringing it, but I thought it might help him what to advise in similar cases, and he said, ‘Yes.’” Lucy broke off abruptly with a little laugh and a heightened colour.
Mr. Somerset and Miss Latimer also laughed. They both guessed what Lucy did not choose to tell them, that the doctor had said he would often be happy to prescribe such a cure if the patient were but provided with such a wife to help him to carry it out!
“All this is very well,” said Tom Black, assuming a grumbling tone. “But I should look forward to Mr. Challoner’s coming with much more delight if I did not fear that it will end my days here; he will want all his house for himself!”
Lucy laughed very sincerely now.
“Charlie’s coming will bring you nothing but good, Tom,” she observed, “and you know that well enough. You have been a great help to me, and Charlie will be even more grateful than I am. But there is something for which we can all be grateful together, at the very present moment—to wit, that no poor Jessie Morison is spoiling the peace of this Christmas Day. I was in the kitchen half an hour ago, and Clementina has got everything most conscientiously in order.”
“Nevertheless she’s something of a spoil-sport,” put in Tom. “I wonder if it takes any nourishment out of one’s food when the cook is always sighing?”
Hugh had been perched up in the window, watching cabs which were bringing Christmas guests to the neighbours. At this instant he turned, crying—
“Something is the matter opposite. Policemen!”
They all rushed to the window.
“Is it a chimney on fire?” asked Miss Latimer.
“There is no smoke,” said Lucy.
(To be continued.)
By Dr. GORDON-STABLES, R.N. (“MEDICUS”).
will not begin by saying—as so many people do—that the small amount of sunshine we get in this country is not worth mentioning. This is not the case. Would you be surprised to learn that we have enough for health’s sake, and that when we do not get actual summer sunshine, we get the summer light all around us out of doors? That this light is diffused, filtered for us through the clouds that float high above, and that many people of wealth who leave this land of ours to seek for sunnier soils and sunnier shores, about the Riviera, the isles of the blue Levant or Madeira and the Canaries, make a most egregious mistake, and their health would be vastly improved were they to spend their time in the cool green midlands of England, on the sunshiny braes and hills of majestic Scotland or even down at our own seaside watering-places—quiet ones, mind you—where the wavelets ripple with gladsome laughter as they break on the golden sands?
The maids of merry England seldom need the dry hot sunshine of the Soudan or banks of the gliding Nile. Our maidens, I maintain, are flowers, and beautiful flowers too, but not like those on far southern shores that can without hurt or harm stare the sun in the face. There is as much difference indeed between an English, Scottish, or Irish girl, and an Italian or Spanish as there is between the violets blue and the crimson flower of the cactus.
Our sunshine—our own own sunshine—is best for us, unless our lungs and blood are weakened by the on-coming of ailments like the deadly and all too fatal disease we call phthisis.
Well, all my readers, even the youngest I hope have heard of the sunshine bath. It is a very old form of bathing indeed. It is said to have been invented by the Romans in their palmiest days, but it was used by Indians and Africans or Egyptians long long before Rome or Greece itself was very much of a country or kingdom. And they no doubt were but following the example set to them by the birds and beasts in forest and wildery.
The Romans before they became demoralised and effete had special baths in which they could revel in the sunshine. These were very luxurious, and splendidly draped apartments open only to the sky, in which one could sit or lounge uncovered save by garments of gauze, and where, with the head alone protected at times by a shade, one could benefit in a most especial way from direct sun-rays. We have none such in our day.
The strong need none such, and may best take the sunshine out of doors when it comes, not even troubling themselves to go in search of it.
But so convinced am I of the benefits of sunshine that I confidently advise girls—young or not quite so young—to court it, to enjoy it all they can, to sit or recline in it, to hang their hammocks in it, and with or without a sunshade to dream and revel, laugh and live in it, for verily, verily, to the delicate, summer sunshine is life itself.
Yes, and if it makes them drowsy when in their hammock, let them place the magazine they have been reading over brow and eyes and go to sleep in it.
But supposing the sun is not shining but the day is dry, well, you still have light. And a bath of diffused light is a bath of health. Don’t swing your hammocks under trees except in too bright sunshine. Only beetles and toadstools can flourish under a cedar or spruce.
But what I want you, reader, specially to remember, and I’ll be fearfully cross and grumpy if you do not remember it, is this: don’t take your sunshine bath in a window or even a verandah. This is altogether too one-sided an affair. The light or the sun-rays must be all around you. All around you too must circle the fresh air.
Reverting to the Romish bath: I must say that if we had at sunny seaside places institutions where we could enjoy such a thing nearly or quite unclothed, with the sky alone above us, it would be a really good thing, but following the example of the less endowed animals we see in fields and woods we shall benefit by being out in the sunshine simply lightly dressed. The sun can penetrate like Röntgen rays through and through our garments and bodies if we but expose ourselves thereto.
Mere animals, as we are all too fond of calling them, appear oftentimes to know what is good for them better than we do.
When a favourite animal belonging to our domestic circle, such as a dog or cat, is weak because well-stricken in years, you may always notice that he courts the sunshine whenever he has a chance, and with it the fresh air.
A question which naturally enough often recurs to one is this: What is the difference between indoor heat and that obtained from the sunshine? Well, apart from the fact that sunshine, whether clearitically or otherwise, exerts a very powerful influence for good on the animal and vegetable creation, it has a hundred times more of penetrating force than that which comes from a fire or that which we find in a room heated by steam or hot water pipes. Moreover, the heat which is artificial is all too often decidedly one-sided, and many a most disagreeable cold has been caught on a chilly night from hugging the fire, by which one portion of the body is heated at the expense of the other. There is less oxygen to be breathed indoors, and a dangerous amount of carbonic acid and other deleterious gases.
Again, all nature shows us that sunshine and light permeate every tissue of the animal or vegetable structure, so that they may be considered synonymous with the term life itself.
And the purer the air we breathe when out of doors the greater the effect for good sunshine will have.
But if we are to benefit thoroughly by summer sunshine, we must be out every day and, if possible, at the self-same hours of the day.
Walking in moderation will be found far more advantageous to the delicate girl who would regain health than cycling. It must not be carried to the boundary line of fatigue, however. One should be just nicely pleasantly tired. Here, for instance, is a régime that would suit many a lassie who had gone to some bracing delightful spot to live for the sixty or one hundred days of summer. She ought to adopt it from the very second day.
Having retired early on the previous evening from quiet but non-exciting employment, having neither talked nor laughed nor sung much for the two hours previous, let her pull the window down, have sufficient bed-clothing and a not too soft mattress, and easy yielding pillows. Let her go to bed, and having done so—think of nothing. If this plan is adopted sleep will soon waft her away to the beautiful Land of Nod, and if she is breathing pure air all night she will awake betimes, refreshed and as happy as the birds on the lawn. But this awaking betimes is a sine quâ non of this health-giving régime, so if not sure of being called by seven o’clock, she ought to have an alarm.
The first thing on getting up is tonic, bracing, cold sponge-bath followed by a thorough towelling. She should not dawdle in dressing, but get out into the garden for a fifteen minutes’ walk as soon as possible. After a solid breakfast with not too much coffee or tea, the forenoon may be said to be fairly begun. And the whole of this should be spent out of doors in the sunshine or light. Even rain must not confine her to the house. If she could live in a tent entirely it would be better than a house. She ought to be back home to wash hands and face and rest a little, a good half-hour before the 1.30 dinner. Rest for half an hour after this. No wine or stimulant of any kind, and just enough solid food to satisfy the needs of nature. Soup is a mistake and so is cheese, and, as a rule, salad. Pudding is not to be eaten if there is the slightest inclination to embonpoint.
Fruit may be partaken of at any time so long as it is quite fresh and seasonable.
A little rest should be taken for say half an hour after dinner, then out again for pleasant exercise or non-exciting games. One cup of the very best tea about five, and supper at seven. If sleepless and thin, a little food should be taken the very last thing, a biscuit or two with butter, and a large tumblerful of hot milk with sugar and flavouring to taste. Then meditation and bed.
Really and truly a summer spent thus in fresh air, sunshine, or light will cure seventy per cent. of all chronic ailments, quite bring back appetite and happiness to the dyspeptic and gloomy, and even eradicate the first seeds of consumption itself.
But one word in conclusion: if everything is not done day after day with method and regularity, if late hours be kept, or the evenings spent too excitedly, then you need expect but little benefit from even the summer sunshine. I hope to have a paper very soon on the “Fresh Air Treatment of Consumption.”
By DORA DE BLAQUIÈRE.
have taken the trouble to look in the dictionary for the word “grill,” and I find it is derived from the French word “grille”—a grate or gridiron—and it means to broil on a grate or gridiron. But to-day, in point of fact, grilling is rarely performed in this manner, few people having the gridiron; and if not done in the oven, it is performed in an open frying-pan.
I have begun with this piece of information because some of my readers may say on seeing the word, “Oh, we can’t grill! We have no means of using a gridiron!” And as all devils must be grilled or fried quickly, without burning them in a hot oven, it is well to understand exactly what is meant. To my mind a frying-pan is better than an oven, because you can watch the process and see that the gravy does not waste. And the very first thing you have to guard against with an inexperienced or poor cook is her either wasting all the mixture for the gravy, or else her drying it up and burning the meat, or scorching the bones, and making them uneatable. The operation of grilling must be performed quickly, and needs the best attention of the operator.
Now I must tell you what I daresay you may already know, i.e., that all the great cooks, like Francatelli, give you a recipe for what they generally call “devil’s mixture”; and the following is the composition of that renowned master in the art of cooking. Mix well upon a plate a spoonful of either French or English mustard, a spoonful of Oude sauce or chutney, the same of anchovy, two spoonfuls of olive oil, and a little cayenne pepper. This should be used to cover whatever you are about to grill.
In the Pytchley Cookery Book, which is so celebrated, you will find two or three recipes for devil sauce. The first is the simplest. Warm and blend together a teaspoonful of mixed mustard, a tablespoonful of Worcestershire sauce, an ounce of glaze, an ounce of butter, a saltspoonful of cayenne pepper, one of salt, and a tablespoonful of chopped parsley. Mix, warm up, and rub the meat well with the mixture, serving it as gravy, should any remain after the broiling.
The second Pytchley recipe is intended to be poured over the meat when broiled. A tablespoonful of mustard, a teaspoonful of curry paste, a tablespoonful of Worcestershire sauce, two tablespoonfuls of mushroom ketchup, a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce, a teaspoonful of salt, the yolk of an egg, and half a pint of thick soup from the night before, if a thin soup. Then thicken it with some brown thickening, boil up, and pour over the broiled bones.
Thus, you see, there are really two methods of devilling; the one first-mentioned when you pour the sauce over the meat before broiling, and the second when you put it over afterwards, which really takes more the form of a gravy, though it is not intended to be too plentiful, nor to surround the devilled meat in the dish. For the first intention of devils is, that they should be dry, rather crisp, and savoury, not wet and soft in the slightest degree. This you must be pleased to remember if you would make them successfully, and one of your great difficulties will be to have the dish dry, yet not dried up, which is the test of a good devil.
What is known as Indian devil mixture is made as follows: To one tablespoonful each of vinegar, ketchup, and chutney paste, add an ounce of dissolved butter, a dessertspoonful of made mustard, salt, and a small cup of good gravy. Mix all together, and rub them into the meat either cooked or uncooked. Make all hot slowly together. They will take ten minutes to make hot. Serve in the dish in which you have cooked them.
This recipe is one which was left to the cooking world by Admiral Ross, and it is an excellent one, quickly and easily made. In all those I have given you will see that either mustard, mixed or unmixed, is made use of; but I myself dispense with it, as I like the mixture better without it for ordinary use.
What is known as a Cambridge devil was given to me long ago by a Fellow of St. John’s, and dates certainly from the very last days of the last century, or the early days of this one—which, if we all live long enough, will soon be spoken of as “the last century” too! This can be employed with any kind of meat, but I have chiefly used it with ham, and it is very excellent in helping to use up the remains of a ham, which is rather difficult to deal with when you do not turn it into potted ham, which is, perhaps, the most sensible way of all.
The rough and ready way of making a Cambridge devil is to take the mustard pot, and with the mustard spoon to smear over the slices of ham on one side as much mustard as you think you are likely to stand, and then to add some vinegar—perhaps two tablespoonfuls—just enough to make a thickened gravy with the mustard you have put in. You have first laid the slices of ham neatly on an old plate, or, at least, on one plate which you do not mind putting into a very hot oven, and when you have added the mustard and the vinegar, you must put the plate into a hot oven. When it gets very hot, take a fork and turn about the slices of ham until they be covered with vinegar, and the vinegar and the mustard have amalgamated in some measure, then put back into the oven, and let it brown well and frizzle up, and then serve in the same plate in which it has been cooked. But you should stand it, of course, on another one, so that it may not do any damage, nor burn people’s fingers.
I learned years ago a very nice and simple method of preparing slices of cold meat of any kind by rubbing them with curry powder and then frying them, or, better still, grilling. When you have cut the slices of meat (mutton, I think, for choice), pour some curry powder on a plate, and roll the slices in it; but if you do not like things very hot and fierce, then mix the curry powder with flour in the proportion of half and half, and this will make the dish more suitable for the family. I am inclined to think that all these dishes of an extremely savoury description are more suitable for the “grown-ups” than the smaller fry.
Cold meat may be also simply devilled by shaking over it a mixture of cayenne, black pepper, and salt, and sometimes a little French mustard is added at the last before the meat is made hot. I have also seen the above mixed with butter into a paste, the meat slightly scored, and the mixture rubbed into the scorings. Amongst the most delightful of breakfast dishes are those made of drumsticks of fowls, turkeys, or ducks. These should be scored lengthways, and the mixture inserted; then you should put on some tiny bits of butter (if you do not use oil) and grill.
Now I must enter on the very important subject of bones (I am sure it ought to have a capital B), grilled and devilled bones constituting one of those delicacies which are always associated with club suppers, or the midnight meals of celebrated eating-houses. In private houses, devilled bones are not so well known, nor so successful, perhaps, when done; and this is generally owing, as I have said before, to the carelessness or to the inexperience of cooks, who may never have been taught how to do them.
The bones most used for grilling and devilling are from the sirloin of beef, or the shoulder or leg of mutton. Of course, when we speak of “bones,” we do not mean that they are “bare bones”; they must of necessity have a certain amount of meat left upon them—that is to say, enough to be scored with a sharp knife, if to be devilled as well as grilled. If to be grilled only, and you be fortunate enough to have a gridiron, they need nothing but a little pepper and salt, and sometimes not even that.
The bones require a fierce, hot, and clear fire, and the epicure of grilled bones prefers that the meat should be black. If the fire be not fierce enough, you can make it more so by throwing a little fat upon it, either in the form of dripping, or of odd pieces of fat that may be cut off from the meat. This will make a sufficient blaze, and you will attain without trouble to the coveted degree of blackness, which really is more smoke and scorch than burn, and gives with the grease that kind of smoky taste to the grill that we enjoy so much with ham and any other smoked meats.
Grilled Kippered Salmon.—Cut some dried salmon into small long pieces—about four inches long and two inches wide; broil them over a clear fire, then rub them over with fresh butter seasoned with lemon-juice and cayenne, and serve very hot.
Grilled Cod Cutlets.—One ancient recipe for grilling will serve to explain the process, and will enable anyone to perform the operation without difficulty. The first thing to do is to dry the cutlets or anything else in a clean cloth, and then to brush them over lightly with fresh olive oil, place them on a hot gridiron, and grill for about ten minutes; turn them on both sides, and, when done, sprinkle with pepper and salt, squeeze lemon-juice over them, and serve very hot. This is the usual process, and everything—fish, mutton, beef, mushrooms, and chicken or turkey—can be done by it.
And now I hope that you will have quite comprehended from what I have written the difference between grilling and devilling, and can see that grills need not be devilled, but that devils must always be grilled. So I will finish up my subject by discoursing on the things to which you may apply the latter process, which are so many that you will find your list of breakfast and supper dishes greatly enlarged.
I hope you are not foolishly prejudiced against tinned foods, because they are very excellent if you do not try to purchase them cheaply, and always go to good and reliable shops for them. Thus the matter is in your own hands completely; and you have no one to blame but yourself if they turn out unsatisfactorily.
I hope you understand also that devils must not be black as grills are, and not be placed over a too hot fire; but must be well browned and frizzled. And while there are some people who like dry ones, there are other people who prefer that the devil mixture should be thickened round them like a rather thick gravy. In fact, this process rather repeats that of curry-making, as there are dry curries, wet curries, and very wet ones.
And now I shall finish with a few more available dishes, which are simple and easily made by any cook, whether good or bad, who can at least read a recipe and follow it.
Devilled Lobster is one of the things that can be made with tinned lobster. You must first prepare a paste of salt, dry mustard, curry powder, black pepper, and salad oil. Spread it over the lobster, then melt an ounce of butter in a fire-proof dish, put in the fish, and heat it well through, browning the top. If you are using fresh lobster, it will require fully ten minutes in cooking.
Tinned salmon, or the remains of a tinned tongue, may be used in the same manner, and so may the Australian beef.
The remains of a cold roast duck are suitable for a most excellent devil. To make it you must remove the bones and cut the meat into rather small pieces, but not too small. (This is better made in a small enamelled saucepan.) Take a tablespoonful of dry mustard, a teaspoonful of salt, a little cayenne, and two tablespoonfuls of lemon-juice. Mix these ingredients gradually and very thoroughly together, and add two tablespoonfuls of butter melted, and two tablespoonfuls of water. When this gets hot, put in the pieces of duck and also a gill of some white wine—Sauterne—or even a light claret, or, if you do not like wine, use a gill of good stock instead. Place the saucepan over the fire and stir it carefully till smoking hot, then turn it on to a hot-water dish, if you have it, and serve as hot as possible.
Now, the next dish that occurs to me is devilled kidneys. For a large dish, twelve sheep’s kidneys will be required; but, of course, you must be guided by the number of people for whom you are catering. Cut the kidneys in half, remove the centres and white tubes, and then scald them, removing also the skin. Put two ounces of butter into an enamelled saucepan; and, when it is hot, throw in the kidneys and cook them quickly. Dust them over with salt and white pepper, and then pour over them a tablespoonful of onion juice, one of Worcestershire sauce, and four teaspoonfuls of light sherry. Serve smoking hot, and, if possible, in a hot-water dish, for I hope you understand that everything in this way must be served and kept hot while at table.
Sardines may be either grilled or devilled. If the former, scrape them free from skin and oil, and wipe them in a clean cloth. Oil a little butter and roll them in it, powder them with cayenne pepper and salt, and cover them with some finely-chopped parsley and chopped mushrooms. Wrap each sardine in oiled paper, and put in the oven till hot; and serve in the same papers in which they were cooked without unfolding them, and lay each on a slice of toast.
Devilled Sardines are done in quite the same way. To begin with, they are scraped and wiped, and rolled in a mixture of mustard, Worcestershire sauce, anchovy sauce (be sure to shake both the bottles), and four tablespoonfuls of melted butter, and lay each on a slice of toast in the oven, and serve very hot. It should not take more than five minutes to cook them in a very quick oven.
Eggs devilled with anchovy toast is another good supper dish. You must first put a little butter in the frying-pan, and afterwards a mixture of half a teaspoonful of dry mustard, two tablespoonfuls of tomato sauce, one of Worcester sauce, and one of mushroom ketchup. Put into this four hard-boiled eggs, sliced, salted and peppered, and when heated through, place the egg on toasts which you have previously spread with anchovy paste.
In conclusion, I will say that I find Worcester sauce my greatest reliance in devilling bones, in making that thoroughly delightful dish—a devilled shoulder-bone of either mutton or lamb, or, indeed, where anything in the way of meat is concerned. I do not shake the bottle; but that is a matter of individual taste. I have tried Harvey sauce, which also answers; but we at home prefer the former.
Tomato sauce is very excellent for some things—like pork—and is also good with veal; but you cannot mix other sauces with it. And, unless very very sour, I would counsel you to avoid the sugar so freely recommended in most books on cookery.
And I had nearly omitted to mention a very important item, viz., devilled biscuits, which are so much enjoyed by many people. These are done either dry or buttered. What are called American toast biscuits, or soda biscuits in America, are the nicest; but they need a light hand, as they break easily. Dip them twice into warm water, then pepper them with cayenne pepper, and bake till quite crisp in a slow oven. Serve hot in a toast-rack.
In the other way, you must knead together an ounce and a half of butter, a saltspoonful of cayenne, and a saltspoonful of flour of mustard. Dip the biscuits twice into warm milk, spread them with the mixture, and bake in a slow oven till crisp. Serve very hot.
Lotteries in Great Britain.
In the close of last century and the beginning of this the lottery system prevailed in Great Britain to a surprising extent. From 1785 to 1823 there was a Lottery Act every year which brought in the State over a quarter of a million a year.
Independent of the State lotteries there were lotteries for houses and lands, jewels and plate, merchandise and ships, and even advowsons and presentations. Tailors advertised their business by means of lotteries; so did hatters and glovers. Even the bootblacks gave away coupons, entitling their customers to a share in lotteries. A plate of meat at an eating house gave the purchaser a chance of sixty guineas. Threepennyworth of oysters included a ticket in a five guinea lottery. Even a sausage stall had a lottery attached, offering the chance of a five shilling prize to every one who ate a farthing’s worth of sausages.
The whole system—and a demoralising one it was—had an end put to it by the Lottery Act of 1823.
The Wedding-Ring Finger.—The origin of wearing the wedding-ring upon the fourth finger of the left hand has been much disputed even from very ancient times. A Latin writer of the fifth century gives the following matter-of-fact reason. The fourth finger was chosen, he says, “as being least used of any, as being guarded on either side, and having in most this peculiar feature, that it cannot be extended alone and by itself, but will in all its movements be accompanied by some finger placed on either side.”
They did not get his Fortune.
One of the great benefactors of the City of Bristol in bygone days was Mr. John Whitson, a merchant of that place, who by his life afforded a pleasing example of the success which in general accompanies diligence and honesty.
The following anecdote told of him is worth repeating:—
As he was one day busy in his office he overheard his nephews talking loudly in another room, and found the subject of their discourse turn upon himself and the great fortune they would inherit at his death. They declared they would spend it like men of fashion, in pleasurable and expensive pursuits.
The good old gentleman upon this burst in upon them, and with honest indignation said that since he had heard from their own mouths their resolution with respect to his fortune, they should now hear his. He had long been a witness, he told them, of the abandoned course of life into which they were plunging themselves, and had often remonstrated to no purpose against it. They now stood self-convicted, and to prevent the infamy which they might entail upon him, themselves and the public by such irregular excesses, he was resolved to put it entirely out of their power.
He accordingly made his will immediately afterwards, and after the death of his wife left the whole of his money to charitable purposes.
Courage.
An Indian Song of Welcome.
When Lord Reay was governor of Bombay a few years ago, in the course of a tour he visited the native state of Morvi.
Amongst other institutions shown to his Excellency was the telephone exchange, which connects various public buildings as well as the towns lying round about. Here the Thokore Saheb had a microphone attachment so arranged that from a school fourteen miles off some of the scholars sang a song specially composed for the occasion by the chief judge of the state.
The words of the song were as follows:—
Calculating her Age.
An indiscreet young man once asked a lady her age.
“Wait till I count,” she replied. “I married at eighteen, my husband was then thirty. Now he is twice that—then I must be thirty-six.”
“Is it possible,” ejaculated the other, amazed at this method of feminine computation. “Well, I should never have expected it.”
CECILLY.
By Mrs. FRANK W. W. TOPHAM, Author of “The Alibi,” “The Fateful Number,” etc.
t is no good, we can never manage it,” cried Cecilly, half crying, throwing on the floor, as she spoke, the book she had been studying for the last half hour.
“Well, Cecilly, it is no good spoiling the book. That won’t help us,” I said, picking it up and smoothing its ruffled pages.
“It is just as silly as the others,” Cecilly continued, starting up and walking quickly up and down the room. “These people did not put a majolica sink in their dining-room, or embroider their dish-cloths, but they spent fifty pounds in having water laid on to every bedroom, bought a new cooking-stove, and every other contrivance advertised for saving labour. If we had fifty pounds to spend to save ourselves trouble, we need not do without the servants. I see we shall have to give up the idea after all. Jack is right; we can never manage.”
“Don’t say that,” I cried, for Cecilly had been the originator of the idea, and last evening had fought most hopefully every objection the boys had raised against our carrying out our plan of doing without servants.
It was only six months ago that the first shadow had fallen on our bright happy home. Our dear father had been suddenly struck down by illness, an illness which had seemed but slight at first, but which, as the weeks went by, grew graver day by day, till there came a long, long night when we waited in silent grief for the summons to bid him our last farewell. But God in His mercy heard our broken-hearted prayers, and gave him back to us and life.
His recovery was fearfully low and tedious, and no one was surprised to learn that the only hope for his recovery was for him to pass the winter abroad. It had been very difficult to find the means to take him away, but they were found. At first the change did wonders, but the improvement did not last, and in every letter we could read the anxiety mother was trying to hide from us.
The day before the one of which I write the first bright report had reached us.
“Father is really better,” mother wrote, but even as we gave our shout of joy, Jack read these words: “but the improvement comes too late—our funds are nearly exhausted, and we must soon turn our faces homewards. The doctors say if only he could stay on for another few months, they are certain of his recovery. But that cannot be, and God knows what is best for us always.” Again and again we asked ourselves what it was possible for us to do to keep him in Cannes, but there seemed no way. Cecilly had found a few pupils for music when dear father had first been ill, and she had left no stone unturned in trying to get more, but in vain. I too had sought for employment, but beyond going to read to an old lady two afternoons in each week, I had been unable to find any. Jack was in a solicitor’s office, and already was filling up every spare hour with extra work, while Bob and Phil were still at school. Everything of value our home possessed had already been parted with for the journey, so that it was no wonder we cried out in despair.
“Can’t we give up meat?” Bob asked at dinner that evening. “Kitty is always moaning over the butcher’s bill.”
“Is it likely you can give up meat,” Jack answered crossly, and I said—
“We might, but the servants would not.”
Then it was that Cecilly had cried out, “Send the servants away. I am sure we could manage without them.”
Jack was as indignant with Cecilly as with Bob, but she would not be quieted.
“Listen to me and hear reason,” she cried. “We must have money somehow, and here is a way of getting it, or saving it, which is the same thing. Cook’s wages are £20 a year, Ann’s are £16. So in three months we should save £9. Nine hard sovereigns—not counting their keep. Oh, Kitty, what is their keep?”
“Quite ten shillings a week each, not counting their washing,” I answered.
“And we should save the kitchen fire, except when we are cooking,” said Cecilly.
“And the gas,” said Phil. “They flare it away at every burner. I turned it out myself in the scullery last night.”
“We should be able to live much more economically, of course,” I said. “One dinner instead of the two we always have to cook now, must be a saving in every way. Oh, Cecilly, what a splendid idea yours is.”
“It is all rubbish,” said Jack. “Is it likely mother and father would allow you girls to turn into slaves?”
But Cecilly would not be silenced, and if she had her will would have rushed off into the kitchen and dismissed the servants there and then. She was up quite early and off to the stores to buy two or three books she had seen advertised on the subject of “How to manage without servants.” But, as I have said before, the authors had all been able to spend the servants’ wages for a year in labour-saving contrivances. Poor Cecilly had been so excited and hopeful the evening before that she could not endure facing all the difficulties the morning laid before her.
“Jack is right. We cannot manage,” she cried again, and then burst into a flood of tears.
I was vainly trying to cheer her when the door opened and our dear old friend Mrs. Travers, whom we all call Aunt Jane, entered.
“Oh, my dears,” she cried, in dismay, “you have bad news from your mother!”
I hastened to reassure her, while Cecilly cried out—
“Yes, the news is bad, Aunt Jane. He will never be well again, and we can’t help him.”
Then I told her mother’s words, and all about our idea that had come to nothing.
“Why should your idea come to nothing?” she asked, and when we both asked her at once if she really thought we could manage, and she answered, “If you can face plenty of hard work, of course you can,” Cecilly rushed at her to hug her in her joy. “Sit down, you scatter-brain,” said the dear old lady, “and we will then talk seriously. There can be no doubt that you will save considerably if you do send away the servants, but the necessary work you will find very hard, far harder than you can yet imagine, especially at first. I speak from experience, my dears, for my early married days were spent in Canada, and there I learnt to use my hands. I have known many girls and women as gentle and refined as any English lady, doing the entire work not only of a house, but helping husband, brother or father with poultry or dairy as well. And if our sisters in the Colonies can do without hired help, why can’t we here? There is nothing so healthy as housework. Have your windows open while you work, and there will be no need for any more bicycle rides. The question is, Are you really prepared for hard work? Can you face the early rising, the spoiling of pretty white hands, a good many backaches, and a great many irksome duties?”
“Of course we can!” we cried at once. “If only we can give father this chance, we will face anything!”
“Then, my dears, the first thing is to give the servants notice.”
“Luckily, Aunt Jane, Ann is going; she is only staying on till we knew when mother would be back.”
“And I know of a place that would suit cook beautifully,” said Cecilly.
“That’s well,” said Aunt Jane, “they are easily disposed of. When they are gone, you must find a little girl.”
“No, no!” we both called out. “We will do everything ourselves.”
“Hear me out, my dears,” said Aunt Jane quietly, “and then raise your objections. I say you must have a girl just for one hour in the morning to clean the boots.”
“Oh, I had forgotten the boots!” sighed Cecilly.
“I would have said a boot-boy, but a girl can clean your doorsteps, for you must not do that.”
“Why not?” asked Cecilly. “I see nothing to be ashamed of in any work.”
“Neither do I, my dear; but your mother would object to that, I am sure, and as you must have someone for the boys’ boots, the someone may as well clean your steps.”
“Why can’t the boys clean their own boots?” Cecilly began, but I stopped her, for I saw Aunt Jane was looking vexed at her interruptions, and I knew mother would not like the boys to do such work while they were going to school among other boys.
“Next,” continued Aunt Jane, “I should advise you to do away with your kitchen range and have a gas stove.”
“No, dear Aunt Jane,” I pleaded. “We must not spend anything to save ourselves.”
“I am not asking you to spend anything, my dear, excepting a few shillings. The gas company will let out on hire any stove for a small sum, I believe about one shilling and eightpence a quarter. There will be the cost of setting it, but that will soon be paid for by the saving in coals. A gas stove can be turned off as soon as you no longer require it, so is economical in every way. I know I must not add that it will save you much work, both in cleaning and lighting, though that is the truth.” We laughed as we told her we were quite lazy enough to be saved any labour, and she continued, “I will tell you another plan to lighten your work. Take up all the heavy carpets possible, especially in the bedrooms. A stained floor with rugs you can shake is far easier to keep clean as well as being more healthy.”
“But we should have to have the floors stained,” said Cecilly. “And every shilling will be wanted for father.”
“I think you must spare one or two of them to buy a bottle or so of stains,” replied Aunt Jane, smiling. “Stain them, and then polish them by degrees with beeswax and turpentine. I had an oak staircase once that I treated in that way, and it looked beautiful. Of course, if you have mats and rugs, so much the better, but strips of carpet with the ends fringed out do very nicely. What you will find most irksome is the continual washing up. Take my advice and leave your evening dinner things till the next morning. I know it is far nicer to get them washed up overnight, but you must remember that your first duty is to make home bright for the boys. When dinner is over, put away all domestic duties and make the evenings as bright with music and suchlike as you do now. Now I must be going, and will only add this piece of advice. When you speak to cook and Ann, tell them the reason you are parting with them. They are both kind-hearted girls and will, I am sure, help you in getting ready to do without them, and doubtless will be able to give you good advice too.”
“I hope Jack won’t be very vexed,” sighed Cecilly.
“Never mind Jack,” said Aunt Jane. “He is too sensible to be really vexed.”
“Poor Jack,” I said. “You know, Aunt Jane, how very friendly and kind Mr. Marriott has always been to him. Now, although he has been goodness itself in finding him extra work after office hours, we can all see he does not approve of the friendship between Jack and Cynthia. Cynthia comes to us in the daytime as much as ever, but very rarely in the evening when Jack is home.”
“Mr. Marriott is quite right, my love. The way they are bringing up their daughters makes marriage with any but a rich man out of the question.”
“Oh, Aunt Jane, Cynthia is the sweetest girl,” we both cried, while Aunt Jane answered—
“The sweetest of girls can make the worst of wives.”
After bidding our kind old friend good-bye, we went at once to the kitchen to tell our tale to cook and Ann. As Aunt Jane had predicted, they received our news with the greatest kindness, and immediately offered to help us in every way.
“You had better come into the kitchen every day while I am here, and let me teach you the young gentlemen’s favourite dishes, Miss Kitty,” cook said, and Ann, who was leaving because she had been so rude to Cecilly, sat down and cried because she could not bear to think of us having to “so bemean” ourselves.
(To be continued.)
By MARY BRADFORD WHITING.
“Come here, Lion.”
It was not a dog that obeyed the summons, but a child, a sweet-faced, curly-headed child, with big, pathetic eyes, and soft smiling mouth.
Treading on tip-toe, so as not to disturb the sleeping figure on the sofa, Lion made his way across the room and crept up to his father’s chair.
“What were you crying for?” asked Mr. Beresford, as he lifted the little fellow to his knee.
“Oh, daddy, how much, much too sharp your eyes are! I hid myself all up with my ship book, so as you shouldn’t see.”
“No ship book that was ever made would hide your tears from me!” said Mr. Beresford, in a tone that was evidently more for himself than for the child. “But never mind that now. I did see, and now you must tell me all about it. What were you crying for?”
“I don’t want you to go away,” said Lion, in a trembling voice. “Why must you go, daddy, and leave me alone with——”
The loyal little fellow caught himself up without finishing the sentence, but Mr. Beresford knew only too well what the concluding word would have been, and he sighed heavily.
A wealthy man, with congenial work to occupy him, with a lovely wife and a sweet little son, there were plenty of people who envied him with all their hearts; but Paul Beresford, like many of those who seem the most prosperous, had a secret sorrow that embittered his whole life. He had married young, believing that he had found the embodiment of grace and goodness in the beautiful girl to whom he had given his heart, only to discover too late that she was utterly selfish and cold-hearted. It was a terrible awakening for him, and many a man in his place would have made shipwreck altogether; but Paul Beresford only clung the closer to the hidden faith that sustained him, and solaced himself with the oft-quoted lines—
That hope seemed to him to be fulfilled when his baby son was first put into his arms and he felt the touch of the tiny fingers, and kissed the soft roseleaf face. Surely no woman could resist such a darling mite as this, and he looked forward confidently to the dawn of better days. But as time went on, the terrible truth was borne in upon him that the child had only widened the breach between his wife and himself. Little as she had cared for his love in the past, she was jealous when she saw it bestowed upon another, and far from lavishing any tenderness on the little Lionel herself, she treated him with an indifference that made her husband’s blood boil.
The child had never been strong, but no one but his father gave him much attention, for the nurse who had brought him through his babyhood was obliged to leave when he was five years old, and his mother’s maid, who was supposed to have the charge of him, was as selfish as her mistress. But there was a courage and pluck in his slender frame that would have done honour to a boy of twice his age, and which well deserved his father’s name of “Lion.” He had early seen that it distressed his beloved “daddy” if he told him of the troubles he had to undergo, and the result was that he tried to keep them to himself with a self-control that was marvellous in so young a child.
But now a terrible trial had come for Lion. They had no sooner settled down in the little Cornish village that had been selected for their summer holiday, than a summons had come for Mr. Beresford to go out to his West Indian property on imperative business, and he was obliged to start as early as possible on the very next day. Somewhat to his surprise, his wife had made no objection to his sudden departure; he had expected a storm of tears and reproaches, but beyond the one cold remark that he seemed to be glad of any excuse for leaving her, she had said nothing, and he had felt thankful at being let off so easily.
If he could have read her thoughts, he might, however, have felt differently. She had given him no reason for her sudden desire to settle down in a quiet seaside village, and he had been too glad of the suggestion for the boy’s sake to ask any explanations. But now it seemed to her that his departure was arranged as conveniently as everything else had been; she had known very well when she chose their holiday resort that Lord Barfield’s yacht would be anchored in the neighbouring bay, and on board the yacht were people for whose society she cared far more than she did for that of her husband or child, people whom he distrusted, and had forbidden her to visit.
Mr. Beresford was ignorant of all this, however, and he tried to comfort his little son with parting injunctions; it was useless, alas, to hope that his mother would take any care of him, but perhaps it might console his loneliness to tell him to take care of her.
“But mother won’t let me take care of her,” said Lion piteously.
“That must only make you try all the more,” said his father, speaking out of the depths of his own bitter experience. “You must be very careful not to worry her, because you know that sometimes you talk too loud when she has a headache, or even slam the doors. Will you promise me that you will be very good while I am away?”
“Yes, I will, I truthfully will!” said Lion, drying his eyes with a brave attempt at a smile.
“I shall soon come back,” said Mr. Beresford, “and I shall write you long letters while I am away, and tell you all about the shells and the snakes and the little black boys.”
“And you’ll write it like print, won’t you?” said Lion, “so as I needn’t bother mamma to read it, because that’s just one of the things that vexes her so, when I ask her to read your letters.”
He spoke innocently, little knowing the wounding power that his words contained, but Mr. Beresford was well used to hiding his feelings, and he made the required promise in an unshaken voice.
“That’s all right, then,” said Lion joyfully. “But oh, daddy dear, you won’t have me to curl your moustache for you, and you don’t look a bit nice when it hangs all down like that,” and throwing himself against his father, he proceeded to curl the offending moustache with his small fingers, while Mr. Beresford laughed at the sight of his earnest frown.
“I wish you would not let that child make so much noise,” said a querulous voice at this moment, and leaving their play with a start, both father and son were hushed in a moment. Lion slipped down to the floor and took up his book, and Mr. Beresford went across to the sofa and tried to soften his wife’s displeasure with his attentions.
The morning came all too soon, and Lion had hard work to keep a bright face through their hurried breakfast. Greatly to his relief Mrs. Beresford had chosen to remain upstairs, so that he had his father all to himself and could hang lovingly about him until the carriage came to take him to the station.
“Don’t forget your promise,” said Mr. Beresford as he drove away.
He spoke cheerfully, but his eyes were moist as he looked back at the lonely figure of the little six-year-old boy at the gate. If only his mother’s arm had been round him, he could have far better borne to leave him; but it was useless to indulge in such thoughts, and taking out his pocket-book he was soon deep in calculations.
Lion, for his part, tried quite as practical a cure for his grief.
“I’ll pick some flowers for mamma,” he said to himself manfully, and having rubbed the tears out of his eyes, he set off round the flower-beds of their hired house, picking a rose here, and a geranium here, until he had as large a bunch as he could hold.
“Mamma, I’ve brought you some flowers,” he said, as he ran into her bedroom and laid the straggling nosegay on her lap.
Mrs. Beresford was lying on the couch, a novel in her hand and a breakfast tray on the table by her side.
“Oh, you bad boy!” she exclaimed, brushing the flowers hastily on to the floor, “how dare you put those dirty things on my new white wrapper. And there’s an earwig running over me! Go away this minute, I tell you! Lettice, Lettice, come here!”
Her screams brought the maid, who succeeded in catching the earwig; but Lion had not waited to see the end of his escapade; a sudden sharp pain had stabbed his baby breast, pain, not so much at his mother’s anger, as at the thought that he had already disobeyed his father’s command.
“Oh, daddy, daddy, I didn’t mean to be naughty!” he cried, and throwing himself down on the grass, he sobbed as if his heart would break.
“I am going out this afternoon,” said Mrs. Beresford at lunch-time, “so you must amuse yourself in the garden.”
“Mayn’t I come with you,” said Lion timidly. “Daddy said I was to take care of you while he was away.”
“Nonsense!” said Mrs. Beresford sharply, as though the words stung her. “Do you think I can have you always after me? You must stay at home, and see that you don’t get into any more mischief.”
It was very lonely for Lion that afternoon. Lettice slipped out as soon as her mistress had disappeared, and the servants of the house did not consider it part of their business to look after other people’s children. By-and-by it began to rain, and the little boy stood sadly counting the falling drops until a sudden thought seized him. His mother’s cloak was hanging in the hall; how wet she would get unless he took it to her! To trot out into the hall and put on his hat was the work of a moment, and seizing the cloak, he sallied forth.
Far and wide the poor little fellow wandered, while the driving rain soaked him through and through; but no trace of his mother could he see, and at last he turned back to the house. Just as he reached the gate a carriage drove up, however, and he saw his mother alight, and heard her parting words, “On Thursday, then; I will be sure not to fail.”
“You naughty boy, what have you been doing?” were her next words, as she espied the dripping child at the gate. “Look at my cloak, all messed and spoilt. Go upstairs at once; didn’t I tell you not to get into mischief?”
Weary and heart-broken, Lion attempted no explanation, but creeping sadly up to his room, cried himself to sleep on the floor.
At breakfast-time next morning Lettice rushed into her mistress’s room exclaiming, “Oh, ma’am, Master Lionel’s dying!”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Beresford. “I daresay he has eaten something that has disagreed with him; but you can send for the doctor.”
She had forgotten all about it in five minutes, but when the doctor came he insisted upon seeing her.
“Your child has acute inflammation,” he said, “and his life will depend upon the nursing.”
“Then you must send for a nurse,” she said coolly, though she felt an inward qualm at the thought of her husband.
“I shall do so, of course, but she cannot be here until to-morrow morning, and in the meantime you must be responsible; your maid is perfectly useless.”
Mrs. Beresford assented resignedly. She was glad now that they could not take her on the yacht till Thursday. The nurse would have come by then, and she could leave without trouble, and with this consoling prospect in view she even agreed to sit up with Lion that night.
Some people would have been touched by the child’s piteous cries for his father, and by the way in which he constantly checked himself with the reminder, “Daddy’s gone away; I must take care of mamma now.” But Mrs. Beresford only found it wearisome, and tried to bury herself in her book.
She knew, however, that it would not do to forget the nourishment that the doctor had ordered, and rousing herself at last she tried to light the spirit-lamp. The most simple things of everyday life were mysteries to her, and as she bent over it, candle in hand, there was a flare and a scream, and Lettice rushed into the room to find her mistress’s hair in flames.
Help was summoned, and the doctor sent for, but he made short work of her complaints.
“There’s not much harm done,” he said bluntly. “I daresay your hair will grow; your skin will never look the same again, but, after all, that doesn’t matter.”
And this to one whose chief joy in life had been the beauty of her complexion! Mrs. Beresford hid her bandaged face in the pillows and gave herself up to despair. No hope of going on the yacht now. They would sail away and forget all about her, or, worse still, make ill-natured remarks about her misfortune. At any rate, no one should see her altered appearance, and she had the blinds pulled down, and admitted no one but Lettice into her room.
But the day came when the hospital nurse forced an entrance into the forbidden precincts. She and the doctor had held many an indignant conclave over their little patient, and when his perpetual inquiries for his mother could be silenced in no other way, she made up her mind to fetch her.
Her words were few, but they made an impression that Mrs. Beresford could not resist, for however indifferent she might appear, she knew that she should not dare to face her husband if the child should die without her seeing him.
Her resolution almost failed as she caught a glimpse of herself in the glass that had once reflected such a lovely vision, but it was too late to turn back now, and she crossed the passage and entered the sick-room. There on the bed lay Lion, his curls gone, his face hollow and deathlike, but when he saw her he held out his hands with a cry, “Oh, please say forgive!”
“What does he mean?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said the nurse, “he has been saying it ever since I came. You had better speak to him.”
“What do you want, Lion?” she said, repressing a shudder as she went up to the bedside.
“Oh, mamma, I did promise daddy to be good, and you said I was so naughty, and then you got your face burnt, and it was all my fault. Oh, please say forgive!”
Forgive? If anyone needed forgiveness it was not Lion, and as if a veil had suddenly been lifted from her eyes, Mrs. Beresford saw herself in the true light at last, worldly-minded, selfish-hearted, far, far different from the pure and loving nature before her!
“Oh, my child, my little child!” she said, bending down to take him in her arms.
There was silence for a few moments, while Lion lay wonderingly in the embrace that had never enfolded him before, then raising his hand to her bandaged face he whispered—
“Poor mamma, you’re much worser than I am; but you’ll tell daddy I was sorry, won’t you?”
“No, no; you shall tell him yourself,” she exclaimed with sudden vehemence; “you are going to get well, you must, you shall!”
The nurse looked at her warningly, and she was silent again while Lion’s excitement subsided into a drowsy state which lasted till the doctor came.
He looked in amazement at the strange figure by the bed, but for once in her life Mrs. Beresford had no thoughts for herself.
“He is better, is he not?” she said eagerly, but the doctor shook his head.
“No,” he said, “I shall telegraph for your husband to-night.”
The days passed on, and one evening a carriage dashed up to the door and springing out almost before it had stopped, Paul Beresford seized upon the doctor, who came forward to greet him.
“How is he?” he asked.
“Better,” was the answer, and waiting to hear no more he dashed upstairs and opened the door of his boy’s room.
“How are you, my darling?” he said eagerly.
His wife turned away with a sudden pang. It was not likely that he would recognise her for she had sent him no news of her accident, but for the first time she felt that he was dearer to her than the friends for whom she had once sacrificed his happiness.
But Lion did not forget her.
“Daddy,” he said, “mamma has forgiven me, but you must forgive me too; it was all my fault, you know, that she was burnt.”
“Lena!” cried Paul in astonishment, as he gazed at the white-capped figure by the window.
“You told me to take care of her,” said Lion mournfully; “but she has had to take care of me all the time!”
Lena had hidden her face in her hands, but in a moment she felt her husband’s arms round her and knew that a new life had begun for them both.
“Are you so very sorry that mamma was burnt?” asked Lion wistfully, as he saw the tears in his father’s eyes.
“No, dear, he is glad,” said his mother softly, “because there is a fire in my heart that will, I hope, burn up all the selfishness.”
“What fire comes in people’s hearts?” asked Lion in wonder, and with a look that made her scarred face more beautiful than it had been in all the perfection of its bloom, his mother answered—
“The fire of love!”
INTERIORS AND DETAILS.
It is remarkable what pretty bits of detail we often come across in old cottages; unfortunately, it is sometimes difficult to ascertain for certain whether these are “in situ” or whether they have originally belonged to more important buildings and have found their way down to the cottages, just as ladies’ dresses find themselves after some time in more humble hands than those for which they were originally intended. A beautiful partition, or screen, which we give from a small farmhouse or cottage at Toppesfield, in Essex, is a case in point; it may have always formed a portion of the building in which it now stands, or it may have been removed from some more stately one. It is singularly well preserved, but seems to be almost too elaborate and costly a work to have been made for a house which is little more than a cottage. However, as we have seen from examples at Clare and Newport, the exteriors of cottages were sometimes elaborately adorned; and if the exterior, why not the interior?
BRICK CHIMNEY, AMERSHAM.
The screen or partition at Toppesfield is carved in oak, and what is very remarkable is the fact that while the four lower ranges of panels are English in style, the top range, with the heads introduced, is like French work.
AT TOPPESFIELD.
The two mantelpieces and fireplaces, which we illustrate, are certainly in their original places, and have not been removed. The example from Alfreston dates from the second half of the sixteenth century, and the very singular one at Amersham from the earlier part of the seventeenth. The latter has a pretty but very uncommon feature about it. The ingle nooks are pierced by little windows, so that when sitting down to warm yourself at the fire you can look out of the window at the same time, a great advantage to the aged and infirm, who cannot move about very readily, and yet get tired of looking always at the fire or always out of the window.
Sometimes the ceilings of the rooms in cottages are very pretty examples of ornamental plaster work. A cottage at Margate, which was recently pulled down, had a singularly elegant plaster ceiling, with the same motto repeated over and over again, and in every case misspelt; the words were intended to be “Ich Dien,” but the mistake “Ich pien” was repeated throughout.
While speaking on ornamental plaster work it is known that during the sixteenth century rye-dough was frequently mixed with the plaster to obtain sharp and delicate work. This material dries very hard, as any of our girls who have been educated at a German school will know from their experience of black bread which is over a week old.
Our remaining sketch represents one of those prettily-cut brick chimneys which are so very ornamental in Tudor houses and cottages. The example here given is at Amersham. The two chimneys are almost of the same design, which in one case is nearly four times the scale of the other, and it is worthy of notice how totally different is the effect of the same pattern in a large and a small scale. A complete and thorough understanding of this fact is all important to the architect and the decorator! Chimneys are often very beautiful objects. Perhaps the most magnificent examples are to be seen at East Barsham Hall, near Walsingham, Norfolk. This building, the finest example of Tudor domestic work in the country, deserves better treatment than it has received. Portions of it are in ruins, and one part of it cooked up into a farmhouse. How it is that this splendid mansion was ever abandoned and left to fall into ruins is unintelligible. Nowhere is more elaborate or beautiful carved brickwork to be seen. Great coats-of-arms, badges, lions, and elaborate Gothic tracery are all to be found carved out of the finest red brick.
AT ALFRESTON, ESSEX.
But the beautiful architectural works in Norfolk, which are rapidly being reduced to ruins, are indeed a sad story for those who are interested in ancient memorials or beautiful works of art.
AT AMERSHAM. (See page 716.)
(To be concluded.)
A STORY FOR GIRLS.
By EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN, Author of “Greyfriars,” “Half-a-dozen Sisters,” etc.
THE GATHERING STORM.
“I am sorry you feel like that about it, my dear. She seems to me a nice little girl enough—rather fascinating indeed. She appears very much liked here.”
Mrs. Cossart’s reply was something like a snort, and the toss of her head and set of her mouth showed from whom Effie had inherited some of her little tricks of manner.
“And she is such a nice companion for Effie,” concluded Mr. Cossart after a brief pause.
“A fine companion indeed!” retorted his wife. “A wonderful lot of time she spends with Effie! I call it simply shameful the way she is going on! We bring her out with us at great cost to be a companion for Effie, and here she is from morning to night running after some new people, just because they are rich and well connected, and she hopes to catch the young man for a husband!”
Like many rather easy-going and phlegmatic people, Mrs. Cossart took a good deal of rousing, but when once an idea had thoroughly taken possession of her mind, there was no getting it out, and if it happened to be one of an irritating and disturbing kind, it would gradually work like leaven in her nature, and entirely overset her natural equilibrium. She had been brooding for weeks over the turn affairs seemed taking, but this was the first time she had spoken quite so openly to her husband, and Mr. Cossart was decidedly taken aback.
“Really, my dear, I don’t think such an idea has ever entered Sheila’s head. She is such a child still. She is fond of Miss Adene and these Dumaresqs, and they have taken a fancy to her; but I don’t think you need think such things of her. She is just as happy playing with the little boy as being with young Dumaresq; and it seems to me that he pays quite as much attention to Effie. I have taken care to let him know, in an indirect kind of way, that our little girl will have a pretty dower when she marries. And in these days young men think of such things. High time too, with the land depreciating as it is!”
“Yes, and perhaps if Sheila were not here something might come of it. Effie has twice the character of Sheila, but there is something about the way that little flirt goes on that takes the fancy of people in a way I can’t understand! And if you would believe it, on New Year’s Eve, when I thought Ronald Dumaresq was sitting out with Effie watching the fireworks and so on—if you would believe it he had just turned her over to his aunt, and off he set down the hill in a carro, and found Sheila out on the verandah here, and stayed with her all the time! What do you call that sort of thing, I wonder?”
“Well, my dear, I don’t see that Sheila was in fault. And there were other people out too. She was not alone. If young Dumaresq chose to come and watch the display from here, nobody could blame her.”
“I expect it was a got-up thing between them. She never said a word about it either; I only heard it incidentally a few days ago. She is a very artful young minx—that is what she is!”
Mr. Cossart was uncomfortable. He was a just man and a kindly one by nature; and Sheila’s pretty ways had taken his fancy as they had taken the fancy of others. He had no special matrimonial ambitions for his own daughter. He would very well have liked to see her the wife of Ronald Dumaresq; but, on the other hand, if the young man had other ideas for himself, he would never make a trouble of it.
“There’s as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it,” was a favourite maxim of his, and if Sheila were to get a handsome husband in Ronald, her uncle would wish her joy and be ready to arrange matters for her in fatherly fashion. But he knew by experience that his wife, when once her mind was made up, was inexorable.
“Yes,” continued Mrs. Cossart wrathfully, “you men never see an inch before your noses, but I have had my misgivings ever since Sheila came. Look how things were with the girls and Cyril. I don’t mean that I think much of Cyril—he’s only a Cossart when all’s said and done. All his grand ways won’t make him a better man than his father before him, and of course they’re cousins. Still I had no particular objection, and Effie seemed to think more of him than of anybody else, and to be a good deal taken up with him. But as soon as Sheila came I noticed the difference. It was she who was the attraction then. They were always scheming to get together and ride off alone and all that sort of thing. There was talk about Effie, to be sure, and teaching her to ride; but that was just the excuse. Oh, I know what I am talking about! And now it is just the same thing again. If it were not for Sheila, young Dumaresq would be very attentive to Effie, but as things are he never gets the chance. That girl, with her craving after notice, her laughing ways and bold artful scheming, just winds him round her fingers, and the end of it will be, you’ll see, that she lands the fish, and Effie is left out in the cold!”
“But, my dear, if the young man prefers Sheila (and I’m not at all prepared to think he does; but she is pretty and taking, and he naturally talks to her) I don’t see that we could interfere.”
“Then you will stand quietly by to see your own child’s heart broken, whilst this artful little minx carries on her games under our very noses.”
At that Mr. Cossart looked grave and uttered a low whistle.
“Do you mean that our Effie has begun to—to—well, to care for this young man? I never thought her the kind to fall in love just with a handsome face.”
“Ronald Dumaresq has more than a handsome face,” answered Mrs. Cossart with slight asperity, “and I have no hesitation in saying that he has taken Effie’s fancy in a way that no other man has done to my knowledge. The last doctor we consulted about Effie said that some interest of that sort in her life just now might be the best possible thing for her. When first I saw Ronald Dumaresq I thought that he would be the very husband for her; he is well-born, fairly well-to-do, kind-hearted, affectionate, and, I think, very high principled. If you watch Effie when she is talking to him, you will see how she brightens up. But that Sheila is for ever putting herself forward. I wish we had never brought her, and I am certain Effie is beginning to wish the same.”
Mr. Cossart was silent; this was putting the matter in a new light. He rubbed his chin and looked disturbed.
“What are the girls doing now?” he asked as though to gain time.
“We will come and see,” said Mrs. Cossart, rising with a kind of vicious alacrity. “I know nothing, but I can guess. Sheila will by hook or by crook have got Ronald Dumaresq in tow, you will see, and Effie will be left out in the cold, or reduced to fall back on those everlasting Murchison girls! I did not bring Effie out here to throw her into the arms of a tradesman’s daughters!” and Mrs. Cossart gave that little toss to her head which was so like Effie’s.
Husband and wife rose and wandered down the garden paths, too well used to the wealth of flowers and the glint of the sparkling sea to remark upon the beauties before them. Mrs. Cossart’s face was displeased, and his was troubled. Presently the sound of a clear ringing laugh broke upon their ears, and Mrs. Cossart uttered a suggestive snort.
“There’s Sheila, on the tennis court, I expect. Come and see for yourself how she plays companion to Effie!”
They moved on till they could command a view of the court from a terrace above, and then a pretty scene revealed itself to their eyes.
On one side of the net stood Ronald, tennis-bat in hand, his white flannels showing off his slight figure to great advantage. On the other side was little Guy, with Sheila superintending, her bat in his hand, as he made vigorous and often successful attempts to send the ball across to his uncle. Sir Guy and Lady Dumaresq sat together in wicker chairs in the shade, and Miss Adene was sketching the group, a smile on her lips, as her clever pencil travelled swiftly over the paper. Sheila was in the plot, and strove to keep little Guy still from time to time in one of his pretty attitudes. Of Effie there was no trace.
“You see!” said Mrs. Cossart triumphantly.
“Yes, my dear; but you know Sheila offered to help with the child when his nurse was taken ill. We must not complain if she keeps her promise. You allowed her to undertake the task.”
“She gave me no choice, speaking it out before Lady Dumaresq as she did. Of course I saw the motive all the while. As though people like that could not get a temporary nurse!”
“Well, they have done that; but of course a Portuguese woman is not like their own trusted servant. Naturally they do not like the boy left much with her. I cannot find fault with Sheila for trying to help. She is so fond of the little fellow.”
Sheila’s voice came up to them just then clear and sweet.
“Oh, isn’t he a darling! Isn’t he quite too sweet? Lady Dumaresq, I hope Taylor isn’t going to get well just yet, I do so love having him. Mayn’t I give him his bath again to-night? He likes it so when I do. And he is such a little duck!”
Mr. and Mrs. Cossart walked down and approached the group.
“Where is Effie, Sheila?” asked the latter.
Sheila looked round quickly.
“Effie? Oh, she was here just now. We were playing tennis against Mr. Dumaresq. We beat him, but I don’t believe he played up,” and she threw a sparkling glance towards Ronald who was strolling up with Guy perched on his shoulder. “Then Guy wanted to play, and Effie sat down; I thought she was here still.”
“The Miss Murchisons came and asked her to go down the town with them in their carro, and hear the band play at the Casino,” said Miss Adene, looking up from her sketch. “There, Sheila, will that do? It is the best I could get—he is a restless little mortal.”
“Oh, but you have got him delightfully!” cried Sheila, taking the sketch-book, her face alight with pleasure. “Oh, isn’t it just that pretty way of his when he tries to hit the ball, and laughs all over his dear little face! See, Lady Dumaresq, isn’t it good? But you can’t have it, for Miss Adene has promised it to me. You know you did, didn’t you—the first good sketch you could catch of him?”
Lady Dumaresq smiled and patted Sheila’s cheek.
“You will make my boy quite vain by your open admiration, my dear; you must remember that he is not quite a baby, and can understand a good deal of what is said.” She looked up at the girl, and then her glance fell upon the Cossarts, and she seemed to divine that something was amiss.
With ready tact she turned to them and said—
“Will you not join us at tea? It is just coming out. We prefer having it brought here to going to the drawing-room; and the people are very kind about indulging us. We want to talk to you about a plan for to-morrow or the next day. We feel we have been idle long enough. We were thinking of taking the excursion to Camacha, and were hoping you would join us. Your daughter seemed pleased with the plan.”
There was something about Lady Dumaresq’s graceful and gracious manner that Mrs. Cossart could never resist. The frown faded from her brow, and she took the seat Ronald brought for her, preparing to be responsive, though she could not forget her regret in Effie’s absence; for naturally Sheila and Ronald consorted together, and they evidently had an infinite number of little jokes in common, and it seemed to her that little Guy made a very strong link between them.
“You know Camacha is a quaint little village lying behind that wooded hill we look at to the right,” said Lady Dumaresq indicating the direction. “It is one of the easy excursions, and it is much more often free from rain cloud than other places in the island. It is about two hours distant, whether we take horses or hammocks or a light carro. We think a picnic up there would be very agreeable. It will be a pleasure to us if your party will join us. The weather is so settled again just now that we feel we ought to take advantage of it.”
“Very kind, I am sure,” said Mr. Cossart heartily. “We shall be delighted to join you. I think I and my old lady had better have a carro, and perhaps two yoke of bullocks, and take the luncheon baskets with us. I suppose you young people will all ride. So would I have done at your age!”
“I think my aunt and my husband will have hammocks,” said Lady Dumaresq, “and I fancy your daughter inclined to that method also. I don’t know whether I can make up my mind to try one. I think I have a greater fancy for a horse.”
“It seems rather cruel work being carried by human bearers,” said Miss Adene. “I did not like it at all at first, but I got used to it. And as they say, it is the men’s livelihood. If visitors do not take hammocks, the bearers starve.”
“We’ll have horses,” cried Ronald, including himself, Sheila, Lady Dumaresq and little Guy in his glance. “Yes, I’ve seen Susa, and he’s got a good little pony, and the boy’s donkey saddle will fit on all right. We’ll take him along with us. The man will walk alongside all the time. Oh, he’ll be as safe as a tree! He’ll like it awfully, won’t you, boy?”
Guy cut capers and clapped his hands. He was a perfectly fearless morsel of humanity, and had ridden the old donkey at home ever since he could get his little legs across its broad back. At nearly four he was wild to have a pony and go with Uncle Ronald and Sheila, and they were equally eager to have him.
When Mr. and Mrs. Cossart went back to the hotel, it was in a more complaisant mood than they had left it.
“You see, my dear,” he said, “they are quite friendly to us.”
“Oh, yes, that is all right enough; but all the same I am not satisfied with the way things are going. I mean to make this excursion to Camacha something of a test case.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know what I mean myself. I mean to keep my eyes well open, and you can do the same. If I am not satisfied with what I see, I have quite made up my mind what to do.”
“And what is that?” asked her husband rather uneasily.
“To pack Sheila straight off home in the Dunraven Castle that is due next Monday or Tuesday.”
(To be continued.)
A Lover of the “G.O.P.”—1. Albert Loeschorn, a distinguished musical professor of Berlin, was born there in 1819. He was a pupil of Ludwig Berger, taught in Berlin, and has held chamber concerts there. His principal works consist of studies for the pianoforte. The title of “Royal Professor” was conferred upon him in 1868.—2. When a canary moults in July or August, be careful to keep him quiet and free from draughts. Give him once a week a very small quantity of raw beef scraped and moistened with water, with now and then a little of the yolk of hard-boiled eggs, a piece of sponge-cake, and ripe chickweed.
Mona.—1. Robert Browning’s poem “How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix” is founded on no historical incident, but describes a purely imaginary “ride.”—2. Our summer takes place when the earth is at aphelion (furthest from the sun) because the sun’s rays fall more vertically upon our part of the world at that time. Two questions are our limit.
B. F., Scotland, would like to correspond with an Italian girl. She is 15 years of age, very musical, and understands Latin, but not Italian. Would the Italian girl “write a letter in English with the corresponding Italian written below?”
Miss Margarethe Scholtz, 115, Friedrichstrasse, Berlin, a teacher, would like to correspond with another lady teacher, aged between 28 and 36. She “has no objection to writing to any foreign country.” Miss Scholtz says, “You would be surprised to see how many girls here read The Girl’s Own Paper.”
Flannel-Flower, New South Wales, “in the bush,” wishes to arrange a correspondence with a French girl. She is 25, fond of reading and music, the French language and literature. She would write in English, the correspondent in French.
Miss Margaret Speir, Newton Farm, Newton, Glasgow, wishes to correspond with a French and a German girl. She is 18, but her correspondents might be a few years older or younger.
“Louisa,” Aberdeen, who is studying French, would like to correspond with a French girl about her own age (16). The correspondent might write either in English or French, but “Louisa” would write in French.
Miss Anice Cress has received no less than twelve letters from Roumania, Belgium, France, and England, and says, “I feel that life is indeed pleasant when I receive such kind, interesting, and instructive letters from my dear fellow readers and correspondents.”
Miss Ruth E. A. Perritt, 59, Elmbank Street, Glasgow, is anxious to correspond regularly with a young French lady of her own age (17). We hope some French girls will reply to our Scottish correspondents.
Miss Emily Jacob, Belfield, Raheny, Co. Dublin (a typewriter, etc.), and Miss F. Bartram, Pleasant View, Clay Lane, Clay Cross, Derbyshire, offer to correspond with “Nellie.”
Mrs. Barnard, Coomooboolaroo, Duaringa, Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia, sends us six pictorial postcards for “O Mimosa San,” and asks for “a few bridges in exchange.” We cannot, as we have often said, undertake any postal communication in connection with this column, and have not “O Mimosa San’s” address.
Aileen Jacques (aged 13½), Queen Street, Tramore, Co. Waterford, Ireland, wishes to correspond with a French girl of her own age, each to write the other’s language.
Miss Ethel Kneeshaw, Pembina, North Dakota, U.S.A., would like to exchange duplicate stamps with Mademoiselle François. Why does she not write to her direct? Her address has been given more than once.
Carmen would like to correspond with a Spanish girl of good family, about her own age (18). Address: Maria Ricciardi, Madonna dell’ Aiuto, 28, Naples, Italy.
Miss Marie Durazzo, Piazza Meridiana 2, Genoa, Italy, will send an illustrated post-card to any reader of The Girl’s Own Paper who will send her one.
L. K. B. (not proficient in French) desires to correspond with a young French lady, and would correct her English letters.
Excelsior is very anxious to study mathematics, Latin, and French by correspondence. She would help in all English subjects in return, and adds also, “perhaps some lonely girl in a land across the sea might be pleased to have letters telling of our great England, sent regularly.” We quote a sentence or two from her letter to the Editor: “The Girl’s Own has been my very own paper since 1890; and however lonely or tired I may feel, it needs but the new number of The Girl’s Own to put new life into me. If we could but gather round you, what a babel there would be! Girls can talk, and what a great deal we should wish to say!”
Sunshine wishes to correspond in English with an Irish, Scotch, or French girl of 15 or 16. Address: Miss L. Handson, 84, Cartergate, Great Grimsby, Lincolnshire.
Miss M. Theyne, Wiedendamm 2, Riga, Russia, a Russian girl aged 22, wishes to correspond with “Laura” (March). We thank her for her pleasant letter.
E. Messent.—We have over and over again said that we know of no really efficient and safe way of permanently removing superfluous hairs from the face. All chemical epilators are either injurious to the skin, or are else useless; indeed, most of them are both. It is obvious that no chemical depilatory can be safe to use, for to prevent the growth of hair it must destroy the hair root, and as the hair root is placed deeply in the skin, the chemical has got to deeply destroy the skin before it can commence its work. We know of many epilators which will destroy the skin of the face, but not one of them can be trusted even to injure the hair roots! Then as regards electrolysis, we know it is frequently used for destroying hairs, but it is not one case in a hundred that this treatment can benefit. It can permanently remove half-a-dozen hairs or so, but as to destroying a beard or moustache, why you would have to have generation after generation of electrolysers at work before all the hair was destroyed. And even where electrolysis is practised, a permanent cure is exceedingly uncommon, and the expense of this treatment is very considerable. But if you cannot permanently remove unwelcome hairs, you can with ease destroy them temporarily either by pulling them out or by cutting them down. The latter is by far the best way of removing superfluous hairs, and is the only way which is absolutely safe.
J. H. R.—1. Powdered boracic acid is very useful for those who suffer from excessive perspiration. Another powder consisting of one part of salicylic acid to ninety-nine parts of powdered silica, is also frequently used for the same purpose.—2. Liquid ammonia is a very good preparation with which to soften hard water. Ordinary household ammonia is quite equal to the various patent preparations. About a tablespoonful of strong ammonia will soften about twenty gallons of London water. Failing ammonia, common washing soda is as good as anything, and is certainly cheap enough for everybody. You can easily tell if you have added enough of the ammonia or soda to the water by feeling it with the hand, when the hard feel of ordinary tap water gives place to the unctuous feel of soft water.
Janet.—It is quite impossible to say what is causing noises in the ear without a personal interview. Many conditions, some slight, some grave, produce this symptom, and the necessity for a careful diagnosis is obvious. We would, therefore, be doing you an injustice to attempt to “cure” you. You must go to an aurist and get his opinion on the matter. A course of quinine might do you good, but very likely it would only make you worse.
Ariel.—Sarsaparilla is one of those drugs whose action upon the human organism is practically nil! Indeed, it is not too much to say that, if taken by a man in any quantities, it will produce no effect whatever. It is no new remedy; it has been tried and tried, and found wanting. The decoction of sarsa has a decided action, but it is due to the water in it, and not to the sarsaparilla!
Henrietta.—The symptom you mention is one of the manifestations of the milder degrees of hysteria. A little rigid mental training would soon cure you.
Inexperienced.—The best temperature for a working room is between 55° F. and 60° F. For a bedroom, between 50° F. and 55° F. For the sick-room for ordinary cases, between 55° F. and 65° F. For some respiratory diseases, the temperature must be kept between 62° F. and 70° F. In these diseases the temperature must be kept constant, great care being taken that the room does not get cold in the early hours of the morning.
Country Mouse.—Earache is by no means always due to trouble with the ear. Indeed, pain of any kind is an uncommon symptom of ear disease, and it is only in acute inflammation of the drum that pain is at all common. Earache is most often a “referred pain,” that is, it is a pain in one nerve due to irritation of another nerve connected with it. This phenomenon of referred pain is exceedingly common. The nerve which chiefly supplies the skin about the ear is a branch of the inferior dental nerve, which supplies the sensation to the lower teeth. Consequently the presence of carious teeth in the lower jaw is an exceedingly common cause of earache, and is for certain the cause of the pain which you suffer. You can tell whether pain about the ear is due to ear trouble or to this referred pain, because in the former case the pain is deeply seated, whereas in referred pain the pain is situated in the skin about the ear. Moreover, in this latter case the skin about the ear may be acutely tender.
Mrs. C——s.—You give no pseudonym. In the Annotated Bible there is a note on this subject which points out that Nahash may have been another name of Jesse, the father of David. The ancient Jews are said to have thought that Abigail and Zeruiah were daughters of David’s mother by Nahash, King of Ammon, before her marriage with Jesse, as it is not said they were daughters of Jesse anywhere, although they are called sisters of David. All this is, however, conjectural. Nahash means a serpent.
Anna Maria.—1. You would require a proper butter-mould for it.—2. It is never proper to shorten words, such as “cd.,” “wld.,” “wk.” for work, or “tly.” for truly, at least in writing letters. If your time be so limited, it is better to put off writing your letter till you have more time. Such abbreviations are only intended for business men, and are wholly unnecessary in polite letter-writing.
Dowdney.—We have not heard of any lady veterinary surgeons, nor do we find that there is any opening for their education as yet. Why spell Britain as “Brittian”? The rest of your letter is quite correct. The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons is at 10, Red Lion Square, W.C. Write and inquire of the Secretary.
Open Sesame.—We think the best plan is to go to a good and trustworthy hairdresser, if you have determined to have your hair dyed, but we will give you an old-fashioned hair “restorer” or “darkener,” as follows:—rust of iron, 1 drachm, old ale, strong and unsweetened, 1 pint, oil of rosemary, 12 drops. Put this mixture into a bottle, cork very loosely, agitate it daily for ten or twelve days, then after an hour’s waiting, decant the clear portion for use. Rain water may be substituted for the ale if you wish it. This mixture will ironmould linen clothes.
Petite.—1. It is very difficult to deal with a scratched surface of leather. A kid-restorer will sometimes answer the purpose, or one of the creams sold for Russia leather. White of egg will also act as a restorer, and you might stain the scratches with a green paint.—2. As to your second question, we are of opinion that you would do best by joining the University Correspondence College, 32, Red Lion Square, W.C., particularly as you live so far from London. You could write for terms.
Effie.—The loosened back of your book could only be tightened by a binder, and perhaps not even by him, unless he took the back off, when it could be done.
Lonely One.—Judging from your letter and its story only, we should say you were very well rid of such a half-hearted lover. And now, we think that at twenty-six, with a delightful profession to occupy you, you ought to be a thankful and happy girl. Throw yourself into your work with your whole heart. Discourage all repining and sorrowful thoughts; be resolute and determined, until your mind shall gain strength and its normal power again. Take plenty of fresh air and exercise, and look only on the sunny side of life. God helps those who help themselves; and He will help you to a happy life.
E. B. H.—We should think that your weight was about normal, if tall for your age. Has anyone been teasing you about it? Don’t mind, you can practise how to preserve a good temper under difficulties. The name Emma is of very ancient date. It comes from the Latin amata, signifying loved; and was used as a name of honour in the days of ancient Rome, when it was bestowed on the newly-consecrated vestal by the high priest. It is neither ugly nor common, so far as we can see. You have been taking “chaff” too seriously.
Muriel.—We suppose that the stains on the teacups are caused by tea; if so, rubbing them well with salt will take them off; and they will sometimes come off when merely scraped with a knife.
Annie.—A housemaid in a gentleman’s house would need three cotton dresses, half-a-dozen linen, and half-a-dozen lawn or muslin aprons, and a good black gown for afternoon wear. If you are one of two or three maids, you are under the upper housemaid, and she will instruct you in your duties. These would differ in every house respectively.
Ayesha.—Your writing is very fairly good. The blue velveteen must be cleaned with benzine, or some French chalk, which take out the grease—the latter rubbed in on the wrong side.
Florence.—Lawyer is a general term which comprehends attorneys, solicitors, barristers, and advocates. A barrister is a councillor, qualified and admitted to plead at the Bar, and to take upon him the defence of clients. He is also a conveyancer. An attorney-at-law is an officer of a court of law, legally qualified to prosecute and defend actions in such court, on the retainer of clients. He answers to the solicitor in Chancery, and the proctor in Ecclesiastical and Admiralty courts, and all are comprehended under the general term lawyer.
C. H. M. B.—1. If calling on a lady living with her brother, you would leave two of your husband’s cards.—2. The lady herself, in calling on you, would, of course, leave cards for her brother.
Floss.—1. We are much obliged by your kind expression of opinion concerning our paper.—2. The only way to improve your writing is to go back to copies and improve each letter as it comes.
[Transcriber’s Note—the following changes have been made to this text.
Page 710: tho to those—“those made of”.
Page 713: soverigns to sovereigns—“Nine hard sovereigns”.
Page 714: Anne to Ann—“to cook and Ann”.
Page 720: you to your—“your husband’s cards”.]