The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX. No. 1012, May 20, 1899

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Title: The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX. No. 1012, May 20, 1899

Author: Various

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Most recently updated: October 17, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL'S OWN PAPER, VOL. XX. NO. 1012, MAY 20, 1899 ***

THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER

Vol. XX.—No. 1012.]

[Price One Penny.

MAY 20, 1899.

[Transcriber’s Note: This Table of Contents was not present in the original.]

THE SEA AND THE ROCKS.
SHEILA.
OLD ENGLISH COTTAGE HOMES.
LETTERS FROM A LAWYER.
GIRLS AS I HAVE KNOWN THEM.
EMBROIDERY WITH CHENILLE.
“OUR HERO.”
OUR LILY GARDEN.
THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

THE SEA AND THE ROCKS.

By WILLIAM LUFF.

THE OTHER SHORE.

All rights reserved.]

I watched the waves as they kissed the rocks,

And linked their hands behind them,

As if to draw to the deep blue sea,

Where no searching eye could find them.

But rocks were firm, and the waves though strong

Were foiled in their kind endeavour;

Then what they could not change they bathed,

And rising higher ever,

They came and came, till they covered o’er

The black old rocks of that stubborn shore.

They were there the same as of old, I knew,

But hidden now with a robe of blue.

We all find rocks on the shores of life,

Dark rocks and stubborn often.

We pray, but never a rock will move—

Hard rocks that no sea will soften;

But lo, the ocean of love and grace

Is linking its arms behind them;

The waters rise in their vast embrace,

Till troubles—we cannot find them.

I know they are there as they were before;

But we see them not, they are covered o’er.

And all that rises before our view,

Is God’s deep ocean of boundless blue.

SHEILA.

A STORY FOR GIRLS.

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

CHAPTER VII.

IN RIVER STREET.

“Well, Oscar, I’ve just this one bit of advice to give you,” said North, as the pair walked homewards from the works. “Don’t you be too easy-going.”

“Am I too easy-going?” asked Oscar with a smile. “How?”

“Well, I think you are a bit. It’s easier to see that sort of thing than to define it. You don’t stick sufficiently tight to your own work. No, no, don’t think I mean you idle; you don’t, but you’ll do the other fellows’ work for them when they are larking, and let them take a turn at yours when you want to be off to the electrical works. The office was always a bit too free and easy, and we wanted to stiffen it up by putting you in. But if anything it’s got worse.”

Oscar laughed a little. North’s friendly manner relieved him of the fear that he had given dissatisfaction with his own share in what was required of him. He had been really doing his best, and had learned a great deal during the past months.

“It seems friendlier, somehow,” he said. “They are all nice fellows, and we work amicably together. I didn’t know it mattered sharing the work. They seemed used to it.”

“It doesn’t matter in moderation,” answered North. “We’re not fussy, my father and I. But don’t be too easy-going, Oscar. As you are one of the family, they will look up to you, and take their cue from you more or less. Business is business all the world over, and you’d do well to keep that fact sternly in mind.”

“I’ll try,” answered Oscar readily, “and I hope you’ll always tell me, North, if you see anything in which I fail. I want to justify your father’s opinion that I should do for the business, and I’m quite sensible of his kindness in taking me on.”

“Well, he’s glad enough to give you the sort of berth Cyril would have had if he’d not turned out too much the fine gentleman,” said North with one of his grim smiles. “My father never seriously thought of putting Cyril into the business, he was always thought to be a cut above it. But he often said he wished he had another son. You have come to fill that place, Oscar.”

The youth’s face flushed with pleasure. It was not often that North spoke with so much friendly unreserve. In the main he was a silent, self-contained man, though friendly enough to his younger cousin. But to-day his reserve seemed to have evaporated, and the next minute he spoke again.

“Don’t let Cyril get you too much into his set, Oscar. I know, of course, that you must have a good deal in common, being University men and all that. But I’m not always best pleased with the sort of fellows Cyril takes up with. I think they make him extravagant, and teach him expensive habits. It’s all very well for him. He manages to get a large allowance from the governor. But it wouldn’t suit your pocket or mine.”

“I don’t think I care much for Cyril’s friends,” said Oscar slowly. “Only when he asks me to go with him it seems churlish to refuse, when I’ve nothing else I want to do.”

“Well, I’d not mind seeming a bit churlish sometimes,” said North. “Indeed I’ve put up with the accusation myself, though I was never a fine enough gentleman for Cyril to care much for my company. But I wouldn’t let him take you up and drag you about too much if I were you. It won’t pay in the long run.”

They were by this time approaching the house in River Street, so there was no time for more discussion. It was Oscar’s temperament, as it was Sheila’s, to float with the stream of life, and take things easily. Perhaps it was this temperament in their father which had led to such disastrous results at last, but it was not quite easy for Oscar to realise this, though he was not ungrateful to North for his hint.

“What a hullabaloo!” exclaimed North, as he put his key into the latch and opened the door; and indeed there were sounds of very animated discussion going on in the drawing-room, the door of which stood open. The Cossart voices were rather loud when their owners were excited, and it seemed as though something of an exciting nature must be going on.

“What’s up?” asked the elder brother, pushing his way into the room, and both sisters began talking at once, so that it was not altogether easy to make out what either was saying.

“Oh, such a delightful plan! It’s the Bensons who are really getting it up—no, I should call it Mr. Ransom’s doing. But we are all to help. It will be no end of fun. I hope there’ll be acting! Anyway we shall have tableaux or something. And a bazaar, oh, yes, and some music. It’s to last for three days—perhaps a week even. And everybody will come. Oh, it will be the greatest fun! And we are to help in everything! We are to be on the Committee. I was never on a Committee before. I do feel so grand!” and Ray danced round her brother and made him a low curtsy, saying:

“We shall expect a great deal of patronage from Mr. Cossart, junior, of the Cossart works!”

“What’s it all about?” asked North, taking her by the shoulders and giving her a brotherly shake. “I can’t make head or tail of all that gabble. Now, mater, give us a cup of tea, and tell us quietly what all this means. Ray’s off her head, and Raby looks almost as demented. Some tomfoolery in the town, I suppose.”

“Well, that is rather a hard name to give it,” said Mrs. Tom with a smile. “It is like this. The new clergyman, Mr. Ransom, has, it seems, very proper and sound ideas about debt upon a church. I am sure your father would approve his views there. He thinks that debt is a wrong thing, and ought never to be contracted, especially over a house dedicated to the worship of God. He is quite shocked that in a prosperous town like this, there should be a heavy debt on the church, and that the mission chapel started two years ago should be almost entirely unpaid for. He spoke very seriously to his churchwardens and some of the leading men in the town, and he has so stirred them up to his view of the case that they are going to make a great effort to wipe out the whole debt immediately.”

“Good!” said North nodding his head. “I think that’s a very right way of looking at things. A man who lives in debt is considered to be doing a wrong to his creditors, and why not a church too?—or at least the people who build and use it.”

“That is what Mr. Ransom feels. He says he does not think that we can expect the same blessing upon the work of a church if the apostolic precept, ‘Owe no man anything,’ is deliberately broken. Well, a subscription list has been opened, and some really handsome sums have been already promised. But you know what people are. They want a little excitement and fun. And the Bensons have taken the matter up, and are canvassing all the town for a big bazaar and some entertainments in connection with it. The Corporation will give the Town Hall gratis for the purpose, and they are full of plans for making things go off with great éclat. They have been here talking things over with the girls this past hour. Mr. Benson is against having anything but local talent for whatever is got up. He says, ‘Why pay professionals from a distance when people would be much more interested in hearing their own young people sing, or seeing them act a little play, or perform in tableaux?’ And really I think he is right. I know I am dreadfully bored by hearing second-rate professionals. But if one knows the performers, why that’s quite a different matter.”

“And it will be such a nice chance for the glee club!” cried Raby. “And for some of us who have been having lessons. We did talk about getting up a concert at Christmas; but somehow it did not come off. Now, this seems the very thing, and everybody will come and hear us!”

At that moment there was a clatter of horsehoofs outside the door, and Ray exclaimed—

“Why, here is Cyril, with Sheila and Effie in the new phaeton! Don’t they cut a fine figure! What a pretty girl Sheila is! But she puts Effie altogether in the shade, don’t you think? If Aunt Cossart finds that out, she won’t be best pleased!”

The Stanhope phaeton was Effie’s last new fancy. It was discovered that Shamrock and the new cob would run together nicely in double harness; and Sheila, who had driven all her life, managed the pair with much skill.

Effie really preferred these drives in a carriage, recognised as her own, to the rides, where she was conscious of timidity and a lack of the ease and grace which distinguished Sheila’s horsemanship.

Cyril liked well enough to accompany his pretty cousins, as he called them; and Mrs. Cossart was better pleased when he was there, as well as the youthful tiger who always went with the carriage.

Raby and Ray had heard of this new turn-out, but had not seen it before. They ran to the window to look and admire; but in a few moments Effie and Sheila were in the room, Cyril bringing up the rear.

Sheila made a rush at Oscar first, but was quite ready to be affectionate to all. She was in gay, happy spirits, and brought with her an atmosphere of sunshine. Her sombre black was just lightened by ruffles of white at the throat and wrists; and the soft bloom upon her cheeks seemed set off by the darkness of her attire.

Somehow Effie seemed a quite secondary and insignificant figure when Sheila was present, though the best seat was given her, and her aunt asked with interest after her well-being. But the girls could not wait to hear Effie discourse upon herself and her symptoms, improved though they might be.

“Oh, Sheila, have you heard? Cyril, have you heard anything about the bazaar and fête? We are to have such a time of it! Sheila, you will have to help us! We shall all be as busy as bees!” and the girls plunged into a recital of the coming excitements, to which Sheila listened with all her ears.

“Oof! Won’t it be fun!” she cried, with her favourite little interjection which always made her cousins laugh. “I’m not a bit clever. I can’t sing or play or do anything like that; but I’ll help all I know. I shall be awfully pleased to!”

“But if we get up some tableaux you can perform,” said Cyril. “You could manage to stand still for two minutes at a stretch, could you not, Sheila?”

“Oof, yes! I could do that, only I’m afraid I should laugh in the middle! Effie, do you hear? There are to be such goings on. You’ll have to sing, I expect. Perhaps I’ll play for you, if I don’t get too frightened.”

“Are you taking up your music again, my dear?” asked Mrs. Tom. “That is right. It will be a pleasure to you, I am sure.”

“Yes, perhaps it will. I used to be fond of it, only I’ve not been able to do anything for so long; and if you can’t practise, I don’t think you ought to sing. I’ve been trying again these last few weeks. I think I shall get my voice back in time. But my throat is so weak still; I can’t do much at a time. I suppose it comes from being weak. If I were to get stronger, I should have more voice. I don’t care to make an exhibition of myself; but, of course, I’ll do anything I can to help the girls. I think people used to like to hear me sing.”

“And they’ll like to hear you sing again. It would be a good opportunity for you to appear in public after being shut up so long,” said Mrs. Tom; “and you could work for the bazaar at any rate. We must all try to help as much as we can for a good cause such as this.”

“Oh, I’ll try to do a little; but I never can settle long to anything. I suppose it’s the state of my nerves. I must always be jumping up and going off after something else. I have such a funny restless feeling. If I were to sit long over anything I should get quite wild; and then I should have an attack directly. That’s the worst of it. I can’t make myself do things like other people. I get ill directly. Not that I care so much myself; I’ve made up my mind not to care about anything; but just to take what comes. But it worries mother, and I must think of her; so I’ve got to take care of myself, though I do get very sick of it!”

Cyril had got Sheila into a quiet corner where Oscar had joined them in response to the summons of her eyes.

“All this will be rather a bore,” he began; but Sheila interrupted gaily—

“I don’t think it will at all! I think it will be great fun! I like things to be lively! Sometimes I wish I lived in River Street. It’s rather dull some days up there!”

“Poor child! I expect it is,” said Cyril; “but what I was going to say was that it would probably bring some of the better people into touch with us, and they’ll be sure to take to you, Sheila. The Bensons are nobodies—he’s the Mayor this year, and they have plenty of money, and give themselves airs over it. But if the thing is taken up by the county—as I expect it will be, for Mr. Ransom is a well-born man, and has come with introductions to a good many of the best families—we shall get other volunteers of a different sort, and that will be a good thing for you and Oscar.”

“Why for us more than other people?” asked Sheila, whilst Oscar’s face seemed to cloud over a little.

“Oh, don’t you see! They will see the difference at once; and I shall see you are introduced. I know these people—most of them—though they don’t visit much in the town, except in quite a perfunctory way. But they are very good to me; and they will be sure to take you up; and then things will be different.”

“I’m not sure that Sheila and I wish any distinction made between ourselves and our cousins,” said Oscar a little stiffly; but Cyril laughed in his good-humoured way.

“Oh, you needn’t be as straight-laced as all that, Oscar. People can’t help knowing the difference between—what shall we call it?—the real thing and the imitation! There are some really nice people I should like Sheila to know. Their name is Lawrence, and they do call here. They bought or took a place about five miles away some little time ago, and the mater was induced to call. They don’t come often; but most likely the girl would be glad to help in these goings on. Mr. Ransom knows the Lawrences. You would quite like them if you once knew them.”

Sheila was interested at once, and asked a good many questions. Her life, though pleasant and easy, was rather monotonous, and, so far, she had made no friends except her cousins, who, though very good-natured and kind, were not particularly congenial to her. So the prospect of a possible girl friend of a different stamp was not without its attractions.

“I shall try to bring that off,” said Cyril to himself as the carriage drove off at last. “I often think that May Lawrence would be a very good second string to my bow; for though Effie is an heiress, I sometimes think I should soon be sick to death of her ‘I,’ ‘I,’ ‘I,’ and should chuck up the whole thing in three months, if it ever got as far as an engagement!”

And perhaps Cyril never paused to ask himself how large a place in his own vocabulary the “I” took, nor the ego in his scheme of life!

(To be continued.)

OLD ENGLISH COTTAGE HOMES;
OR,
VILLAGE ARCHITECTURE OF BYGONE TIMES.

PART VIII.

In the first number of these papers we pointed out the fact that the cottages and small houses in fortified villages exhibited a totally different character from those in open and unwalled villages. Owing to the space being confined within the walls, any increase in the number of inhabitants had either to be provided with accommodation by adding to the height of the existing habitations or by setting up dwelling-houses in out-of-the-way places. Our sketch of Lyme Regis shows the outlet of a river which here flows into the sea; the fortified walls are continued along the banks; the principal street of the village is carried over the river by a bridge consisting of a lofty and elegantly proportioned Gothic arch, evidently of thirteenth century date. Cottages or small habitations cling to the walls supported upon wooden corbels, and are bracketed out from the parapets of the bridge, giving the latter more the effect of a gateway than of a bridge. The whole scene is strange though very picturesque, and those who are accustomed to the ordinary English village, with its detached cottages, surrounded by gardens, are naturally surprised at the singular effect brought about by such changed conditions. Those, however, who know the fortified villages of Germany, France, and the Low Countries, are quite familiar with such scenes, and regard them as usual in villages prepared for war, as contrasted with the ordinary villages of our country where peace was the normal condition.

GEORGIAN COTTAGE, AMERSHAM.

It is indeed a matter of congratulation that our English ancestors were able to live in abodes unsurrounded by fortifications, and to pursue their humble avocations without the dread of invasion by some foreign foe; but as it does not seem to be the design of Divine Providence that man should pass this life without troubles and anxiety, civil wars were not unfrequent, even in this happy isle. And even when this affliction was absent, our towns were visited by pestilence, for our historians tell us that in the neighbourhood of Warwick alone thirty villages were depopulated and allowed to fall to ruin during that fearful visitation called the “Black Death.” Their very sites cannot now be traced, and their names are mere tradition. Even where they were partially spared, the population of many villages was so reduced as to cause a very singular arrangement. We refer to the distance between the church and the village. Now there can be no doubt that parish churches in the country were nearly always in former times erected in the villages or towns they were intended to serve, and the only way of accounting for their now being at a distance from one another is by supposing that some great pestilence has at some period swept away the population of that part of the village which adjoined the church. That the pestilence should attack that particular portion of the village more than another is highly probable, because its proximity to the church and churchyard would render it more liable to infection. This, however, is a very gloomy subject to contemplate, and we refer to it only to account for certain peculiarities which it has introduced into old villages.

Our other sketch represents a cottage or village house of much later times, probably the Hanoverian period, built of various coloured bricks, in some places arranged in patterns. The great peculiarity of the design, however, is its diminutive scale. Were it not for the fact that the presence of any human being near to it immediately dwarfs it, the front might be that of an important house. This is a well-known fact in architecture. There is nothing for bringing down the scale of a building like a very tall girl. An architect we know built a beautiful little church on a small scale, but he was shocked to find that a very tall, and it must be confessed graceful, girl sat close to the first column of the nave. Our friend said, “Really that girl completely dwarfs my columns. I shall have to speak to the clergyman and see whether she can be prevailed upon to take a seat in a less conspicuous place.” He suggested this idea to the reverend gentleman, who seemed a little confused.

“Well,” said he, “I fear that can scarcely be done, as that young lady will in all probability become more closely connected with the church. The fact is, we are going to be married next month.”

It is rather a strange thing that a tall man does not “bring down” the scale of a building to the same extent as a tall woman. Probably the dress of the latter is accountable for this.

The diminutive scale of the house at Amersham has its counterpart in many Georgian buildings—Hamper Mill and the old school-house at Watford, for instance. Yet we can scarcely charge the architects of that time with an attempt to give a false scale to their buildings, as they seem so well suited to their surroundings.

COTTAGES AT LYME REGIS—A FORTIFIED VILLAGE.

LETTERS FROM A LAWYER.

PART VII.

The Temple.

My dear Dorothy,—It is perfectly astounding to me that people not absolutely devoid of common sense should be taken in by the so-called confidence trick, a device so transparent that it seems incredible that any sane man could be deceived by it. I am bound to say in justice to your sex that I have never heard of a case when a woman was a victim to the confidence trick. I suppose it does not appeal to them in the same way that it seems to do to some men.

Perhaps the true explanation of the gullibility of mankind was that given by a rogue who was had up and convicted at the Old Bailey. When asked what he wished to say, why he should not receive punishment for this offence, he replied that he ought to be treated as a great moral teacher, because the confidence trick could only succeed with people who were covetous and desirous of acquiring other people’s money without giving an equivalent for it, and that when they found that they had lost their money, it taught them to be more cautious and less grasping.

There was some truth in what this “great moral teacher” said, but unfortunately for him he had also a lesson to learn, and the Recorder gave him several months in which he might give it his careful consideration.

The “Free Portrait” scheme is a bait which allures a good many people. They cannot resist the temptation of getting something for nothing. A man calling himself A. Tanquerey or F. Schneider, and giving an address in Paris, is, I believe, the author of this ingenious system of extracting money from the unwilling pockets of the public. He professes in his circulars and advertisements to send you a crayon enlargement of any photograph you send him “absolutely free of charge.”

After you have sent him the photograph, which is generally one of special value to yourself, being, we will suppose, the only portrait you possess, of a deceased parent, friend or relation, you receive a letter stating that the portrait is ready and will be forwarded to you on the receipt of two or three guineas for the frame.

If you decline to purchase a frame, and write telling him to return your photograph, you receive no reply to your letter, and finally, to recover the photograph which you value, you send the money for the frame, and receive a fairly good crayon enlargement of your photograph in a frame which has cost you as many guineas as it is worth shillings.

There is a class of advertisement which may be seen in almost any weekly paper which just borders on the fraudulent. Even if they are genuine in themselves—and some undoubtedly are not—they open the door to fraud. I refer to those advertisements offering articles for sale in connection with monetary prizes to every purchaser and winner in a competition which can be guessed at a glance.

Every purchaser is told in the advertisement that he will be entitled to receive a prize of £10 if he guesses rightly; but when he has made his purchase and sent in his solution, he will find that either only the first letter opened gets the prize, or that every competitor having guessed correctly, he is only entitled to receive a halfpenny for his share of the money. In this last case, of course, the thing is a swindle because no one would have purchased the article and answered the competition if they thought the money was going to be divided amongst the winners.

I tried one of these competitions myself, not because I thought it was genuine, but because I wanted to see how it was worked. The task I had to accomplish was something like the following:

“Give the names of the fruits and flowers mentioned below—Soer, Reap, Liput, Cepah, Socruc, Ragone.”

Well, you can see at a glance they are rose, pear, tulip, peach, crocus, orange. I sent in my answer and a shilling and a penny stamp, and in due course received a puzzle worth about twopence.

Later on I received a letter stating that my solution of all the words was correct, and enclosing my share of the prize—a halfpenny stamp.

In a similar competition I saw it stated in the papers that 6,000 answers had been received, which shows that the game must be a very paying one for those who issue the advertisements.

What a number of young women there must be waiting to get married! In answer to an advertisement which appeared the other day in the Exchange and Mart, in which a lady, “disappointed in love, offered her trousseau at an enormous sacrifice,” over 1,400 replies were received.

But the lady “disappointed in love” disappointed also the 1,400 ladies who wanted a trousseau, for her advertisement was a bogus one, and was merely another trap to catch the unwary.

One has to be very sharp, but the sharpest of us are sometimes taken in, including even

Your affectionate cousin,
Bob Briefless.

GIRLS AS I HAVE KNOWN THEM.

By ELSA D’ESTERRE-KEELING, Author of “Old Maids and Young.”

PART VI.

THE ATHLETIC GIRL.

Wanted: A groom, tall, good-looking, steady.

Wanted: A housemaid, neat, respectable, no fringe.

Wanted: A cook, good, plain.

So run certain familiar advertisements. They are cited here as containing the descriptive words which have a particular applicability to the athletic girl, who, to state the general case in regard to her, is tall, good-looking, steady; neat, respectable, with no fringe; good, plain.

The athletic girl

This fact notwithstanding, the average athletic girl would not make a successful groom; still less would she give satisfaction as a housemaid; and least of all has she in her the makings of a good cook. Some hold that she has in her the makings of a good pianist, but that is a mistake, for she has no adagio. “I call a girl like that a fortist, not a pianist,” was said of her the other day.

Not always, but very often, the athletic girl’s is the prosaic type of mind, concerning which Lowell writes—

“The danger of the prosaic type of mind lies in the stolid sense of superiority which blinds it to everything ideal, to the use of everything that does not serve the practical purposes of life. Do we not remember how the all-observing and all-fathoming Shakespeare has typified this in Bottom the Weaver? Surrounded by all the fairy creations of fancy, he sends one to fetch him the bag of a humble-bee, and can find no better employment for Mustard-seed than to help Cavalero Cobweb scratch his ass’s head between the ears. When Titania, queen of that fair, ideal world, offers him a feast of beauty, he says he has a good stomach to a pottle of hay!”

The athletic girl easily thus runs to prose. Sometimes her prose is very funny. She looked up lately from a novel with the speech—

“There’s one thing I do want to know most awfully, Daddy—how people ‘gnash’ their teeth. Is it anything like this—or this—or this?”

Each question was accompanied by a facial illustration. Daddy is a serious man, but he laughed heartily.

Sometimes, however, Daddy shakes his head. The following is a case in point.

“Do you know, my dear,” he asked, “the difference between a soprano and a contralto?”

“Why, of course, Dad,” was the answer. “The one’s a squeak and the other’s a squawk.”

Such a girl has some knowledge, but she lacks some grace. Very often the athletic girl lacks both knowledge and grace. Sometimes, too, she lacks brains. The outward marks by which you shall know her in that case are that she has large ears and a little forehead. There are exceptions to this rule, but they are not many.

Of accomplishments the average athletic girl has few. All the French she knows she puts into a smile, and that smile is the one with which she meets any references to customs of the good old time. It says—

Nous avons changé tout cela.

Her ancestress

Twenty years ago this girl was the girl who wished she was a boy. It is one of the changes which time has wrought in her case that she no longer wishes that. She is happy and proud to be a girl of to-day, believing, as she does, that girls and women never had a chance to distinguish themselves in feats of strength till to-day. Remind her of Joan of Arc, and she will reply that that was an isolated case; draw her attention to the passage in Motley’s Rise and Fall of the Dutch Republic, referring to the garrison of Haarlem in 1572, and she will stare. The passage in question runs—

“The garrison at least numbered one thousand pioneers or delvers, three thousand fighting men, and about three hundred fighting women. This last was a most efficient corps, all females of respectable character, armed with sword, musket, and dagger. Their chief, Frau Kenau Hasselaer, was a widow of distinguished family and unblemished character, about forty-seven years of age, who, at the head of her Amazons, participated in many of the most fiercely contested actions of the siege, both within and without the walls.”

Elegance of speech is not, as a rule, a primary characteristic of the athletic girl, and it has been noticed that, while she prefers the use of any name to that of the baptismal or family one, she usually goes to the brute creation for a substitute, selecting—in so far merciful—the names of the pleasantly associated animals commonly called domestic. Thus ass, goose, duck, pig, cart-horse, cow, and—lately at the zenith of its popularity with her—hound, are all of her word-treasure. It is to be expected that she will add to this list in the course of time “barn-fowl,” and some other, and that, when she has exhausted the names belonging to the domestic animals, she will have recourse to those placarded at the Zoo. It does not seem probable that she will ever be guilty of the banality attaching to the use of Christian names alone.

As a letter-writer the average athletic girl does not shine. First, as for her handwriting, it is perhaps best described in some words which Goldsmith gives to Tony Lumpkin—

“Here are such handles and shanks and dashes that one can scarcely know the head from the tail.”

The speed at which she writes, too, is productive of direful blunders of the kind of Dear Madman for “Dear Madam”; and the “burst of speaking,” to use a phrase from Shakespeare, which characterises her vivâ voce manner, has its effect upon her epistolary style. It lacks repose. Another detracting feature of it is connected with the fact that this type of girl affects insensibility just as her ancestresses of a hundred years ago affected sensibility. There is scarce a whit to choose between them in their affectations.

It is not that the athletic girl has no heart. There follows here her description of a parting scene in which she was one of two.

“I made an owl of myself, got the gulps, and could not even say good-bye.”

In other words, the athletic girl broke down.

Books enter little into the life of this girl, yet she—may—belong to a reading society. The following (writer, an athletic girl) bears witness to that fact—

“Our next Shakespeare reading is next Tuesday. Last year I never took part in them, but am going to this year, though I rather hate them. Twelfth Night is the play chosen, and I have been given two rotten parts where I have to say every now and then, ‘Good my lord,’ and ‘Prithee, tell me.’”

The same girl writes—

“I have just read a most frightfully good book, The Prisoner of Zenda. It is simply the thrillingest thing that ever was written.”

In another letter she writes—

“Do you know the poetry of Gordon? An Australian man. All about horses. First-class.”

The margin-note style is in peculiar favour with the athletic girl.

The personal note is one seldom struck by this girl, and the elegiac note is one scarcely ever struck by her. Even when she has a grievance she keeps a high heart. Who but she could write—

“For some extraordinary and unknown reason my head is aching. It is such a novel sensation that I rather like it.”

A Novel Sensation

Her letter-endings take their colour from her character, real or assumed. “In haste” is much in favour with her, and I have letters from her ending “Bye, bye!” and “Ta, ta! Yours affec.”

I will close this paper with a true story. In it will be shown how a lady, late an athletic girl, was wooed and—not won.

Her admirer was a widower, with one child. His home overlooked the school of which this lady, young as she was—for she was only six-and-twenty—was head-mistress. The widower, on re-marrying bent, sent in his card on what was called “office day.”

The name on the card was Colonel Hewson. The young head-mistress, whose name was Alice Joyce, read it, and gave the conventional order, “Show him in.”

Alice Joyce had some slight acquaintance with Colonel Hewson, and had also some slight inkling that he admired her. She did not admire him, and would have liked to deny herself to him, but she was not authorised to do this on “office day.” Perhaps he had come to place a pupil. His only child was a boy, but, perhaps, he had girl-relations. “Show him in,” said conscientious Alice Joyce, and Colonel Hewson was shown in.

“I thought you’d be surprised to see me,” he said crisply, on entering.

Alice smiled, and requested him to be seated. Then she left it to him to open the talk, occupying herself with a revolving bookcase, which she gently agitated.

Colonel Hewson was a bronzed man of travel, who, according to rumour, had penetrated into Asiatic jungles, and seen tigers and other undomestic animals eye to eye without blenching. He had, however, never before entered a lady’s school, and a terror the like unto which he had never experienced now held him tongue-tied.

Alice Joyce, good-naturedly racked her brains to think of something that would set him at his ease, and ultimately put the young head-mistress’s stock question—

“Would you like to see our gymnasium?”

Colonel Hewson expressed himself as not unwilling.

The gymnasium was empty, save of apparatuses, of which, movable and immovable, it had a great number. Alice Joyce had considerable skill in showing these off, and handled weights and bars with a facility which impressed her visitor. Up and down the gymnasium they went, swinging dumb-bells. Suddenly Alice Joyce pulled up short—

“As you are so much interested in all this, Colonel Hewson,” she said, “do come and see the girls at it.”

Entertaining a dumb beau with dumb-bells

“Can anyone come?” was asked.

“No, no; only parents and anyone whom I may happen to invite. I shall be pleased to see you, though you’re not a parent.”

Colonel Hewson expressed his deep sense of obligation with a rather blank face, adding, in mild protest, that he regarded himself as a parent. Here was one result of Alice Joyce’s having become a head-mistress. She had come to narrow the meaning of some words. She was startled herself to find that things had come to this pass, and said apologetically—

“When I say ‘parent,’ I mean the person in that relationship to girls—my girls. It is stupid of me, because, of course, there are” (her voice paused on a higher note) “other parents.”

Colonel Hewson’s face remained rather blank, and he put his hand on an iron ring suspended from the roof. Alice Joyce the while had stationed herself beside a trapeze bar. Colonel Hewson in a lady’s gymnasium was not the most valiant man in the world, but he now took heart of grace and proposed marriage to Alice Joyce.

The end of the story is perhaps best told in the words of the heroine—

“Of course I said ‘No’ to him. Really men are very tiresome. Fancy a man’s proposing when you’re showing him the gymnasium!”

CRUSHED

(To be continued.)

EMBROIDERY WITH CHENILLE.

Chenille was, in days past, a popular material for fancy needlework. It has recently, after a period of disuse, been restored to favour under somewhat different conditions. Modern chenilles are obtainable in many more soft and carefully shaded tints, and though coarse makes are still used, some of the finer qualities are no thicker than a strand of rope silk.

FIG. 1.—PENWIPER.

Chenille can be used as a working thread if passed through the eye of a chenille needle, or it can be caught down in the desired curves by couching it in place with finer silk.

In the little penwiper shown at Fig. 1 both these methods are employed. The small branching pattern within the scrolls is executed in actual stitchery with chenilles, while for the curves and along the top some of the same materials are sewn down with stitches of silk. As to colouring, the background is green and the chenilles are brown, blue, pink and green in tint; the brown and green details are secured with stitches of bright yellow crewel silk, which give little touches of brightness at intervals. Two hints may be gleaned from this penwiper. Firstly, that for workers with whom felt-work, on account of its easiness of execution, is still popular, chenille has a better appearance than flat silk embroidery; and, secondly, that on such small articles as the one before us scraps of various colours remaining over from larger undertakings can be profitably utilised.

FIG. 2.—HANDKERCHIEF SACHET.

FIG. 3.—HINGE.

Work upon single thread canvas is almost as inexpensive as that upon felt. Many shops show a large stock of sachets, such as that figured here, and of other trifles; mats, chair-backs, cushion-covers, and so on, similarly made, stamped with a design and bordered with satin. To embroider these in any but a commonplace manner might be thought impossible. Yet they can be improved and made more important-looking by working with chenille.

FIG. 4.—RETICULE.

FIG. 5.—SASH-END.

The handkerchief sachet at Fig. 2 is worked in brown, green, pink and light and dark blue. There is no couching here, but the chenille is used to make actual outline and satin stitches according to the necessities of the pattern. The velvet-like surface of the chenille is quite satisfactory, and the colour and substance of the canvas are repeated, or at least suggested, in the lace edging of the sachet. This is in reality crochet, worked with cream-coloured cotton of a rather coarse size.

Setting aside now such materials as felt and canvas, we come next to consider the suitability of chenille on richer backgrounds; silk, velvet, and so on. Here the finer qualities especially are to be seen to full advantage. One of the newest forms of the work has been introduced by Mrs. Brackett of 95, New Bond Street, W., and is remarkable as including imitations of ancient Roman coins. These are of various sizes and designs and found in two colours; gold and “vert-de-gris,” the latter suggesting the effect of centuries of ill usage. These “coins” are of course thin and light, and pierced with holes at the edges so as to be easily sewn to the background.

The designs of which they form a part are more or less in character with them and often suggest antique metal-work. For instance, Fig. 3 shows a specimen of such Roman embroidery where the pattern bears a certain resemblance to a heavy hinge, the effect being lightened with a coiled spray of highly conventional foliage.

Attention is always paid to the colouring of this work. The foundation material is heavy cream-coloured, or rather dark ivory moire, shot with gold, and on this all the outlines of the pattern are followed with gilt tinsel varying from a fine cord to the most delicate passing. The main portions of the pattern are further emphasised within this boundary, with fine silk chenille of several shades of dull olive green sewn down with invisible stitches of filoselle or horse-tail. French knots in tinsel (passing) and in shades of green embroidery silk are employed as fillings, the silks being carefully chosen to assort with the tints of the chenilles. All the scroll-work is worked with the passing, the leaves being outlined with the green silks.

The subject chosen for illustration here is a cover for a blotter, which being raised displays the pad, while at the back of the embroidery, which is stiffened with stout cardboard, are pockets of pink and grey-green silk to hold letters, or paper and envelopes. The work is finally finished off with a border of dull gold cord.

Similar designs appear on various other articles. Blotters and book-covers form an appropriate background, and so also do small caskets with slightly domed tops.

The reticule at Fig. 4 is made on quite a different principle throughout. The front and back are formed of shield-shaped panels of wood or strong card, covered with chenille embroidery and with brocade respectively. The front section only concerns us here. The fabric chosen is dark blue velvet, and on this is worked in tones of brighter blue a very conventional flower. Long and short stitch is used for the shading, the stitches being made, of course, with a large-eyed needle threaded with chenille. The colouring is darkest in the centre, round a pink circle, from which start three “stamens” of brown chenille edged with fine tinsel. Some of the same Japanese tinsel is used for veining the flower, and a few gilt sequins are introduced to give a little additional brightness. The stem is of green chenille.

To make up the reticule, the panel covered with embroidery as well as the opposite one of pale terra cotta, blue and gold brocade were lined with thin silk of a dull, brownish terra-cotta colour. A two-inch wide band of some of the same silk was sewn round the curves (but not along the tops) of both sections, thus forming the frame-work of the bag by hinging the two parts of it together. A similar band of some of the same silk was laid over the first one and gathered along both edges that it might set rather fully. Above the shields a strip nearly as high as they (four to five inches) of some of the same silk, was sewn on. This was made of double material, that it might not be too limp, and two lines of stitches two inches from the top formed a running for the blue suspension cords. These were finished off with a cluster of shaded-blue baby ribbons. Lastly an edging of gilt gimp edged the shields and concealed their junction to the silk beyond.

The three principal colours used, terra cotta, blue and gilt, proved more successful than a medley of many carelessly chosen tints such as an amateur embroideress is but too apt to display.

It cannot be too often repeated that materials to be used together should be first arranged and selected together, not merely worked up because each in itself is bright or pleasing.

As a general rule the more shades and the fewer colours, the better will be the final effect.

Tones of willowy green and of pink are the only colours admitted in the sash-end seen in the illustration (Fig. 5). Here, again, is yet another way of using chenilles, quite different from those previously mentioned. In working the first thing to be done is to trace upon the material, pink watered silk ribbon in this instance, the outlines of the design. The bow and loops are formed of real ribbon folded, gathered, and coaxed into the desired form, and secured lightly and firmly with tacking threads. Along both edges of the ribbon, just within the selvedge, is couched a line of chenille of a slightly darker shade of green. This couching secures the green ribbon to the moire, and the tacking threads can be cut and drawn out at once, before they have had time to mark the material. The nine oval pendants issuing from the lowest loop of ribbon are worked over with chenille of graduating shades of green, the material being simply laid across and across the space to be covered, and caught down with stitches of silk at the sides. These stitches sink into the chenille and are covered, and are further effectually concealed with a line of Japanese tinsel, carried round each pendant and serving to keep it in a good shape. The chenille when taken from side to side in the manner described does not in itself define the form sufficiently clearly. The showers of sequins, pinkish and green in colouring, must on no account be overlooked. They are graduated in size and may vary in form, according to the worker’s convenience, but should not be omitted altogether.

Leirion Clifford.

“OUR HERO.”

By AGNES GIBERNE, Author of “Sun, Moon and Stars,” “The Girl at the Dower House,” etc.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

A WARRIOR TAKING HIS REST.

The rapid fall of darkness made it difficult to pursue the enemy, who at every point had been worsted. General Hope, knowing that large reinforcements might be expected to arrive soon in the French camp, decided to carry out Sir John Moore’s plan of immediate embarkation.

At ten o’clock that night the march began, brigade after brigade leaving the field of battle and silently going on board one transport after another. So complete had been all previous arrangements that, by morning light, almost the whole British Army was on board.

Meanwhile, anxious consultation had taken place as to what should be done with the beloved remains of the Commander. Colonel Anderson settled the question by stating that Moore had often told him his wish—“if he ever fell in battle, to be buried where he had fallen.” It was decided that a grave should be dug on the rampart of the Coruña citadel.

At midnight the body was reverently borne into the citadel by Colonel Graham, Major Colbourne and the Aides-de-camp. For a few hours it lay in Colonel Graham’s room.

In the early morning firing was heard. It was then determined not to put off the funeral any longer, lest a fresh attack should be impending and the officers be compelled to hasten away before paying the last honours to their Chief.

Somewhat strangely, it fell to Roy Baron to be present at this mournful ceremony.

It so happened that, in the early morning, Roy was sent by the Colonel of his Regiment with a message to one of the Aides-de-camp; and as he arrived on the spot just when the funeral was about to begin, he was allowed to be one of the party in attendance.

Not at dead of night, but at eight o’clock in the chill morning of a January day, and in the grave prepared by his own men, Sir John Moore was laid. No coffin could be procured. The body had not been undressed. He wore still the General’s uniform in which he had fought his last battle, and—

“He lay like a warrior taking his rest,

With his martial cloak around him.”

That same cloak, in which but a few days earlier he had visited Roy in the little hut,—had laid his kind hand upon the boy’s arm,—had spoken never-to-be-forgotten words of praise,—had smiled upon him——

Roy dared not let himself think of all this. Burning blinding tears forced their way to his eyes—and not to his only—as he gazed his last upon that perfect face in its pale sublime repose.

Moore was carried by the “Officers of the Family,” who would allow no other hands to do for him these last sad services. The Burial Service was read by the Chaplain. And what was in the hearts of them all has been told, in words that cannot be improved upon, by that noble elegy, which is Moore’s best monument.

“Few and short were the prayers we said,

And we spoke not a word of sorrow,

But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,

And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought as we hollowed his narrow bed,

And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o’er his head,

And we far away on the billow.

Lightly they’ll talk of the spirit that’s gone,

And o’er his cold ashes upbraid him;

But little he’ll reck, if they’ll let him sleep on,

In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done,

When the clock struck the hour for retiring,

And we heard the distant and random gun

That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory,

We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,

But we left him alone with his glory.”[1]

For every man in the Army had lost a friend that day; and many a one felt with passionate grief that the world, without John Moore in it, would be for him a changed world thenceforward.

Hard things were spoken of him after he was gone, and upbraidings, indeed, were uttered—not by his brave foe, who honoured Moore, and wished to raise a stone to his memory—but by an ungrateful section of his own countrymen, because, forsooth, with an Army of only twenty-three thousand men he had not met and crushed two hundred thousand. We know better now! In the cold clear light of history, such fogs are driven away.

Yet, even in these later days, have we made enough of the name of John Moore? Have we thought enough of the man of whom Napoleon in the zenith of his fame could declare that he was the only General left fit to contend with himself, and against whose twenty-three thousand men he counted it needful to bring in a fierce rush over eighty thousand, failing even then in his purpose? Have we thought enough of the man under whom the future Wellington wished nothing better than to serve?—and about whose “towering fame” the sober historian of the Peninsular War wrote in terms of unstinted praise? Have we thought enough of the man who, while the bravest of the brave, was also the most blameless and the most beloved of men, against whom Detraction had no word to utter, save that he stood up almost too strenuously for his country’s honour, and that he did not accomplish impossibilities?

If not, it is surely time that his countrymen should begin to “do him justice!”

But for that fatal cannon-ball—who can say?—would Wellington have become the foremost man in Europe, or would he have been second to Moore? It might have been Moore, not Wellington, who turned the tide of Napoleon’s success.[2] It was Moore who stemmed that tide, with his spirited countermarch and splendid retreat, drawing the Enemy after him, until he stood at bay upon the coast, and hurled back the onset of the flower of Buonaparte’s Army.

Of Moore’s personal valour, of his indomitable courage, of his desperate enthusiasm, no voice was ever heard in question. To his consummate generalship, his mingled audacity and calculation, this marvellous Retreat bore ample witness, but for many years it was not rightly understood by the mass of his own countrymen. Napoleon, Soult and Ney gauged him far more truly than did the average Englishman of his day. Not even against the future Wellington would Napoleon have poured such an overwhelming force as he launched against Moore.

(To be continued.)

OUR LILY GARDEN.

PRACTICAL AIDS TO THE CULTURE OF LILIES.

By CHARLES PETERS.

What garden is complete without the good old tiger-lily? Other lilies are finer and more graceful, no doubt, but the old-fashioned tiger-lily will always hold its own in the struggle for popularity.

Although we call it an old-fashioned flower, it has not been grown in England for so very long, being unknown before this century. It made a bit of a stir, too, when it first blossomed in England. And no wonder that it did, when we see what a grand sight a bed of these lilies really is.

Lilium Tigrinum is a native of China, but it has long been cultivated in Japan, and it is from the latter country that we obtain most of our foreign bulbs.

A curious fact, which we have frequently noticed in connection with this lily, is that the size of the annual portion of the plant seems to bear no relation to the size of the bulb. In most lilies large bulbs produce fine plants, though we have seen that this is by no means always the case. But with L. Tigrinum the shoot apparently bears no relation whatever to the size of the bulb. If planted in very good soil, all the bulbs of L. Tigrinum seem to do equally well; whereas in an unsuitable soil all seem to fare equally poorly.

The bulbs are heavy and white, with the scales very dense and closely packed.

In growth this lily resembles L. Auratum in some respects, and the members of the Isolirion group in others. The leaves are very green and glossy, and are present in larger numbers than is commonly the case with lilies.

L. Tigrinum is one of the two lilies which constantly bear bulblets in the axils of their leaves. We have seen that under certain circumstances several of the other lilies produce these aërial bulblets, but the tiger-lily invariably does so. The bulblets are deep glossy purple in colour, and are often produced in great numbers. If planted as soon as they are ripe, they will grow freely and produce flowering spikes in their second or third year.

Everyone knows the blossom of the tiger-lily. The pyramidal shape of the inflorescence, with its nodding bell-like blossoms, irresistibly suggests a Chinese pagoda, and when looking at the plant one can almost feel that it hails from China.

The segments of the blossoms of the tiger-lily are much re-curved, their tips touching their points of origin. The colour of this lily, reddish orange, is very different from that of any that we have already described, but as we shall see later, it is a very common colour among the lilies. In the type of the tiger-lily the colour is a very fine orange, and the spots, which are very numerous, are deep purple.

The tiger-lily often bears seed in this country if the bulblets are removed. As, however, seed is the least satisfactory mode of propagating lilies, it is far better to utilise the bulblets for this purpose.

Individually, the tiger-lily is a fine plant, but its full effect is only to be obtained by growing it in great clumps. A bed of tiger-lilies is a grand sight, and it blossoms in September and October, a time when showy plants are not very numerous.

There are several varieties of the tiger-lily. That which is most commonly grown is called splendens, because it is very floriferous, and the flowers are of large size, fine colour, and are thickly spotted.

Another variety, called Fortunei, is also very fine. It grows to the height of six feet, and the stem and buds are covered with white silky down. The flowers are very numerous, often exceeding thirty in number. They are large, less reflexed than in the type, and only sparingly spotted with large spots.

The tiger is the second lily we have met with of which there is a double-flowered variety. There are only four double lilies, and none of them possesses the elegance of the single form. The old double tiger-lily is very full and is interesting, though far inferior in beauty to the type.

There is little to be said about the cultivation of the tiger-lily. It is perfectly hardy and will grow anywhere. It prefers a rich soil, and in poor or damp spots it often degenerates.

There is a lily which resembles the tiger-lily so closely that very few people could distinguish between them unless they were placed side by side. And yet most writers on the subject have separated this lily from the tiger-lily and placed it among the Martagon group, a group of lilies differing extremely from the one which we are now considering.

The lily which we refer to is called Lilium Maximowiczii or Pseudo-Tigrinum. It resembles the tiger-lily very closely, but is not so sturdy in growth, and the flowers are smaller and poorer than those of the tiger-lily. There are several named varieties known.

Another lily of the same class is Lilium Leichtlini, the exact counterpart of the last species, only differing from it in the colour of its flowers, which are lemon yellow instead of orange. It is thickly spotted with small mahogany spots and streaks. It is a very desirable lily because of its uncommon colour, and it is not by any means difficult to grow.

Both L. Maximowiczii and L. Leichtlini require a moist peaty soil. Plenty of peat, plenty of sand, plenty of water and very little direct sunshine, are the keystones of the successful cultivation of these lilies.

At an auction last year we gave seven and sixpence for two very small bulbs of Lilium Henryi, a lily which has only lately been introduced, but one which is fast rising into prominence from its curious colour, its bold growth and its hardiness.

Lilium Henryi is usually called the “orange Speciosum,” but in it we can see far more resemblance to the tiger-lily than we can to L. Speciosum. It seems to connect the L. Tigrinum and L. Speciosum. Its growth, its leaves, its flower buds and its habits suggest a close resemblance to the tiger-lily. But the raised tubercles and spines of the blossom recall L. Speciosum. The shape of the blossom is nearer to that of L. Tigrinum than it is to L. Speciosum, and the colour is totally different from either.

Dr. Henry’s lily blossoms late in September, or in the beginning of October. Fine examples grow six to eight feet high and produce sixteen to forty blossoms. The flowers are bright orange without spots.

Our two specimens failed to reach the height of eighteen inches, but both produced blossoms—one a solitary one, the other a pair. This is all that can be expected from bulbs at three and ninepence a-piece. We expect to do much better this year.

The hardiness of this lily is unquestionable, and it needs no special cultivation.

This lily is a native of China and is at present extremely scarce. Unless you are prepared to give ten shillings for a single bulb it is not worth while to grow it. If the bulbs ever get to be as cheap as a shilling or eighteenpence each, it will be well worth growing, but at ten shillings a bulb! It is monstrous to pay such a sum for a lily which at its best is only of inferior beauty.

The lilies which we have considered so far are all remarkable for the elegance of their forms and the striking colours of their flowers. If the reader has dreamed that all lilies are equally beautiful, or, at all events, that all are of great beauty and elegance, we are sorry to have to awaken him to the sad reality that there are many lilies which are not beautiful in colour and which are extremely inelegant in form.

The next group of lilies, Isolirion, contains many species, in all of which the flowers are erect and the segments little if at all reflexed. They are of low growth, and the blossoms are mostly orange in colour.

This group of lilies contains many old garden favourites which, though they possess but little individual beauty, are yet pleasing in the flower bed from the brightness and size of their blossoms, and for the early period at which they flower.

There is a great sameness about the members of the group Isolirion, and as there are many garden varieties of most of the species, some of which are possibly hybrids, it is a most difficult task to separate the various species from one another.

We associate the lily with elegance. What, then, should we imagine Lilium Elegans, the elegant lily to be like? And what is the reality? A low-growing clumsy stalk bearing two or three top-heavy enormous blossoms sticking bolt upright, chiefly of crude colours! As inelegant a plant as it is possible to conceive, having about as much right to the title of elegans as has the hippopotamus! Where did this lily get its name from? It has another title, Lilium Thunbergianum, or Thunberg’s lily. Which of these names shall we use? Which is the less objectionable? The name which records the chief characteristic which the plant lacks, or that concocted of a Latinised version of the name of a human being? Formerly this lily was called Lilium Lancifolium, or the lance-leafed lily, a name which, though it might be equally well applied to nearly every known species of lily, is yet better than either of its modern names. But we cannot use this name, for florists will persist in applying the name Lancifolium to L. Speciosum.

L. Elegans grows about a foot high, and each stem bears from one to four blossoms. The blossoms are very large, very inelegant, and short-lived. But they make up to a certain extent in colour what they lack in form.

There are innumerable varieties of L. Elegans, differing chiefly in the colour of the flowers. Some of the colours are very fine, others are harsh and crude.

We append a table of the colours of the best known varieties. An asterisk is placed before the most desirable forms.

L. Elegans produces both a double and a semi-double variety. We should have thought that a “semi-double” flower was the same as a single one. But it is not so. A semi-double equals a one-and-a-half blossom! That is, a double corolla of which the inner part is abortive.

Lilium Croceum. The old orange lily resembles Lilium Elegans, but it grows taller, and produces a far larger number of blossoms. This is the finest of the upright orange lilies. The blossoms are large and reddish-orange in colour, spotted with black. The plant grows to about three feet high, and is very showy.

In Ireland this lily is the national emblem of the Orangemen; and when travelling in that country you can tell, so we have been assured, the political opinion of the owner of a house by observing what lilies he grows in his garden. The Orangemen are said to grow none but the orange lily, while the rest of the population cultivate only the Madonna lily (L. Candidum).

A variety of L. Croceum named Chauixi is of a bright yellow colour, and is finer than the type.

This lily is found wild in various parts of Central Europe. It has been in cultivation for centuries; but lately it has almost lost its place as a garden lily, having been discarded in favour of some of the varieties of L. Davuricum, which are much cheaper, but nothing like so fine.

The term L. Umbellatum is applied to certain varieties and possibly hybrids of L. Croceum and L. Davuricum.

A very similar species is Lilium Davuricum, a native of Siberia. The wild plant rarely bears more than two blossoms on each stem; but in cultivation flower-spikes of twenty or more blossoms are not uncommon.

L. Davuricum is frequently grown in gardens. There is a large number of named varieties of this lily, but all the forms are very similar, and in no way deserve separate names. The plant grows to about four feet high, and produces from four to thirty flowers of a dirty orange colour.

Lilium Bulbiferum very much resembles the lilies we have just mentioned, but it may be at once distinguished from any other Isolirion by the bulblets which are formed in the axils of the leaves. These bulblets are large and purple in colour. Not very uncommonly bulblets form in the axils of the leaves of L. Davuricum or L. Elegans; but when they do, they are small and green.

The blossoms of L. Bulbiferum are like those of L. Davuricum on a smaller scale. The same upright position, the same poorness of form, and the same dirty orange colour, which is so persistent among the members of the group Isolirion, are present in both. But the blossoms of L. Bulbiferum are distinctly smaller than are those of L. Davuricum.

If the lilies we have just described are not particularly remarkable for beauty, they are, nevertheless, very desirable subjects for the flower garden. They are showy, extremely hardy, flower in early June, when showy flowers are rare, and readily increase when once established. L. Elegans looks best planted in rows and borders, its low growth suiting it admirably for such treatment.

These lilies will grow anywhere, in any soil. A little peat and sand should be mixed with the soil in which these lilies are planted.

Although they will grow well enough in pots, these lilies are quite worthless for pot culture.

One of the best of the Isolirion group of lilies is Lilium Batemanniae. This plant resembles L. Elegans in some particulars, but its blossoms are quite distinct. They are of a rich unspotted apricot colour. The perianth is more reflexed than is commonly the case in this group. It flowers in the late summer. It should be grown in a good peaty soil.

Lilium Wallacei, a very similar species, has the flowers of a rich apricot, densely spotted with black. The bulbs of this species are very small. It requires similar treatment to the last.

Lilium Philadelphicum is an American species, and has a rhizomotose bulb. The stem produces a single blossom, dirty orange colour spotted with black and yellow. It requires a wet, very peaty soil.

Another American species is Lilium Catesbaei, a very curious and interesting plant. The bulb is unlike that of any other lily except L. Avenaceum. It somewhat resembles a fir-cone. This plant grows to the height of about a foot. It produces a single blossom, about five inches across. The segments are curiously curved and curled. Its colour is reddish orange and yellow. It should be grown in a peaty soil, but it is a somewhat tender species, and is not really suitable for outdoor culture in this country.

We have hurried through this group of lilies because the species are not remarkable either for form or for colour. They are certainly inferior to any other of the genus lilium.

Variety. | Colour of Flower. | Other Peculiarities.
 Type | Dirty orange, spotted. | .. | ..
*Van Houttei | Deep red, spotted black. | The best of the red varieties.
*Horsmanni | Deep red, spotted black. | Very rare and difficult to obtain.
*Aurantiacum Verum | Pale terra-cotta, very slightly spotted. | Best of terra-cotta varieties.
 Robustum | Dirty orange, spotted. | Very early. Stem covered with down.
*Atro-Sanguineum | Very deep red, slightly spotted. | Fine variety.
*Prince of Orange | Terra-cotta, slightly spotted. | Inferior to Aurantiacum Verum.
 Wilsoni | Lemon-yellow, spotted. | .. | ..
*Alice Wilson | Clear lemon-yellow. | Very curious. The best of the yellow varieties.
 Bicolor | Orange. | A poor form.
 Brevifolium | Dirty orange, spotted. | A poor form.
*Incomparabilis | Deep red, spotted. | Inferior to the other deep red varieties, but bearing larger blossoms.

THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.

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

CHAPTER VIII.

A FALL IN THE KITCHEN.

ucy felt wonderfully cheered and strengthened as Christmas approached. She was working hard and successfully. She had completed her sketches and had received payment for them, and she meant to give herself a little holiday from Christmas Eve until after the New Year, so that she might go fresh and bright to take her class at the Institute, which would re-open on January 3rd.

“Giving herself holiday” only signified that Lucy hoped to enjoy a week of her old life as Hugh’s mother and as general housewife. Like many who have special gifts, Lucy really enjoyed house-work and needlework. She intended in this interval to so overhaul book-cases, china cupboard and linen closet, that she might afterwards apply herself to her “professional” work with the contented assurance that her household would run on for awhile without other care than the worthy Mrs. Morison seemed able and willing to give.

Lucy felt that she had indeed found a treasure! She had not yet despatched any letter to Charlie, as the Slains Castle would not touch at its first port for fully three months, and it was not yet quite time for the mail which would take a letter there to await his arrival. But though the letter was not despatched, it was begun. It had been begun the day after she got Charlie’s farewell telegram, and a few lines had been added every night.

Now the letter would soon have to be despatched, and as Lucy sat down to her desk on Christmas Eve, she felt that she could safely tell the whole story of Pollie’s departure, and of the blessing which filled her vacant place. Mrs. Morison had been in the kitchen nearly two months, and every day she gave greater satisfaction. She had thrown herself with great zest into the idea of the Christmas party, and Lucy began to think that under this cook’s skilled fingers her festive dishes would probably achieve perfections at which she and poor Pollie had never aimed. As she sat writing to Charlie concerning the domestic good fortune which had befallen her, she felt her heart grow very soft towards this middle-aged woman who had once had a home of her own, but who was now so contentedly and worthily serving others. What life of her own had she? She had paid no visit since she had entered Lucy’s service; she had had no visitor. Yes, Lucy remembered she had had one—a middle-aged woman, who had called on her when she had been in her situation for a month. She had volunteered to say that this person was the wife of her cousin, the plumber at Willesden. Lucy had asked whether she had offered her a cup of tea. No, Mrs. Morison said; her cousin would not expect that; and Lucy had rejoined that she hoped she would show this little hospitality on future occasions. Lucy remembered now that Mrs. Morison had not seemed brightened by this visit, nay, that for a day or two afterwards she had even seemed a little depressed. It occurred to Lucy that perhaps this cousin had come possibly seeking a little loan, or perhaps pressing for the repayment of some trifling debt. Lucy knew that one or two of Pollie’s relatives had not been inclined to spare her hard earnings, and that Charlie and she had intervened to protect the girl from the weak soft-heartedness which can be so easily wrought upon by the loafing or the greedy.

What Christmas in any real sense would there be for this woman in the kitchen, whose presence there yet made a social Christmas possible for the rest of the household? If she had any old friends they must be in the North, beyond the reach of anything but the struggling, slow letters of the uneducated. Lucy wondered whether there was anybody to whom Mrs. Morison would like to send some “gift from London in kind remembrance.” She had taken quite a pathetic interest in certain trifling gifts which Lucy had despatched that afternoon.

“Eh, it’s bonnie!” she had said, adding with a little sigh, “It’s a gran’ thing to gie pleasure to folk.”

Lucy had got a nice cambric handkerchief with an “M” in the corner, tied up with a piece of red ribbon, which was to be Mrs. Morison’s own Christmas-box. It was all that it was reasonable to give to a servant who had been only two months in the house, to say nothing of the fact that Lucy was anxious to spend little this year, and had sent no Christmas gift save what was taken out of her own stores or of her own manufacture.

But Lucy wondered whether she could not do something more.

A bright idea seized her. Mrs. Morison’s next month’s wage would not fall due till just after the New Year. Why shouldn’t Lucy advance it to her now? That would not impoverish Lucy, who had the money in her purse, and yet it might be a real neighbourly kindness.

She laid down her pen, sprang up and hurried to the kitchen, which was pervaded by festive smells of spice and stuffing herbs.

“Mrs. Morison,” she said, “as your month’s wages are due just after the New Year, I should like to advance them to you now. Most of us spend a little extra at this season, and as you haven’t been earning money for some time, you may not have much cash ready at hand. For one does not care to disturb one’s little investments to buy Christmas cards or comforters.”

She laid on the table a sovereign and a little silver.

“Oh, ma’am,” cried Mrs. Morison, “you’re far ow’re kind! You shouldn’t ha’ thought o’ sic a thing. ’Deed, there is a thing or two one would like to do, though there’s no many carin’ for me now. An’ you gave me my last month’s money down on the vera day, an’ it came in handy when my cousin’s wife called. I was glad to have a bit to help her with, poor body, for they’d been kind to me, and they’ve got a cripple child, and some of their customers are slow in paying bills. There’s a mighty differ between people, as I’ve often heard my poor husband say.”

Lucy went back to her letter as light-hearted and elate as we always feel after doing a trifling kindness. She confided it all to her letter to Charlie—told him why she had interrupted her writing, and how very pleased Mrs. Morison had been, and how nicely she always spoke about “the master.” She added that she should finish her letter on the evening of Christmas Day after the visitors had gone, when she could tell him how everything had passed off. “So it will seem almost as if we had had Christmas together after all.” She had just written this when Mrs. Morison came into the parlour, saying,

“Please, ma’am, you won’t mind if I go out for a little? I sha’n’t be gone more than half-an-hour. It won’t ill-convenience you?”

“Certainly not,” Lucy answered cordially. “She is off to buy something,” she thought to herself, and added aloud, “I’m afraid you are rather late for most of the shops.”

“Some of them keep open late on Christmas Eve,” said Mrs. Morison; “not the shops you’ll know, m’m, but quiet little places where working people go.”

Mrs. Morison came back in about a quarter of an hour. She had a parcel under her shawl, and in her hand was a little bright-coloured ball.

“If you please, m’m,” she said, “I’ll make bold to drop that into the stocking that I see you’ve hung outside Master Hugh’s door. And I’m sure I’m sending my good Christmas wishes to the master, if the winds will carry them. And please, ma’am, if you’ll do me a favour, you won’t trouble yourself a bit about kitchen things to-morrow, but just trust to me. All is ready now as far as it can be till it’s fairly put on the fire.”

Lucy gratefully promised full confidence. She had fixed her dinner-hour carefully—two hours earlier than she had ever had Christmas dinner. It was to come off at four o’clock, because it would not be nice for dear old Miss Latimer to have to return home late, now there was no Charlie to escort her. It would not have been kind to fix it sooner than four, since Wilfrid Somerset so much disliked being abroad before dusk.

Next morning, after the Christmas cards had been admired and arranged gaily on the mantelshelf—after the Christmas stocking had been emptied of all its contents and Hugh had made a right guess as to the giver of the pretty ball—Lucy and Hugh went to morning service. Of course, the familiar hymns, even the fresh smell of the “holly, bay and mistletoe” of which the church was full, all had a pathos for her, as indeed they do for everybody except such as little Hugh, to whose short experience it seems that all Christmas Days will be as this one or even more abundant. Yet Lucy reflected that, looking forward, she could never have foreseen herself so full of cheer and patience and hope.

Kneeling in her pew, thinking of all the happy festivals of her married life, her mind went back to those earlier days when she and Florence had looked over one book while they warbled—

“Hark, the herald angels sing,

Glory to the new-born King,

Peace on earth and mercy mild,

God and sinners reconciled.”

Then—as always happens with all healthy, right-minded people, when their nerves are emerging, quiet, after a storm, and their hearts are full of thankfulness for blessings already realised, and for hopes brightening before them—Lucy began to wonder whether she had not been a little severe and unjust to Florence—whether she might not have blamed her for jars due rather to Lucy’s own morbidly irritable condition. She was glad she was to spend Christmas Day in her own house—glad that Miss Latimer and Mr. Somerset and the country boy were to be her guests—but possibly it did seem hard to Florence that she had been set aside. That last speech of hers about being now free to invite other guests might perhaps have been wrung from her by a jar inflicted by Lucy herself. Lucy felt that she would be the happier at her own little festival, if she could feel quite sure that all was right between Florence and herself, and that she had made due amends for aught she had done amiss.

She and Hugh were to have a slight lunch when they returned from church. She resolved that they would hurry over this, and then go to the Brands’ house, just to wish them “A Merry Christmas!” They could be back in the little house with the verandah before Miss Latimer and Mr. Somerset could arrive.

They had to knock twice before Mrs. Morison let them in.

“She’s so busy with her cooking, ma,” Hugh explained sagaciously. And indeed when she did come, her face was very red, and she was so pre-occupied that, as Hugh lingered a moment to knock snow from his boot, she actually hurried back to her kitchen and left them to close the door themselves.

“Don’t roast yourself as well as the chickens, Mrs. Morison!” Lucy called after her playfully.

Their nice little cold meal was awaiting them on a side table in the dining-room, the dining-table itself being already occupied by the best napery, crystal and cutlery, set out by Lucy before she went to church.

Hugh was all eagerness to see his little cousins and their Christmas cards and gifts—they were sure to have so many, and such beauties!

After all, the call, though satisfactory in one sense, proved less so in another. It convinced Lucy that her sister had not been hurt or offended; it also convinced her that the whole matter had been of such slight interest to Florence that she had forgotten all about it!

Jem Brand did not seem even to know that Lucy had been invited to be his guest! Said he—

“You ought to have been invited, and anyhow, wouldn’t you stay on now? There are a good many people coming, but there would be room for you, never fear.”

Even when he heard she was to have guests of her own, he actually suggested that he should send round a cab and bring them all over!

It seemed to Lucy that Florence spoke rather sharply to Jem, saying significantly, that he had better not go into the dining-room again till dinner was served. She supposed Florence was tired and cumbered. Florence had sent out a hundred and fifty Christmas cards—“Private cards, of course!”—one conventional salutation alike to oldest friend and newest acquaintance, to the wise and to the simple, the merry and the sad. And Florence had received already two hundred cards, and nearly one hundred were from people whom she had overlooked, and whom she would have to “remember” at New Year. Also, the cutler had not sent home her new fruit knives with the agate handles, and she would have to use her old ones. It was enough to provoke a saint!

The two little Brand girls were whining and fuming.

“Muriel is out of sorts,” said the lady nurse, “because she has been allowed to breakfast with her mamma and has eaten too much cake, and Sybil is out of temper because her papa has given Muriel a mechanical walking doll, and she does not think her own gift of toy drawing-room furniture so good.” She would have stamped on it had not the lady nurse taken it away.

“I must soothe them up somehow to make a pretty appearance downstairs after dinner,” she said. “And a nice to-do I shall have up here when they come back again.”

Well, at any rate, the comfort was that Florence kissed Lucy almost effusively.

“It was so sweet of you to come!” she said. She might be sharp with Jem and vexed about her children, but it was evidently all right between her and Lucy. “How well-behaved your Hugh is!” she said, and clung on to her sister, pouring out the story of all the frictions working in her own kitchen.

Lucy hinted gently that she must be at home in time for her visitors; but she remembered the mission which had brought her, and shrank from seeming unsympathetic. At last it was so late that she had to say definitely that she must go at once, or she would not be back in her own house at four o’clock.

“Dear me”—Florence looked at her watch—“you really must go! It’s well you don’t have much dressing for dinner to do, or you’d be late already. It has been such a comfort to have a reasonable creature to speak to. And you’ll take a cab, my dear, or I’ll never forgive myself for having kept you. You are to take a cab, mind!”

Lucy smiled and hurried away. A cab? No! A woman who knows what it is to earn shillings cannot willingly afford to spend them because another woman’s whim delays her. Lucy, too, looked at her watch. There would be just time for her to reach home ere her guests arrived.

When they got into the quieter streets she shortened the journey by running little races with Hugh. Nevertheless, just as they came in sight of the house with the verandah, they saw Mr. Somerset’s cab drive up.

They all went in together. Of course, Mrs. Morison opened the door. She had on a fresh white apron as if she were ready to serve up dinner. Mr. Somerset had a big parcel to get out of his cab, and that made a little delay, during which Mrs. Morison hurried off again downstairs.

Lucy was comforted to find that Miss Latimer had not arrived yet, nor the lad Tom Black. Mr. Somerset was such an old and familiar friend that she could easily leave him to the chattering ministrations of little Hugh, while she hurried to her own room to take off her walking garb and add a few touches of lacy brightness to her apparel.

While she was thus employed, she heard Hugh give a shout of joy and go leaping downstairs. From the drawing-room window, he had seen Miss Latimer approach. Lucy heard him and the old governess exchanging rapturous greetings. She went out and met Miss Latimer, and led her to her own room, where the old lady had some little titivations to make, and a few private inquiries to get answered, so that they lingered there until another knock announced Tom Black, and they went downstairs to receive him.

They found the youth standing awkwardly alone on the landing outside the drawing-room door. He had only just reached that spot, led thereto by the sound of Hugh’s shrill pipe and Mr. Somerset’s deeper tones. He was vastly relieved to see Lucy, and to be made welcome by her. Lucy herself made the inward reflection that Mrs. Morison was either less trained in receiving guests than in other departments of service, or that she felt her devotion to the Christmas dinner must justify any lapse in minor attentions.

They went into the drawing-room. Tom Black was introduced all round, and a little conversation was got up about the weather, about Hugh’s gifts, and about Mr. Challoner, and how he was possibly keeping his Christmas day.

By this time it was fully half-past four. Lucy did not feel at all nervous on that score. If her husband had been at home to remain with her guests, she would certainly have stepped out of the room and taken a housewifely survey. But she did not care to leave her visitors quite to themselves, since she had the just idea that hospitality loses its sweetest grace if it seems burdensome to the hosts. It was natural, too, that dinner should be a little deferred. Mrs. Morison had probably thoughtfully retarded matters when her mistress’s return had been so late.

Lucy had not even begun to feel anxious—when there came a sudden heavy fall and a smash!

(To be continued.)

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

MEDICAL.

Unfortunate One.—Tainted breath may be due to a great host of conditions, and as it is a common affection, and is often exceedingly distressing, we will devote a little time to its consideration. The breath may be tainted from the mouth—bad teeth, deposits of tartar round the teeth, spongy gums, sores in the mouth, such as the little white ulcers so commonly due to dyspepsia, sores on the tongue or lips, etc. Enlarged tonsils are an exceedingly common cause of foul breath. Some forms of chronic catarrh of the nose and throat are also connected with bad breath. Then again, the breath may acquire a bad smell from disease of the lungs. The stomach also may cause the breath to smell bad; as a symptom of indigestion, bad breath is not uncommon. Lastly, poisons circulating in the blood will taint the breath. A mild form of this taint of the breath due to substances circulating in the blood is the unpleasant smell of persons who have eaten onions or garlic. The treatment for this symptom varies with the cause. Bad teeth should be stopped or removed. Tartar should be removed by scaling the teeth. Spongy gums, etc., should be treated with appropriate measures. Tonsils which render the breath fetid should be removed, for they are dangerous centres from which serious diseases may start. For the bad breath arising from troubles in the mouth or throat, a mouthwash of boracic acid and lavender water, or dilute carbolic acid, or of permanganate of potash is very useful. Orris root, eucalyptus lozenges, etc., are also very valuable. When the smell is derived from the nose, local measures are alone of any service. For other forms of tainted breath, musk, benzoin, and orris root are of value. It is often said that these aromatics should not be used for the purpose, because they only mask the smell and do nothing to remove the cause of the evil. Quite so! But when the cause cannot be removed, we must treat the symptom. For the bad breath due to stomach trouble, attention to the digestion and an aperient will be required. The other conditions and troubles causing bad breath cannot here be dealt with.

Curiosity.—1. Apollinaris, Rosbach, and Johannis waters are for table purposes, and possess no special medicinal action. Hunyadi, Janos, and Apenta waters are both saline aperients. Both these latter springs are in Hungary. Apenta is the more serviceable of the two.—2. Aix-la-Chapelle supplies two mineral waters; that commonly called Aix-la-Chapelle water is from a sulphurous spring. The other water is Kaiser Brunnun, an ordinary gaseous table water.

Glasgow.—We will give you our opinion; but, mind you, as in all cases of this kind, we will not take the sole responsibility, and you must get the opinion of another medical man upon the matter before deciding for good. The family history of the man you intend to marry is bad. His mother and his brother died of consumption. Your questions are these:—Has the man got consumption? will he get consumption? If he marries, will his wife get consumption, or will his children get consumption? As regards the first question—you say he expectorates a good deal, he has a “catching in the throat,” he is very tall and very pale. He may have the disease. We cannot go further than this without examining his chest. The answer to the second question must be equally indefinite. For the third question—his wife will not get consumption from him unless he himself develops the disease. His children, however, may develop the disease without their father being personally attacked. Of course, all may go well, and neither the man, nor his wife, nor his children may ever develop consumption; but with the history that you give us, we fear that such a happy result is very doubtful. If the man has got the disease at present, marriage is out of the question.

Puzzled Reader.—You should eat well, keep warm, and take plenty of exercise. How to do these is the question. A mixed diet should always be taken. If your digestion is good, oatmeal and other coarse farinaceous food will help to keep you warm. If your digestion is faulty, bread and milk is better. Fat does help to keep you warm, and fat foods in moderation are by no means indigestible. Indeed, fat bacon is one of the most digestible of meats. Dress in warm but loose clothes. Your boots especially should be loose, but perfectly watertight and well lined. Wear warm loose woollen underclothing. Avoid any constrictions anywhere, such as tight garters, corsets, or collars. Take as much exercise as you can manage.

MISCELLANEOUS.

S. C. A.—There is a shilling manual on common British ferns to be obtained quite easily.

Lily.—To make a rice cake, take six eggs, and their weight (in the shell) in sugar, and the same in butter; half their weight in rice flour, and half of wheat flour; whisk the eggs, throw in the rice after the flour, and add the butter in the usual way. Flavour according to preference, and bake for an hour and ten minutes. The ingredients should be severally added during the whisking. To prepare “pressed beef,” procure a piece of the brisket, remove the bones, and put it in salt (in the usual way), adding a little extra sal prunella to the brine and some spice, leaving it in pickle for rather more than a week. Roll and tie up in a cloth, and simmer gently in plenty of water for about seven hours (if the thin end, four hours); then remove the string, tie cloth at each end, put the beef between two plates, and press under a hundredweight, and leave till quite cold; then remove the cloth, trim and glaze, and garnish with parsley.

Daffodil.—You would have no difficulty in obtaining a good riding-habit in your own city, where there must be plenty of good tailors. It would be impossible for us to give an estimate for one, and we can only say that they may be of any price from £4 4s. to £10 10s. You had better get a Directory, look out for tailors and ladies’ tailors, and go and inquire personally.

M. M.—The “V.R.” on the upper corners made all the difference, and marked the first issue of the penny stamps in 1840. The stamp you send us was issued in 1864, and is of no value at all except as a specimen of the date, if you were collecting stamps of every known issue.

Pale Face.—Red would of course suit you, as well as all shades of it. Yellow sometimes suits pale faces very well, and so does grey relieved with pink. Violet and blue will make you look paler.

E. F. Boultbee.—We have pleasure in announcing your change of address, and congratulate you on your success in the oral system of teaching deaf mutes, and the remedy of defective speech. Address, Miss Boultbee, Members’ Mansions, Victoria Street, S.W.

Mahdi.—We thank you sincerely for so kind a letter respecting our magazine. Your writing is excellent. Peel a banana from the end downwards to the stem, and then use a knife and fork; or if at home, in private, you can dispense with them.

P. F. M.—We do not know whom you mean by “supers,” for one of whom you want a home. If some person that has been employed on the stage—one class being known as “supers”—there is a charitable society called the Church and Stage Guild, of which the Hon. Secretary is the Rev. Stewart Headlam, Duke Street, Adelphi, W.C., which looks after these people, and perhaps he might give you some information on the subject.

Light Wanted.—There is not the slightest reason why the event should not take place; indeed there is every reason why it should, provided that both desire it.

Clare Verney.—You might obtain the information you require by reference to Agnes Strickland’s Queens of England, or other history of hers.

Miss Mason requests that our readers should be reminded of her Holiday Home for teachers, clerks, and young persons in business, at Sevenoaks—“Bessel’s House,” Bessel’s Green, Kent. Reduced fares are asked from Charing Cross, London Bridge, Cannon Street, and Victoria. Return tickets for a month, 2s. 8d.—twenty miles from town by S. E. R. Charge for board, etc., from 12s. to 15s. a week. A stamped envelope should be enclosed, and the age and occupation of the applicant stated.

Perplexed.—The law on the question of changing or adding Christian names is as follows: “A child’s baptismal name, if changed, or not previously given, may be inserted in the Register within twelve months after the registration of birth.” You appear to be a member of the Church of England, and as such, how came you to remain unbaptised and excluded from Holy Communion until you were seventeen? “One year’s delay is allowed by the law for altering or adding to your name,” as entered on the Register of Birth, so as to accord with your “baptismal name.” As it is, your assumed second name is not yours by legal right.

Cumberland Lassie.—The high glaze employed by washerwomen for linen is produced by mixing some wax or fat with the starch. This is a difficult undertaking, even when hot. But starch-glazes may be purchased ready for use, which may be employed safely, and are sold at any good oil-shop. Some people, who wash articles at home, simply stir the starch while hot with a wax candle. The following is a good recipe for a glaze: Take 100 parts of wheat starch, 0.75 of stearinic acid, melt the latter with about ten times its weight of the former. Let it cool, powder, and mix thoroughly with the rest of the starch. This will be suitable for shirt-fronts and collars; but for table-linen add a little unprepared starch.

Little Housewife.—To clean japanned trays you should never use hot water; tepid water used with a soft cloth will remove any grease spot, and a little flour sprinkled on a smear will restore the polish. The varnish on candlesticks is often cracked by placing them before the fire to melt the grease, or by the use of hot water.

A. A. and D. C.—We often see clergymen, who are graduates of different universities, wearing the hoods of their several universities when doing duty in the same church and at the same time. Wherever they pursue their vocation, they have a right to wear their academic distinctions, and none other.

Anxious Inquirer.—Your fiancé should leave his own card. It is not for you to do so for him. Leave your mother’s, should she permit it, and your own, or her card with your name on it would be more correct.

Samoa.—Table-napkin rings are only used in private at home, or at a boarding house, economy in the matter of washing being an object. But in the houses of the wealthy, a fresh napkin is provided daily, and thus a distinguishing ring is needless. With reference to the discoloured coral, try a weak solution of borax, tepid. Should this fail, take it to a jeweller.

C. L.—There are only two ways of sending any parcel to India—by post, or by private hand. The acorns should be put into a little box. Your handwriting promises well, but is as yet unformed.

A Constant Reader has only to order a book on the subject from any librarian, and he will procure it for her.

Genevieve (Alderney).—You have only to write to the Manager of our Publishing Department for the cover, with index of the year you require, and ask him to inclose the bill, including postage, and any bookbinder will bind your volume for you.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Written in memory of Moore by the Rev. C. Wolfe, about 1817.

[2] These sentences were written before Lord Wolseley’s speech at Dumfries, June 15, 1898, in which he was reported as having said: “There could be little doubt in the minds of most soldiers who knew what Moore did, that, had he not been killed at the Battle of Coruña, he would have been the great Commander who led the Peninsular War, and it was quite possible that that great man, whom they all worshipped, the Duke of Wellington, would not have been heard of. He did not say that to depreciate the services of the Duke of Wellington, who had been a rock of strength to this country; but possibly, had Sir John Moore lived, his name would have been blazoned on the scroll of fame, as the man who won the great battle which crushed Napoleon’s power at Waterloo.”

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