The Girl’s Own Paper, Vol. XX. No. 1028

To Boil an Egg.

Method.—Have ready a saucepan of boiling water and put in the egg carefully with a spoon, taking care not to break the shell. Boil three minutes and a half for a soft-boiled egg, six minutes for a moderately hard one, and ten minutes for a hard-boiled egg.

To Poach an Egg.

Method.—Break the egg into a cup, take away the tread, slip the egg quickly and carefully into a pan containing boiling water, holding the cup near to the side of the pan as you put it in; see that the egg is well covered with the boiling water; as soon as the white begins to set, raise the egg on a fish-slice, let the water drain away and slip it on to a small piece of hot buttered toast.

Brown Thickening.

Method.—Melt a pound of dripping slowly in a large frying-pan and stir in by degrees a pound of flour; let this cook very gently over a slow fire until it is a good dark brown; stir well from time to time and do not let it burn. This will take about an hour to make. It will keep a very long time.

Browning.

Method.—Put half a pound of brown sugar in an old tin or saucepan and let it burn nearly black over a fire, stir in a gill of boiling water, let it cool, and bottle for use.

To Blanch Barley.

Method.—Put it in a saucepan of cold water, bring to the boil, and throw the water away.

To Boil Rice.

Method.—Wash the rice well, and cook it in fast boiling water with the lid off for twelve minutes. Pour some cold water into the saucepan, and then drain the rice off on to a sieve. Return to the saucepan, and let it dry well on or near the stove. Shake the saucepan well, and take care that the rice does not burn or stick together.

To Make Tea.

Method.—Warm the teapot by pouring in a little boiling water; empty it out and put in the tea, allowing about two teaspoonfuls to every three people, if the number requiring tea be more than three. For two allow three teaspoonfuls. Pour on the boiling water, and let it stand three minutes.

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A TRUE STORY OF NEW YORK LIFE.

By N. O. LORIMER.

In the luxurious house Marjorie and Sadie did not miss their mother as Ada did; indeed it was a delightful change for them to have so much of their sister’s society. She was more amusing than their mother, and understood their games better. When they heard that their mother had gone away to a hospital to be taken care of and made well again they said they were “dreadfully sorry,” but that was partly because sister Ada looked so sad, and partly because it was polite to say so. About a week after her mother had left her home Ada was startled one evening by the old butler, an Englishman, coming up to her while she was waiting for her father to come down to dinner, and saying in a hushed voice, “Will you wait any longer, miss? I don’t think the master will come home to dinner.”

“Then serve it at once,” Ada said; “but why do you think he will not return?”

“He left the house last night, miss, after you had gone to bed, and he has not been seen since.”

Ada’s heart stood still. “Not been seen since! What do you mean? Has he not been at his office? Perhaps he is with my mother?”

“I don’t think so, miss. Have you not seen the evening papers?” The man held a copy behind his back, Ada heard it rustle.

“Give it me,” she cried, as she put one hand on the handsomely carved pedestal which held a statue of the dancing fawn to steady herself.

“I’m sorry, miss, to be the one to hand it to you, but the whole city knows it by this time. It can’t be hid from you much longer.”

The girl looked at him with a kindly pity in her eyes. She was sorrier for him at that moment than for herself. He was a faithful old servant who had been with them since she was a baby. He handed her the paper and went softly from the room, having the delicacy to feel that it was not the place even of an old servant to see his young mistress’s sorrow.

“He’s a low skunking hound,” he said to himself, “if he is my master, to leave the pretty bit of a creature like that with those two children on her hands. Whatever will happen to them, I don’t know. There’s about enough money in the house to pay off all these miserable servants, and not much more. It’s the dirtiest trick I ever saw played. It was the disgrace and shock that sent his poor wife off her head, him living like a prince while he’s been defrauding poor widows and children.”

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About a month from that day pretty Ada Nicoli, who had been brought up to look upon herself as an heiress, started out through the city of New York to try and find some means of livelihood for herself and her two little sisters. Her mother’s little fortune brought in just enough money to pay for her residence in the comfortable asylum to which she had gone before the terrible exposure of Mr. Nicoli’s failure had been made public, and to pay the weekly board for Ada and her two sisters at a plain middle-class boarding-house in East Thirty-second Street.

Ada had tried offering herself as a music teacher, for she played well and liked music, but wherever she went she was asked whom she had studied under, and if she had been taught in Germany. So to-day she was bent on another mission. She had put her pride still further down in her pocket, but unconsciously her pretty chin was tilted a little higher. She had to walk now—her tender feet were tired and weary—where she had once dashed along in a smart carriage. When she arrived at a part of the town which was little occupied by shops her steps slackened. She was thinking what she would say when she reached Madame Maude’s, the fashionable milliner from whom she had been accustomed to buy her hats. Madame Maude had only one window to her shop, which was curtained and lined with red velvet. The simple sailor hat, one black toque, and a white feather boa displayed in it gave the ignorant public little idea of the fact that almost every time the door bell rang to admit a customer, it meant that Madame Maude was fifty dollars the richer. Ada stopped a moment and looked at the window. How often she had gone with her mother to the shop and come away with some pretty flowery hat without even asking the price of it. And now she sighed, for the price of one of those hats would pay for a term of Marjorie’s lessons at school. They must be educated, the girl cried in her heart, and they must be brought up as her mother’s children ought to be, even if they had to work afterwards. She would not let them grow up as shop-girls from childhood. She opened the door and found herself inside the shop with no words ready to meet the question of the young girl who came forward.

“Can I see Madame Maude?” she asked nervously. “I wish to speak to her alone.”

The girl stared at Ada’s perfectly-fitting dress, robbed of all its luxurious trimmings, as being unsuitable for her present position. Madame Maude came forward and told the girl to retire.

“What can I do for you?” she said kindly; she knew that the large bill still standing in Mrs. Nicoli’s name would never be paid, but Mrs. Nicoli had been a good customer in the days gone by, and for once a woman was grateful for favours past.

“You have heard of our sad trouble,” Ada began, “the world has painted it even blacker than it is, so there is no need for me to tell you what a terrible position I am in. I must make money somehow. I have tried in so many ways and failed. I came to ask you if you knew of any position in a business house that I could fill. I would not mind how hard I worked.” She looked so unlike hard work that Madame Maude’s heart was touched by her appeal which was so pathetically ignorant.

“What can you do?” she said, wondering what the girl called “hard work.”

“I don’t know,” Ada replied in a shamefaced way, “for I have never tried, but I think I could learn millinery very quickly.”

“My dear child,” the elder woman said, “you don’t know what you are saying. Do you know that my best hand was apprenticed for three years before she received a dollar; the next year she got a little more than a dollar a week, the fifth year she went to Paris and studied for a year and a half. She is not only a milliner but an artist; it takes years to acquire the knowledge, and I pay her accordingly. My hats are not made by girls who have trimmed up their old hats at home.”

Ada looked crestfallen. “I never thought of all that; I only know that your hats are always in perfect taste.”

Madame Maude had been looking at her while she spoke. “If you won’t be offended, I’ll make you an offer,” she said.

Ada bent her head in answer. She was willing to sweep the floors if she had been asked. She had spent her last dollar, and the washing-bill was not paid for last week, and Sadie had started a bad cough which demanded a tonic, and tonics have to be paid for.

“If you will come here and act as saleswoman,” Madame Maude said, “I will pay you well.”

“Oh, how kind of you!” the girl cried. “Of course I can’t be offended.” It was such a nice, quiet little shop, quite a private house; there was nothing to shock her in the suggestion.

“Stop a bit,” Madame Maude said, “till you hear what that means. I won’t pay you fifteen dollars a week for merely handing a customer a hat, and telling her the price—you’ve got to make her buy it.”

“How can I?” Ada said, in a mystified voice.

“I’ll tell you,” Madame Maude explained; and she took a lovely hat from a drawer, and put it on her own head. Her face was broad and homely, and the hat did not suit her either well or badly.

“Look at me in this hat,” she said, “and imagine I am the customer.”

Ada looked.

“Now look at yourself in it,” and she placed the hat on Ada’s head of shining hair.

Ada smiled, a half-pleased, half-bashful smile.

“Now when the customer says she does not think the hat will do—she is afraid it does not suit her—and you have seen that it is the hat she is hankering after, say quite casually, ‘I’m sorry, madam, you don’t like it,’ and put it on your own head. Move about the room in it, and let her see how charming it is. In a few moments she will have forgotten how she herself looked in it, and will fondly imagine that she will look like you, and the hat is sold.”

Ada’s face had fallen.

“Will you do it?” Madame Maude said. “It will be money easily earned; my saleswoman is leaving next week.”

“I am to make money by my face,” Ada cried, with a choking voice; “it’s so horrible.” But something was saying to her, “You must have money; you have spent your last dollar, except what will pay for your bare board. The children must go to school, and Sadie wants a tonic. She has a cough because she has been denied the luxuries she has been used to, and has had to walk to school in all sorts of weather.”

“Yes, I will come,” she said; “but what if I do not sell them as you expect?”

“I will risk that,” the woman said kindly, “for I know the value of a pretty face below a forty-dollar hat.”

When Ada found herself once again on Fifth Avenue, she could scarcely believe she was the same girl who had lived in the magnificent mansion at the other end of the town a few months ago, and had spent all her days in light-hearted amusement. She felt tired and depressed, and afraid of the position she had undertaken to fill.

When she reached home she found that Sadie and Marjorie had not yet come back from school. She was anxious about their delay, and stood on the doorstep looking up the street to try and catch a sight of them.

“Why do you fret yourself about those two children, bless your dear heart. They’re a deal better able to look after themselves than you are.”

One of the boarders was addressing Ada from the hall.

“They’re so young to be out alone,” Ada said. “They’ve always had someone to bring and take them from school.”

“Time they learnt to come and go alone, I guess. How long do you suppose you can go on working yourself to pieces, anyhow? If you want to do the best you can for these two young ’uns, bring them up to look after themselves. You were brought up like a sugar-plum, and you’re feeling it mighty bad now, I reckon, to be treated like pig-iron.”

“I know you mean kindly,” Ada said, “but at least I have had the benefit of refined surroundings in my youth. I can’t let little Sadie knock about like a street child.”

“Much like a street child she is, with her white starched petticoats, and dainty pinafores. It’s just killing you, child, that’s what it is, and coloured things are just as comfortable.”

“But we have only white things,” Ada said apologetically, “and I’m afraid I can’t buy any more just yet.”

“To be sure. I never thought of that,” the fat, good-natured boarder said laughingly. “What’s going to happen to you, child, when these fine things wear out. It does me good to look at your pretty figure in these well-cut gowns. But they won’t stand rough wear.”

Then Ada told her she was going to earn fifteen dollars a week at Madame Maude’s.

“You’ll have all the young men in the town coming to choose their sisters’ hats,” the boarder said, “and men are a deal more easily taken in than women folk. Madame Maude is a clever woman.”

(To be continued.)

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OCTOBER.

By LA MÉNAGÈRE.

Venison and pork are the “novelties” that we note in the markets this month, and also a splendid show of brocoli. It is also a grand time for cheeses, as many old-fashioned country fairs testify. This month dairy farmers will be busy bringing their cheeses into the right markets ready for the Christmas sales, and where cheeses are shown we usually see sausages and pork pies, also gingerbread. All these things are toothsome in October—the month of mellow days and frosty nights. We begin to get ready walnuts and chestnuts for Hallowe’en festivities, and we sort out our apples, some for cider, some for “biffins,” and some for preserving. We must now pickle our red cabbages, too, also onions, and see that potatoes are stored. Those who have good keeping places, even in town, may now invest in sacks of potatoes, and bushels of apples, as this is the time for getting these at a cheaper rate than will be possible later on. Housewives in the country who have piggies to dispose of for bacon will be thinking of turning the poor animals into that useful commodity.

There is also the harvesting of the flower-seeds and roots, and much work is done in the flower garden preparatory for the next spring. Indeed, this is altogether one of the busiest months of all the year. Nature has not yet gone to sleep, although she is preparing for her winter’s rest.

We may now begin to bring into use some of our dishes of heat-giving foods such as we keep for winter days, not as a regular thing, perhaps, but occasionally. For instance, we may commence having porridge for breakfast, warm puddings, good vegetable soups, honey and treacle to our bread. Roast goose and apple sauce will be a favourite dish with many now, and, indeed, geese are better at this time than later, as they are neither so rich nor so fat.

So will also game pie be. Indeed, ever since Friar Tuck feasted the disguised Cœur de Lion upon this dish (which then was called game pasty) in the heart of Sherwood Forest, it has been a dish beloved of all Englishmen. Perhaps it may not be amiss to give it here in detail.

Game Pie.—A very good short or raised crust is used to line the bottom and sides of the mould. For the upper crust it is usual to use puff pastry, although the raised crust is quite good enough. Place first a layer of small pieces of rump steak, then of venison steaks, trimmed and rubbed with spice, salt and pepper. Next some joints of hare, partridge, or other game, and fill up all spaces with highly-flavoured forcemeat. Add a little gravy, and cover the dish closely, but not with the crust; this should be put on when the pie is rather more than half cooked. Glaze this and ornament it when nearly finished cooking.

A very good imitation of a game pie may be made entirely without game, by using veal and steak together, and adding plenty of well-made forcemeat. As the gaminess will depend on this forcemeat, it will be well to show what this is composed of.

Half-a-pound of calf’s liver and as much good ham should be baked in the oven in a covered vessel until perfectly tender. Pound these together in a mortar to a smooth paste. Add a large tablespoonful of finely-powdered herbs—thyme, marjoram, sage, savoury, and tarragon—all these, or as many of them as possible. Add also cayenne pepper, salt, and a few chopped mushrooms. Mix very thoroughly, and place little balls of this and quarters of hard-boiled eggs at intervals with the meat, then put in a little strong gravy, place the top crust on, and bake the pie in a baker’s oven until of a good deep brown. When eaten cold this is uncommonly good.

A breakfast dish met with in Yorkshire, but not, I believe, elsewhere, is a Covered Apple Tart, and very good it is, either hot or cold. The crust would be ordinary short or flaky paste rolled out to about a quarter of an inch thick. On the lower crust a thick layer of stewed, sweetened, and spiced apple is placed, the top crust put on, the edges crimped together, and melted butter brushed over all, then well baked.

Hominy cakes with honey, and oatmeal batter-cakes, are delicious for breakfast also.

We should not omit also to have plenty of roasted apples at all times while they are so good, and the smaller pears and apples will be very good eating indeed if they are baked in a stone jar in a baker’s oven.

A good dinner menu for October would be the following:—

Potato Soup, with Grated Cheese.
Gurnet, Baked and Stuffed.
Roast Loin of Pork. Apple Sauce.
Brocoli and Baked Potatoes.
Wild Duck. Orange Salad. Cranberry Jelly.
Cabinet Pudding.
Cheese. Biscuits. Butter.

Potato Soup.—Peel, boil and mash half-a-dozen potatoes, and slice up a small Spanish onion into a little butter, which should cook while the potatoes are boiling. Put all together, and add a pint of boiling milk, a spoonful of flour mixed smooth with milk, and boil together. Season with pepper and salt, and if not already too thick add a little cream. Serve very hot with grated cheese in a separate dish.

The Gurnet are stuffed with a mixture of chopped shallot, parsley, herbs, breadcrumbs, butter, seasoning, and an egg. Grate breadcrumbs over, and pour on them a little oiled butter, and bake in a fairly quick oven for about twenty minutes or half an hour. Serve in the same dish if it is a nice one.

Wild Duck require very quick roasting and frequent basting. Garnish them with a lemon cut in quarters, and serve any gravy that may have run from them in a tureen.

Orange Salad is made by slicing peeled oranges, freeing them from pips, and covering the slices with a little sugar.

Cabinet Pudding.—Put a pint of new milk on to boil with two spoonfuls of sugar and the rind of a fresh lemon; then add it to three well-beaten eggs. Butter a mould, and decorate the bottom and sides with strips of candied peel, stoned raisins, etc. Fill with alternate layers of sliced sponge cake and raisins. Pour the custard over, and let it soak for an hour or so, then cover with buttered paper, and steam the pudding gently for an hour and a half.

If this pudding were for eating cold (and it is quite as good so), a little dissolved gelatine should be added to the custard before pouring it over the cake. A few macaroons give a nice flavour to a cold pudding.

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A STORY FOR GIRLS

By EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN, Author of “Greyfriars,” “Half-a-Dozen Sisters,” etc.

SUNSHINE.

It was a balmy day at the end of April, and in the great conservatory at Monckton Manor a little group of people had established themselves amongst the tall ferns and flowers, and girlish voices and laughter mingled with the plash of the fountain in the centre of the warm fragrant place.

Upon a cane lounge lay Oscar, white and thin, and frail of aspect, yet with something of the vigour and animation of returning health, which was very visible to those who had watched tremblingly beside him during the weeks of his tedious illness.

Sheila and May Lawrence sat near him, chatting with the ease and familiarity of an intimate friendship. It had long been May’s most cherished plan that so soon as Oscar should be strong enough for the move, he should be transported to Monckton Manor; and her mother had fallen in with the idea so soon as she had been assured on medical testimony that there was no fear of his bringing infection into the house.

So a fortnight ago the move had been made, and out in the pure fresh air of the country, away from the noise and bustle of the streets and a busy household, Oscar had made a fresh start, and had surprised everybody by the rapidity with which he gained ground.

For a week past he had almost lived in the conservatory, which, with its evenly regulated atmosphere, its sweet flower scents and the sensation of airiness and freshness, was almost like a new world to the invalid. He felt as though he were living out of doors “in Madeira,” as he would smilingly say; and then he and May would get Sheila to tell of beautiful Madeira, its rainbows, its flowers, its sunshine and long cloudless days; and Oscar would lie listening and dreaming, till he felt as though he were living the life there himself.

And Sheila, talking with absolute freedom to the brother with whom she had always shared her thoughts, and from whom she had never kept a secret, and to the girl-friend whom she now felt as though she had always known, soon talked away every bit of bitterness or vexation, and would enjoy a hearty laugh with her companions over the little weaknesses of her aunt, and think instead of her devotion to her daughter, which had led her into some comical errors. Since Sheila had learned to forget herself, to lose the sense of her own little wrongs, to feel everything merged in the great ocean of the unchangeable love which had wrapped her round in the hour of her keenest need, and had given her back her brother from the very gates of the grave, it had been so easy to forgive and forget. All the bitterness had been washed away. She was ashamed to think how angry she once had been. Everything else had looked so small, so insignificant, when seen in the light of the solemn realities of life. And although now the graver mood had passed, and with a rebound of nature, Sheila was her own bright laughing self again, yet there was a new sweetness in her smile, and new softness in her manner, and Oscar would lie and look at her in a great content, wondering what the change was and whence it had come.

“Here is North!” cried Sheila, suddenly springing up to get a better view through the palm leaves, whilst a bright flush suddenly rose in May’s cheeks, and the light leaped into her eyes. “I suppose he has come to see Oscar; really he is wonderfully attentive just now. He comes very often.”

May’s eyes were dancing, as she looked eagerly towards the advancing figure; and though his errand was ostensibly to ask for the invalid, it was to her face that his eyes first leapt as he made his way towards them.

Oscar had no need to expatiate upon his progress, his face spoke for him, and North looked satisfied and pleased.

“My father wants to see you, Oscar, when you are a little stronger. He has several things to say to you. That bit of mystery about the bill has all been cleared up. He wants to speak of it to you once, and then bury the miserable business in oblivion.”

Oscar’s colour came and went. Sheila clasped her hands together in excitement, and May’s flush deepened in her cheeks as she asked softly—

“Shall I go away whilst you talk it over?”

But North shook his head.

“There is no need for that, I think. You are Sheila’s friend, and I expect you know all that we have done for some while. Of course, it is very painful for us, but the truth must not be ignored. Suspicion cannot be permitted to attach to Oscar. Even though Cyril is my father’s son, he must not be screened at the expense of another.”

“I am so sorry!” breathed May softly.

“Yes; it has been a heavy blow to both my father and mother. The chief hope is, that having had his eyes thoroughly opened, my father may see that a different method must be pursued with Cyril. Temptation has come to him through opportunity. If the conditions are changed, things may be better, for he is, I trust, sincerely ashamed and repentant at last. It has been a miserable business looking into his affairs this past year, but we have got to the bottom of things now, and I feel sure his eyes have been thoroughly opened, and our mother’s grief has touched his heart. I hope this is the end of trouble.”

“Oh, I hope so—I do hope so!” breathed Sheila softly.

“And I was still to blame,” said Oscar. “I ought never to have let the money out of my hands.”

“Well, so I say,” answered North, with a smile, “but my father exonerates you even there. He says that he would not have hesitated to place it in Cyril’s hands himself, and would have taken a receipt from him without scrutiny; and he cannot blame you for what he would have done himself without a thought. However, that can rest now. What my father wishes is to come and see you, afterwards to briefly explain the matter in the office to those who know the circumstances, during Cyril’s absence, and then to try and forget the whole business and speak of it no more.”

“Is Cyril going away?” asked Sheila quickly.

“Yes, for a time; and to Madeira first. Our uncle has just written, inviting him rather pressingly. It seems that he has been rather bitten by the tales of travel he has heard from the visitors there, and he wants to see a little more of the world before returning home. Aunt Cossart and Effie do not share this desire, and they will shortly come home together in the mail; but he wants to go to the Canary Islands, and then take a boat for the Mediterranean, and see some of the African ports, and Spain and perhaps something of Italy, before he gets back; and he wants Cyril for his travelling companion.”

“Fancy Uncle Cossart turning into a globe-trotter!” cried Sheila merrily. “But how nice for Cyril!”

“Yes, it seems just the thing for the time being. He will be better away for a little while, and we shall know that he is in safe keeping. My father will write a full account of everything to our uncle—that is only right. But he has always been a favourite with them, and they will be glad to help us out of a present difficulty by taking him off, away from his old companions, and giving him something to do in playing courier to Uncle Cossart. Cyril is a good traveller and speaks several languages with a fair fluency. He is as much pleased with the prospect as he could be with anything in his present frame of mind.”

“And are Aunt Cossart and Effie coming home?” asked Sheila with interest.

“Yes, by the next mail after Cyril arrives there. Effie is so much better that there is no need to keep her out any longer, and our aunt is beginning to tire of hotel life, and to want to get back to her own home again. She wants you and Oscar to be there to welcome them, Sheila; and invites Oscar for the whole summer. She thinks he would be much better a little way out of the town after his illness, even when he is well and at the office again; and she says that the dog-cart or a riding horse will always be at his disposal to take him backwards and forwards.”

“Oh, how kind of her!” cried Oscar, with a look of animation and pleasure in his face; and Sheila felt her own cheeks growing hot. She remembered her angry words of a few months back—“I will never forgive Aunt Cossart. I will never, never live at Cossart Place again!”—and a wave of self-reproach and humility swept over her, as she realised how hasty she had been in judging and condemning.

Her aunt might not always be very wise, or even quite just; but she was very kind of heart. If her fondness for her daughter made her foolish sometimes, she could show at others a very tender consideration and thoughtfulness.

“It would be splendid for Oscar,” she said softly; “I should like to send a letter to Aunt Cossart by Cyril. I’m afraid I have not always been quite nice to her and Effie; but I will try to be better now.”

Oscar flashed a look at her that brought sudden tears to her eyes, and May, seeming to divine that they wanted to talk to each other, suggested that North should come and see the daffodils in the copse; they were looking so lovely in this flood of spring sunshine.

“Oh, Oscar,” cried Sheila, as soon as they were alone, “I do feel so ashamed!”

He knew what she meant, and answered smiling—

“Well, you know, it was rather hard lines on you after all; and you only let fly to me. Nobody else knows; and you tell me you said hardly anything to Aunt Cossart before leaving.”

“No, I was too angry, too miserable. I knew if I talked I should cry. But, oh, how furious I was with her in my heart!”

“That was bad; but we all have our falls. You have not been furious now for a long while; and I hope you will not be tempted again.”

“Oh, I hope not—I hope I know better. But, Oscar, if it had not been for your being ill directly, and everything else going out of my head, I should have talked to Ray and everybody as I did to you. My head was full of the things I meant to say; and how I never, never, never would go to Cossart Place, or be with Effie, or do anything they wanted me to any more! Think if I had had it all out to them; and then this kind letter from Aunt Cossart, thinking of such a splendid plan for you! Oh, how miserable and ashamed I should have been. I am rather now; but it would have been ten times worse then!”

“Yes; so I suppose we had better try and learn to keep our hot angry thoughts to ourselves,” said Oscar thoughtfully, “and fight them down, and see what they are really like before we try and let fly! Looking back at things, I’ve often been sorry for speaking hastily; but I don’t think I’ve ever been sorry for holding my tongue, when it would have been rather a satisfaction to let it run away with me!”

“My tongue was always a more unruly member than yours, Oscar,” said Sheila with a smile and a sigh, “but I will try to keep it more under control; and, oh, it will not be difficult when we are together. We shall have such lovely times up there. It really is a nice place; only it was dull before. But if you are there every evening, it will always be something to look forward to. And oh, Oscar, isn’t it good that you are cleared! I had almost forgotten that—because I think in the end nobody at home believed it of you. But I am so glad uncle knows everything; though how could Cyril do it?”

“I suppose he was very much tempted. I am afraid he got into bad company and was in great straits lest exposure should follow. It is easy for us who are not tempted in that way to be very much horrified; but we have our own falls into our besetting sins. That should make us very careful how we judge other people. Should we do better in like case?”

Sheila was silent and thoughtful; she could not believe for a moment that her brother could ever fall into such a transgression; but it came to her that probably Cyril had not fallen all at once, but had given way little by little to what seemed like venial sins, till at last it had been easy to commit one from which at the outset he would have shrunk in horror.

“Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer!” The words seemed to be spoken in her ear; and she realised with a start of shame and horror her own spasms of bitter hatred. If she had given way to her impulses of anger, if she had blindly followed her own impulsive thoughts and purposes, what family breach might not have taken place—what bitterness might not have been aroused? In her heart—in the sight of God—she might have been a murderer!

She buried her face in her hands, and was silent; and Oscar, who was also very thoughtful, spoke no word. He was thinking himself to what proportions his own carelessness and shiftlessness might have grown, had it not been that the sharp lesson met with had pulled him up short.

It seemed long before the other pair rejoined them; and then North had only time to say a hasty farewell and walk off to the works again. He had stolen an opportunity when things were a little slack to make his visit; but he wished to be back before closing time.

“Oscar must have his beef-tea and a nap,” May decreed with an air of sovereignty which became her well. “Ah, and here it comes. And then you and I will take a stroll together, Sheila. It is so lovely out of doors!”

The excitement of North’s visit had disposed Oscar for a rest now that it was over, and he settled himself contentedly after he had taken his kitchen physic. The two girls left him to sleep, and passed out into the sunshine together.

Sheila talked eagerly of the future and her delight in having Oscar with her for the summer. May assented cordially and gladly; but went off into a brown study afterwards, giving her answers at random. At last Sheila stopped short laughing and looked at her. Something in her face bespoke such a vivid happiness that she was half startled.

“May, what is it? What has happened?” she asked; and the smile which broke over May’s face was brighter than the sunshine itself.

“That is what I want to tell you. That is what I got you out here for. I am the happiest girl in all the world. North has told me that he loves me. He has asked me to be his wife!”

(To be continued.)

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