[Illustration: THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER
VOL. XX.—NO. 1022.] JULY 29, 1899. [PRICE ONE PENNY.]
THE ANGEL OF PROMISE!
BY EDWARD OXENFORD.
Wildly she wailed by the tiny cot,
And knew not the words she said,
As she Death reviled, for her darling child
Therein lay cold and dead!
All in the world she loved was lost,
From her in its sweetness swept;
She would no more trust in a Heaven unjust—
Then the mourning mother slept!
Hovered the Angel of Promise nigh,
Empowered by the King above,
And he o’er her bent with the tidings sent
Of everlasting love!
“Trust thou in Him; He knoweth best;
Nought ordereth He in vain;
Past the Golden Gates now thy babe awaits,
And ye there shall meet again!”
Tranquil and solaced the mother woke,
Soul-filled with the Angel-dream;
And she blessed each word, in her slumber heard,
Sent down in love supreme.
“Trust? yes, I trust! He knoweth best,
And guardeth my babe who waits
In the Realms of Bliss for a mother’s kiss,
Till I pass the Golden Gates!”
[Illustration: “ALL IN THE WORLD SHE LOVED WAS LOST.”
[_Franz Hanfstaengl, Munich._]
_All rights reserved._]
THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.
BY ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO, Author of “Other People’s Stairs,” “Her Object
in Life,” etc.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CLEMENTINA GILLESPIE.
Lucy could not honestly say to Miss Latimer that she had enjoyed
herself at the Brands’ dinner, but she could frankly say that Miss
Latimer had been right, and that her visit had “done her good.” For
though she had not returned refreshed and re-invigorated, yet she felt
a wonderful thankfulness to be once more enfolded in her own home-life.
Somehow, too, she could see her own trials in a truer and brighter
light. She herself might indeed be worn and nervous, but there was
good reason, and a grand purpose to be fulfilled by the labours and
endurance which made her so. Florence seemed not less worn and nervous,
and why? For no end but vanity and irritating emulation. There floated
through Lucy’s mind some lines she had learned in childhood:—
“Idler, why lie down to die?
Better rub than rust!”
But was rubbing really better than rusting, if it were but a voluntary
and needless friction? Lucy realised now that the deeper agonies and
anxieties and the more strenuous efforts of the past few months had
given her new standpoints, and had separated her from much which she
would once have tolerated without question. She remembered having read
the utterance of a certain writer, somewhat to this effect—“I have
been through the furnace, and I have passed out too scorched to mingle
freely with those who are not even singed.” Lucy could not quite see
the matter in that aspect. Rather she would have expressed herself—“I
have been out on God’s wolds, under His open sky with its storms and
its starlight, and I cannot again relish close, artificially-lit rooms,
sickly with manufactured perfumes.” Oh, when once Charlie was at home
again, how much they would have to be thankful for, in their life grown
at once wider and deeper! What a new meaning was given to the old
words, “The Lord drew me out of many waters.... He brought me forth
also into a large place.”
So Lucy’s long holiday from her classes at the Institute proved both
restful and delightful. Nor were they barren of practical results. She
found many picturesque “bits” to sketch near London. Work of this kind
was such pure joy to Lucy that she was apt to forget that nevertheless
it remained a strain upon the nerves. She might have been wiser, ay,
and thriftier too, had she indulged herself in a little sheer idleness,
in lying among the clover making daisy chains or cowslip balls for
Hugh. As it was, when he grew tired of playing alone, he would nestle
down beside mamma, watching her busy fingers and begging for “a story,”
for which he never begged in vain.
Oh, those were happy days, peaceful in their present calm, radiant with
big hopes dawning! Then the evening coming-home was always cheery,
with Miss Latimer hovering over the teacups, Tom’s merry welcome,
and the sighing Clementina’s conscientious preparations for their
creature-comforts. If Lucy’s ceaseless industry did not permit her to
gather up all the physical benefit she might have got, at least her
nightly rest grew sweet and calm, and the troubled haunting visions
vanished.
She herself found much satisfaction in regaining her healthy moral
poise. It did not fret her now when Jane Smith openly gibed at her
in the street. It did not worry her when Jessie Morison’s mysterious
female ally was seen passing the house, and lingering in front of the
gate, as if half inclined to call. Nay, she bore herself with courage
and resolution when the policeman rang the bell in the middle of the
night, and roused all the household to hear that a man was lying in the
area, having evidently climbed over the locked gate and descended the
stairs.
She and Miss Latimer and Tom went downstairs together, Tom being
an incalculable blessing in such circumstances. The invader was
intoxicated, not hurt, as Lucy at first suggested, to the policeman’s
great amusement.
“He’s not been so bad when he was so spry getting over; he thought he’d
got a nice corner to sleep himself square in,” said that functionary,
as, with Tom’s disgusted assistance, he pulled the man nearer the wall
and tried to make him “sit up.” Horrors! Where did Lucy know the smooth
white face and red head thus revealed to view? Why, this was no other
than the carpenter whom she had accredited as Jane Smith’s lawful
“young man.”
“You come out of this, my man,” said the policeman. “You’re where
you’ve no call to be. And if you don’t stir your stumps pretty quick,
it’ll be the worse for you.”
The man had nearly “slept himself square.” He stared wildly around, and
muttered something about “coming to visit one as had called herself a
friend”—“a-wanting to give her a bit of his mind.”
“Take him away and let him go,” Lucy pleaded with the policeman. “I
know who he is—he’s been employed at Shand’s works—he used to visit a
servant of mine who is not with me now. I don’t think she behaved very
well to him.”
The policeman looked up knowingly. “Is it that there woman that
lives——” he paused, with a significant glance towards the closed
windows of the Marvels’ house. “A bad lot she is. She behaves best to
any fellow she treats badly. Come, come, young man, as the lady speaks
for you, I’ll let you go this time. Your young ’ooman ain’t here now,
d’ye understand? And if you take my advice, you’ll give her a wide
berth, wherever she may be.”
The wretched youth rose, picking up his cap, and dashing it against the
iron balustrade to beat off the dust.
“Thank you kindly, mum,” he mumbled thickly. “I begs your pardon. I did
not know she’d left here. I on’y knew she gave me the go-by directly my
back was turned, a-earnin’ money to make a home for her.”
“Well, well,” rejoined the policeman, pushing the shambling figure
before him. “You be thankful she did give you the go-by, though you
don’t deserve a better woman, if you ain’t more of a man than to let
the likes of her get you into the mess you’re in to-night—or this
morning, rather,” he added, looking up at the whitening sky. “Good day,
mum, I’m sorry I had to disturb you.”
On their way back to their rooms, they met Clementina, who had been
aroused by the movements within the house. Clementina, as she herself
expressed it, “was trembling so that one could knock her down with a
feather.” She had not descended below the first floor. Her breathless
question was—
“Is he dead? Has it been a murder?”
She seemed so alarmed and agitated that Lucy, reminded that any such
night disturbance, if occurring on Clementina’s Highland hills, would
have meant something of tragic importance, proposed that they should
all adjourn to the kitchen together and fortify themselves with cups of
coffee. Dawn was already so bright that gas was a ghastly superfluity.
Clementina, usually almost obsequious in her methods of attendance, was
so shaken that she sat down and allowed the two ladies to make all the
little preparations. Yet she suddenly became more communicative than
she had ever been before, and also wonderfully interesting. She told
of other night alarms of her life—of a wild shriek that went sounding
over the moor in one black midnight hour, and was never explained till
months afterwards, when a few whitened bones and wasted rags had been
found among the heather. She whispered of the heavy knock which fell on
her father’s cottage door one bright moonlit evening, though no step
was heard on the footpath, and nobody was in sight when they looked
forth. “But on the afternoon of that day my brother Niel was killed in
India,” she went on in her monotonous mysterious voice, “and when we
heard that, we knew what the knock had been. That’s Niel’s memorial,”
she added, pointing to the melancholy little framed card. “It tells the
date—June 25—and the moon was at the full. It was Rachel’s sweetheart
who wrote and told us all about it,” she went on. “It was the year
after Rachel had been up seeing her sweetheart’s mother and visiting
us. And I mind, wicked sinner as I was, that I grudged that our lad
should be taken and hers left. But after all, she was never to see hers
again, for as long after as he lived. Eh, but life is short for any of
us, whatever!”
“Was your house quite lonely?” Tom asked in an awed whisper.
“Yes,” she said, “that house was. When my father first went there,
there was only a one-roomed place, and he had to pick up the stones
off the fields before he could plant. He said my mother put her life
into that bit of land. That was why she died so young. I’ve heard him
say he could never see a hayrick or a sheaf of ours without thinking
her very heart was inside it. In time he built two rooms more, putting
stone upon stone himself, and Niel helping him. And when, the summer
after Niel was dead, the factor’s letter came, saying the rent was to
be raised, I thought my father was struck for a dead man. I mind I lay
waking through the night. I slept in the old part of the house that
had been there from the beginning, and just when the light was peeping
in, I heard a strange sound, like a spade howking in hard earth. I lay
and listened, and I thought it was like the digging of a grave, and
that it was a sign sent that my father’s time had come. I kept still,
for it’s ill to pry where a sign is set. Then I heard something like a
very heavy sigh and a cough. I thought ‘that’s human,’ and I ventured
to peep. There was my old father himself, howking down the stones that
he’d built up, one by one! And all that day he did it, and by nightfall
no human creature could find a place there to lay its head. And it
was the room where my mother had died, and where Niel had sat in the
chimney corner. My father never said one word,” she concluded, “but I
knew what was in his heart. And next day he took the rubble, and threw
it over the fields. ‘And now,’ said he, ‘let the laird come and take
his own again.’”
A fierce vindictive exultation thrilled through her wailing Celtic
voice.
“But he that quarrels with the gentry is a miserable man,” she went
on. “Trouble came of it. The ford is as deep as the pool. Yet we got
another cot and croft close by, on another laird’s land. It was but
a one-roomed place with a stony field. But my father did nothing to
it this time. Weak is the grasp of the downcast! He was an old man,
and I think he left the soul of his soul in the other place where his
children had been born and his wife had died. My father never spoke out
about the hardship he’d had, but he went about, muttering, and though
he had been a godly man, it was the sound o’ curses that I heard. One
was, ‘May he die in the poors’ house.’ I knew he meant the laird. And
just one week after father himself was taken away, his prayer came
true,” she added in a strange, hissing tone, which sent a shiver over
her listeners.
They all bent forward, eagerly attentive. A strange light in her eyes
seemed to draw their souls towards hers.
“It came true!” she said. “The laird was visiting the poors’ house;
they say he had just been calling something—I think it was a cup of
tea—an ‘unnecessary luxury,’ when he was struck down in a fit, and
there, on a pauper bed, he died quickly, and never saw face of his own
folk again. All the strath was talking of it. But father did not live
to see it,” she went on, “so it did him no good. And naught but false
hearts and evil tongues had been with us in that last place, and I
couldn’t bide there.”
She added that with strong excitement. Lucy remembered Mrs. Bray’s hint
about the unhappy love affair and the hated sister-in-law.
“You must find it a great change from the heather hills to muddy London
streets,” said Mrs. Challoner, hoping to divert Clementina’s moody mind
into gentler channels.
“You can’t give luck to a luckless man,” she answered rather
enigmatically. Just then, the white dawn brightened into a sunbeam, and
the little group arose, feeling that though still early, it was time
they should separate and begin the tasks of the ordinary day.
“She’s an uncanny creature, that,” whispered Tom to Lucy, as they left
the kitchen. “Sometimes, while she was talking, I could not believe it
was our Clementina. It was like another person taking possession of
her.”
“I noticed that, too,” was Lucy’s whispered reply. “And her story about
the curse was awful!”
“You don’t believe it was the curse which did the thing, do you?” asked
Tom.
Lucy hesitated. “No,” she answered, “not as the curse. But without that
curse and the general impression that it was deserved, nobody would
have seen any significance in the laird’s dying where he did. Had he
been a kindly, good man, it would have been felt that his Master took
him to Himself while he was doing his Master’s business among the poor.
We must not forget that some terrible curses stand recorded in the
Bible, possibly to let the evil and unjust see the feelings which they
stir, and the fate they are making for themselves, and how it will be
interpreted.”
Clementina really seemed so much more communicative and even cheerful
after those untimely confidences that Lucy, fearing that she had not
been considerate enough to a lonely and possibly land-sick woman,
tried more persistently than ever to draw her into some conversation.
But Lucy was careful that the name of Charlie—Clementina’s unknown
master—should never get into the talk. She dreaded associating it with
Clementina’s sighs and shakings of the head. She had a nervous horror
lest Clementina should make it a point about which visions and dreams
and omens should crystallise. If this should happen, Lucy felt that she
herself was not now strong enough to shake off the gloomy impressions.
Tom, too, was evidently struck by the general bent of Clementina’s
remarks, generally made when she was setting out the supper-table or
removing it. He used to ask her why “second sight” could not foresee
marriages as well as deaths, comings home as well as goings away,
future occasions for joy as clearly as future woes?
Lucy was rather afraid Clementina might be hurt by Tom’s questions,
but though she sighed and shook her head over his words, she smiled
indulgently on the speaker.
Clementina seemed so unwilling to go out to take exercise in the
open air that Lucy determined to suspend her usual orders to her
tradespeople, and to send her servant out to shop in the evening, when
she herself could keep guard at home.
She told Clementina why she made this new arrangement, remarking that
she could not understand how one who had lived all her life in pure
bracing mountain air could persist in being so much confined in a
London kitchen. Clementina answered, shrewdly enough,
“There’s little bracing air to be had here, ma’am, however much one
may go out for it, and on our hills we didn’t need to go out for the
air, it came to us at our doors. That is why our people can live in
such low, dismal houses. They have but to go to the threshold, and God
Almighty’s glory meets them spread over earth and sky.”
Since Clementina had been with Mrs. Challoner she had not seen much of
Rachel. For Mr. Bray was seriously ill, and he and his wife and their
faithful attendant had gone to Bath, and communication between the two
women was limited to one or two brief notes. Clementina showed Rachel’s
notes to Mrs. Challoner, because they had tidings of the mistress’s
friends. Clementina once opened one of her prim little screeds to add
a message from Lucy in the postscript. Clementina was very lugubrious
over her old acquaintance’s master. Perhaps it was this which first
warned Lucy to give her no encouragement to weave fateful spells round
the absent Charlie. That “the master” would be at home about Christmas
time was all Clementina knew from Lucy herself. Of course Rachel might
have made confidences, but the Highland woman was too well-bred either
to trade on these or to ask any questions. Probably she but thought
the more. Lucy posted her own letters, but Clementina saw her writing
them, saw them lying addressed on the hall-table, waiting for Lucy’s
out-going. And as Clementina took in all the letters, she must have
known that no trans-Atlantic letters came. Undoubtedly she puzzled
herself over this mystery, for once she ventured to say to Lucy—
“It’s sore, ma’am, to see you writing so much and so often. Sending
letters across the world seems so like writing to the dead.”
“Oh, no, Clementina,” Lucy answered, “for we get answers.” And
Clementina smiled an inscrutable smile.
“You don’t believe we get answers from the dead, ma’am?” she asked.
“No,” said Lucy, “certainly not! Not in that way. The dead have cast
off their bodies, and if they do hold any communication with us, it
must be as if we too were out of the flesh.”
“My father always said we had no call to have any dealings with the
blessed dead,” remarked Clementina. “We never had any portrait of Niel.
But after he was killed, Rachel’s sweetheart sent us home a little
one in a case. It had been taken after Niel was in India. But when
my father saw what it was, he wouldn’t take a second look. After the
neighbours had been told about the death, my father never named Niel
again. He never spoke of our mother.” And Clementina sighed and went
about her business.
Lucy drew a long breath. The mere thought of such suppressed existence
seemed to choke her. There may be danger of righteous indignation or
strong emotion merely frittering itself away in the “soft luxurious
flow” of too copious expression. A deep thinker has cautioned us.
“Prune thou thy words, the thoughts control
That o’er thee swell and throng:
They will condense within thy soul
And change to purpose strong.”
But merely to smother and bury is not to control and direct. It is
rather to deprive healthful force of its lawful function, and to screen
fevered force from wholesome cure. Surely speech is to the mind as an
opened window is to a chamber. If the chamber be fresh already, then
its freshness but meets newer freshness. If it be filled with noxious
vapours, they escape and fresh air enters.
It struck Lucy, too, as singular how this Highland father and daughter,
unlike the Brands in every other respect, yet resembled them in one
particular.
These Gillespies had clearly been gloomy people, narrow of creed,
strict in life, staunch alike in love and in hatred. The Brands were
frivolous, practically creedless, moving at the breath of every social
wind, their emotions floating like bubbles on the surface.
Yet both the Brands and the Gillespies kept silence over “the dead.”
They shut up their names and their memories in the tomb. It had
often pained Lucy to realise that in her sister’s silence her own
recollections of her early home were fading. When we so inevitably
soon pass out of hearing of those who have shared a common past, Lucy
felt much should be made of that treasury, while two remain to turn
it over. Apart from the attractions of Mrs. Bray’s quaintness and
elfishness, the old lady had for Lucy the supreme attraction that she
remembered Lucy’s parents, and seldom saw her without making bright
reference to some saying or doing of “your father” or “your mother.”
But when Florence was forced to mention these parents, it was always in
a whisper—such as Lucy would have used in naming a painful subject. And
she invariably said “poor papa,” “poor mamma,” as if Death—as universal
as birth—can, in itself, be a misfortune.
Winter was drawing on, as Clementina poetically expressed it, “fast
as a stone rolls down the hillside.” No Pacific Island letter had
ever come from Mr. Challoner, but Lucy said to herself that possibly
his American letter would but come the sooner. Every morning she woke
with the thought “Charlie’s letter may come to-day!” She knew the hope
was still premature. So when she did not find Charlie’s letter, she
always opened her other letters cheerily and read aloud any items of
news which she thought might amuse the little breakfast party, Hugh
generally having an interest in most of his mother’s friends, since
those who cared for her did not forget to send a message to him, and
one or two even added a bit of paper “all for himself,” covered with
“O’s” for kisses.
One morning towards the end of November three letters lay by Lucy’s
breakfast plate. The top one was a note from the picture dealer, the
under one was but a type-written circular. But Lucy paused over the
centre missive.
“Here is a funny-looking epistle,” she said, holding it up. The
envelope was thin and poor and dirty, and the writing seemed to have
been done by a pin-like pen wielded by a very heavy hand, which must
have wrought sore damage on its instrument before it laid it down.
“I know what that is,” said Tom confidently; “it’s the bricklayer’s
bill.” A few days earlier a bricklayer had been employed to relay a
stone in the scullery floor, and Tom and Hugh had superintended the
performance with great delight.
“Well, I don’t think he makes out many bills,” remarked Lucy, rather
daintily tearing open the filthy wrapper and unfolding its contents.
As she did so, her contented smile changed to a look of bewilderment.
(_To be continued._)
ABOUT PERGOLAS, AND MISS JEKYLL’S “WOOD AND GARDEN.”
Miss Gertrude Jekyll’s _Wood and Garden: Notes and Thoughts Practical
and Critical by a Working Amateur_ (Longmans) would be welcome if it
were only for the convincing way in which she preaches the true gospel
of gardening—that there is no hard and fast line between wood and
garden, wild and cultivated. She makes her garden melt into her strip
of woodland; she plants her wood as well as her garden with flowers.
The twelve calendar chapters with which her book opens detail the
operations month by month of nature as well as of the gardener. These
are followed by chapters on large and small gardens; beginning and
learning; the flower-border and the pergola; the primrose garden; the
colours of flowers; the scents of the garden; the worship of false
gods; novelty and variety; weeds and pests; the bedding fashion and its
influence; and masters and men—all of them delightfully illustrated
from photographs taken by the author.
For most readers of THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER certain parts of the book have
less value than others. Much of it is taken up with the gardens of the
wealthy. Miss Jekyll’s own garden, which furnishes the backbone of the
book, entails considerable expenditure, and is the ideal garden for
a moderate-sized manor-house. But she treats her garden as a cottage
garden is treated. She buys every plant herself, and puts it into the
ground with her own hands, and she keeps her eye on every plant as
if it were a child, doctoring it when it is weakly, and removing it
when it is obviously unsuited to thrive under those conditions. She
pays special attention to the cottage gardens in her neighbourhood,
knowing that in them she will get her best object lessons in the
survival of the fittest. A cottage wife, to be successful with her
garden, has to use the flowers which experience shows will do best in
the neighbourhood. Her space is limited; she cannot afford expensive
protection against weather, or expensive manures; she cannot afford to
renew her plants often. By paying special attention to the gardens of
her poor neighbours, Miss Jekyll has secured some of the most luxuriant
massings of blossom in her own.
Invaluable advice will be found in the book upon such ordinary subjects
as flower-borders, villa gardens, and small town gardens, and Miss
Jekyll complements her generalisations on the subject by descriptions
of actual gardens of exceptional success and beauty. But I prefer
to take for my example of her book something a little more out of
the ordinary, which yet is within the reach of families of limited
means—the formation of a pergola, especially since it is quite possible
to make a pergola in the narrow strip of garden with which Londoners
have to be content. What is a pergola? people will ask. Webster, in his
great dictionary, defines it thus: “Pergola, _n._ (It.), Pergula, _n._
(Lat.) (ancient architecture), a sort of gallery or balcony in a house.
Some suppose it to be an arbour in a garden or a terrace overhanging
one.” Webster, severe New Englander, had not before his mind the kind
of pergola which haunts the memory of the lover of Italy when he is
back in prosaic London. To such, a pergola is part not of a house, but
of a garden, the framework for an avenue-arbour covered usually with
vines, but occasionally with gourds. This framework consists of a long
colonnade of snow-white plaster columns which support the cross-rafters
over which the vines are trained. And the prettiest ones are those
which crown overhanging terraces. For pergolas a single row of columns
and a wall are perhaps better suited to our more tempestuous climate.
The Italians prefer a double row of columns. Nearly every monastery in
the South of Italy has its pergola, as, for example, the often-pictured
convent of the Cappuccini at Amalfi. In the winter, when their leaves
are off, these pergolas give the effect of a peristyle in Pompeii. Here
is Miss Jekyll’s recipe for a pergola.
[Illustration: STONE-BUILT PERGOLA WITH WROUGHT OAK BEAMS.]
“I do not like a mean pergola, made of stuff as thin as hop-poles. If
means or materials do not admit of having anything better, it is far
better to use these in some other simple way, of which there may be
many to choose from—such as uprights at even intervals, braced together
with a continuous rail at about four feet from the ground, and another
rail just clear of the ground, and some simple trellis of the smaller
stuff between these two rails. This is always pretty at the back of
a flower-border in any modest garden. But a pergola should be more
seriously treated, and the piers at any rate should be of something
rather large—either oak stems ten inches thick, or, better still, of
fourteen-inch brickwork painted with limewash to a quiet stone colour.
In Italy the piers are often of rubble masonry, either round or square
in section, coated with very coarse plaster, and limewashed white. For
a pergola of moderate size the piers should stand in pairs across the
path, eight feet clear between. Ten feet from pier to pier along the
path is a good proportion, or anything from eight to ten feet, and
they should stand seven feet two inches out of the ground. Each pair
should be tied across the top with a strong beam of oak, either of the
natural shape, or roughly adzed on the four faces; but in any case, the
ends of the beams, where they rest on the top of the piers, should be
adzed flat to give them a firm seat. If the beams are slightly curved
or cambered, as most trunks of oak are, so much the better, but they
must always be placed camber side up. The pieces that run along the
top, with the length of the path, may be of any branching tops of oak,
or of larch poles. These can easily be replaced as they decay; but the
replacing of a beam is a more difficult matter, so that it is well to
let them be fairly durable from the beginning.”
Miss Jekyll gives illustrations which are reproduced. She says that
the climbers which she finds best are Vines, Jasmine, Aristolochia,
Virginia Creeper, and Wistaria, and that Roses are about the worst,
for they soon run up leggy, and only flower at the top out of sight.
I am not familiar with the Aristolochia, but Vines, Jasmine, Virginia
Creeper, and Wistaria, all of them grow well in the inner London
suburbs such as Chelsea and Kensington much better than Roses. Nearly
every London garden has its flower bed, two or three feet wide, running
along its wall, and its gravel path, two or three feet wide, running
outside that. All that remains therefore is to have brick piers seven
feet high built on the outside edge of the gravel path and to have
the roof framework carried across from them to the wall. With this a
hideous London back garden can be converted into a thing of beauty.
Readers, who are fortunate enough to live in the country and have a
strip of woodland adjoining their gardens, should read with great
care Miss Jekyll’s admirable advice as to the exotic irises and other
flowers which can be made to grow in English woods. A wood garden full
of daffodils and irises, anemones and primroses, in their due seasons,
is one of the most beautiful things in the world.
DOUGLAS SLADEN.
[Illustration: PERGOLA WITH BRICK PIERS AND BEAMS OF ROUGH OAK.]
OUR PUZZLE POEMS: AN ACCIDENTAL CYCLE.
COMBINED SERIES.
FIRST PRIZE (_Three Guineas_).
Helen B. Younger, Edinburgh.
SECOND AND THIRD PRIZES DIVIDED.
(_One Guinea and a Half Each._)
Ethel Dickson, Preston.
Ellie Hanlon, Sandycove, Dublin.
These competitors also gained prizes in Series II. and III., and,
according to the rules, we have made a further award of the amounts so
won.
SERIES II.—SEVENTEEN SHILLINGS TO AWARD.
WINNERS (_Six Shillings Each_).
Miss E. J. Friend, Woodford Green.
Mrs. G. W. Smith, North Walsham.
Mrs. A. J. Wilson, Croydon.
SERIES III.—NINETEEN SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE TO AWARD.
WINNERS (_Four Shillings Each_).
Rev. Joseph Corkey, Armagh.
Edith E. Grundy, Leicester.
Rev. V. Odom, Sheffield.
C. Thompson, Minchinhampton.
Frederick W. Southey, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
_Correction—Series I._
The solution sent by M. A. C. Crabb was entirely overlooked. It was
perfect, and entitled to a prize of ten shillings, which has now been
sent. No complaint was received from the solver.
IN THE TWILIGHT SIDE BY SIDE.
BY RUTH LAMB.
PART X.
AN ALL-IMPORTANT SUBJECT CONCLUDED.
“Her price is far above rubies.”—Proverbs xxxi. 10.
* * * * *
I want to begin our evening talk, once more, by asking a somewhat
searching question. I know I shall not offend my dear girl friends by
so doing.
When you are looking forward to meeting the one on whose good opinion
you place the greatest value, on what do you bestow most care and
attention? Your higher nature, or your outward appearance? Is it not
generally the latter? Do you not study what colour best suits your
complexion, what style sets off your figure to the greatest advantage,
or whether you have heard him express approval of one dress above all
others?
To use the common phrase, you “want to look nice” in the eyes of that
one who has done all but tell you that you occupy the first place in
his heart, and to whom you have virtually given your own.
Do I blame you for wishing to be externally attractive? Assuredly
not. It is your duty to try and be so at all times and under all
circumstances.
Only, do not be too anxious about outside adornment. Let your life
commend you, rather than your good looks or your tasteful dress. These
may attract in the first instance, but they will not keep what is best
worth having.
A friend once spoke to the mother of a large family of girls in regard
to the anxiety she must feel about their future settlement in life.
She answered with a bright smile, which suggested anything but anxiety,
“I try so to train my girls that they will be fit for the sacred duties
that wives and mothers have to fulfil, and I leave the rest to God.”
One would like to see all girls actuated by the same spirit, that,
without undervaluing anything that helps to make them externally
attractive, they should cultivate every quality that will place them on
a level with the best man in the best things.
In speaking to you, dear girl members of my Twilight circle, I assume
that you desire in all your ways to acknowledge God, and pray that He
will direct your paths. Can there be a more important matter on which
you need guidance than that on which the happiness of your future life
depends? And yet, how common it is for girls to be so carried away by
flattering words and delicate attentions, which make them the envy of
others, that they do not pause to think how small a part these things
play in most married lives.
Are you accustomed to lay bare your heart to God in prayer, and to seek
His aid in all things? If so, have you asked yourself whether the one
to whose keeping you think of committing your future, will be likely
to kneel by your side and join heart to heart with you in making your
joint requests known to God?
Believe me, if husband and wife never pray together, they never taste
the sweetest portion possible in the cup of wedded happiness.
If their ways diverge when the path leads to the House of God; if they
neither worship together in the home nor the sanctuary, they are
without the precious bond of union that makes their lives truly one
here, and gives the assurance of an eternal reunion beyond the grave.
There are many indications of character which may seem trivial in
the eyes of some of you, but which ought to be deemed danger signals
in regard to married life in the future. For instance, an occasional
giving way to intemperance. Jesting about sacred things or passages
from the Bible. Breaches of faith in minor matters. Disregard of
truth, duplicity or evasion. Lavish expenditure and indifference about
incurring debts. Carelessness as to the comfort and convenience of
other members of the family, and want of respect towards parents.
These are but a few of the tendencies which are almost certain to
develop into habits later in life, and to bring anxiety and sorrow with
them.
A girl can make no greater mistake than to think that, after marriage,
her influence alone will suffice to conquer all such tendencies. A man
naturally tries to present the best side of his character to the girl
he seeks to win, and if the best is disfigured by serious blemishes,
believe me, these will be more likely to grow than to disappear after
marriage.
Not that I would underrate the possible influence of a good woman.
But to a good girl I would say, “Let your suitor, who is ready to
promise anything if you will say ‘yes’ to his suit, begin his work of
reformation _now_. Tell him frankly that your heart inclines to favour
him, but conscience warns you not to link your life with his until you
feel that the habits which threaten your future happiness have been
overcome by God-given strength. Say that you will wait, prayerfully and
patiently, during the testing-time, but that you dare not consent to an
unequal yoke. If he truly loves you he will receive your answer in a
right spirit, and will value and respect you the more for it.”
If, on the contrary, he should prove unwilling to turn from the sin
which so easily besets him, be assured that the test has been wisely
applied, and thank God that you had the courage to use it. If we do
right at all costs to our own inclinations, we may with confidence
leave our future in God’s hands, and be sure that He will have some
better thing in store for us in His own good time.
You, my dear ones, must, however, look within, as well as at all that
can be discerned in the characters of those who come to woo you. A true
heart should have its counterpart in exchange. If one is offered, see
that you give an equivalent, and do not dare to accept that for which
you can give no fair return.
To accept true affection only because of the money or position that
comes with it, and to feign the love you do not feel in order to secure
a share of the wealth you covet, is to commit a fraud of the worst and
most contemptible kind. You cannot, it is true, be called to account
before an earthly tribunal, but you will assuredly pay the penalty of
deceit and selfishness in one way or another.
There are some girls, dear good girls too, who get a little carried
away by the sense of power and proprietorship that comes with an
engagement.
Does it not seem delightful to look up at the fine, strong sample of
humanity, whom love has made your captive, and to think to yourself,
“He is ready to give his strength, his means, his time, all that he
has, to promote my happiness”?
Does the thought of such honest devotion make you proud or humble;
anxious to display your power or to repay and deserve such devotion?
Who has not heard such words as these from girlish lips? “I can twist
him round my little finger.” “He almost worships the ground I tread
on.” And forthwith the speaker proceeds to prove the truth of her
assertion by little, teasing, coquettish ways that are unworthy to
have a place where true love is concerned. These airs and graces and
tantalising ways are only like pin pricks, but they wound and leave
scars which do not easily wear away.
The more tender and sincere is the nature with which you have to do,
the more likely is it to retain the painful impression produced by
such methods. I am not going to describe them exactly. You all know
what I mean, and, in your hearts, acknowledge that they are unworthy
accompaniments even to your self-respect, to say nothing of the esteem
which should always go with love for your future mate.
If you believe in your _fiancé’s_ truth, be content without compelling
him to make a perpetual show of his devotion for the gratification of
your vanity. Good men are pained by such experiments; men of lower
natures are apt to retaliate, though, it may be, not immediately.
A husband of many years’ standing once told me that a few words, half
jesting, half taunting, from the girl to whom he was engaged, had
nearly caused a final parting. They did not, for the girl, finding that
she had gone too far, expressed her regret and was forgiven. But the
effect of her stinging words did not soon pass away. The girl forgot
them. The man’s memory was too faithful, and after a long married life
he could not think of them without a renewal of the old pain. “I would
give anything to blot out the memory of that girlish taunt,” he said,
“but I cannot, and _it hurts me after all these years!_”
A good man I knew said to the girl who had just promised to be his
wife, “I have asked you to share my home and my life because you are
dearer to me than all the world besides. Your consent has made me very
happy. Now, dear, I want you to trust me fully, and never to stoop to
test my affection, as I have seen some girls do, in order to display
their power over a man. I have perfect confidence in you, and, though
we shall be parted for some months to come, I shall be cheered by the
thought that at the end of them our real life union will begin. If
at any time you should not receive a letter just when you look for
it, or my coming should be delayed, be sure that I have not willingly
disappointed you. Wait patiently, and trust me under all circumstances,
as I trust you.”
The girl promised. The quiet, simple words and the look of love and
faith in the speaker’s face went to her heart. “Come what may, I shall
always trust you,” she said, “whether in great or little things.”
Circumstances followed—quite unforeseen at the time the pair became
engaged—which tested to the utmost the affection and trust of both. But
they stood the test, and when at length difficulties were overcome,
their union was not the less happy, because, if they had trodden a
somewhat thorny road before reaching the bright home they shared
together, neither doubt nor waning affection had helped to darken the
way.
Sweethearts and wives have such grand opportunities for showing their
power that they need not stoop from the high standpoint, at which every
truly noble-minded woman aims, in order to gratify petty vanity.
The girl _fiancée_ and the wife are alike unequal to lover or husband
in mere physical strength. That is natural, and therefore right. But in
time of trouble many a man, ready to sink under the weight of it, has
gained new strength and courage from her whom he has hitherto deemed
the weaker vessel. Her words may have been few, but they have always
been suggestive of hope and cheer, and said at the right moment.
There has been no “I told you how it would be,” no allusion to mistakes
made or the ignoring of advice which would have prevented them, but
pity for him who is only too acutely conscious of all that has been
wrong. Yet, when gloom and despair were about the man’s path and in his
heart, both have fled before a wife’s devoted ministry and the light
of love on her face. Perhaps she has told him that she knows their
changed circumstances trouble him more on her account than on his own,
but that, with him, she is strong to face them, and she proves it by
patient endurance and by making the best of all things. He sees that
she resolutely turns her face to the bright side—and I truly believe
there always is a bright side—and thus she induces him to open his
despairing eyes to the light, though as yet it may be only a distant
glimmer hard to discern.
A man with such a helper to cheer him on will be heartened to try
again, though he had given up hope. Her courage will make him a coward
in his own eyes, so he will raise his listless hands and shoulder his
load anew for her dear sake. He has felt that it would be impossible
for him to hold up his head again amongst his fellows, but with the
knowledge that a good girl or woman loves and trusts him, despair is
impossible. She believes that the one defeat has taught him to mistrust
himself, and that he will seek strength from God to fight again and to
conquer.
Can you not, my dear girls, imagine a man ready to face, dare, or
do anything in order to prove himself worthy of such whole-hearted
affection and trust?
I have been asked whether the early or later years of married life are
the happier. I think, nay, I am sure the later ones ought to be, if the
union was first founded on love, faith, and respect. All these feelings
should grow stronger as time goes on, and, just like the fair flowers
that need the gardener’s care to perfect them, they should be carefully
cultivated.
We show our love far more by the little things that go to make up the
sum of happiness in everyday life, than by occasional great sacrifices.
The engaged girl carefully notes the likings and dislikes of her
intended husband. She ministers to the one and will not provoke a
manifestation of the other. She watches for a chance of doing something
for him and giving him pleasure. Does she ever leave him abruptly, or
allow him to leave her without an affectionate farewell?
Ah, no! We all know that the farewells of an affianced pair are apt to
be long drawn out. The girl thinks that nothing can be too good for him
who is dearest of all. No effort seems too great when it is seasoned by
love.
If such is the case before marriage, how much more should the practice
of all sweet observances and courteous habits, care in little things
to avoid giving pain and to minister pleasure, be in constant evidence
after marriage!
Little things are often the means of drawing people together in the
first instance. It is much easier to win affection than to keep it,
and, better still, to be conscious that it has grown and strengthened
through the long years of married life. And it is only in the sanctuary
of their home that husband and wife learn truly to know each other, and
to grow into that perfect unity so rarely attained even by those whom
we call happy couples.
It so often happens that people who are most scrupulous as to their
“society manners,” forget to render ordinary courtesy to their own
belongings. They seem to think anything is good enough for the home
circle. Can there be a greater mistake? Those who are joined to us by
the dearest of ties are surely the ones to whom everything we have of
the best should be scrupulously rendered.
I was charmed a while ago, when I was talking with a mother of grown-up
sons about her father. I had known her from her early teens, and we
have been great friends always. It was beautiful to see her face light
with pleasure as she said, “I was telling him only the other day that
I never receive from anyone such perfect courtesy and attention as I
do from my own dear father, and now he is eighty years old. But he has
always, everywhere, and to every person, been the same.” And I, who had
long experienced this, could endorse her words.
So, dear ones, keep your very best manners for home, and they will not
fail you in other circles.
Dear girl wives, be as thoughtful for your husbands as you were for
your lovers—and more. Do not let them miss the loving farewell when
they go out to their daily battle with the world, whether it be in the
field of commerce, the learned professions, art, or behind the counter.
In the humbler but no less useful fields of toil, the farm or the mill,
the man will be cheered by the memory of loving words and the prospect
of your welcoming face and kiss when he comes home weary, toil-worn,
perchance downhearted.
And knowing how you will meet him, he will quicken his tired feet, that
he may the sooner receive the greeting for which his heart longs. If he
has good news to bring, the way will seem doubly long because of his
eagerness to share it with you.
There are times when the best of men are almost too sad and weary to
bear sympathy of the demonstrative sort, when everything seems to have
gone wrong, and all they want is just to be left in peace for a while.
Real sympathy is many-sided, as you all know. It may be of the fussy
sort, which cannot be satisfied without incessant expression, either in
word or deed. Kindly meant, it is apt to jar on its object.
There may be more wisdom and no less sympathy shown by silence than by
words. Thoughtful loving actions will not be lost on the weary, worried
man of business, who has found it impossible to leave all his cares
outside the threshold of home. I knew a man who used to say to his
almost too sympathetic wife, “Let me be quiet a little, my dear, I want
to think things out. I shall be all right by and by.”
Then the wife knew that kind words or the touch of a loving hand was
better withheld, and possessed her soul in patience until the thinking
out was done, and her husband was his bright self again.
The wife’s character should be great enough to grasp the greatest
things that come within her province, yet comprehensive enough to stoop
to the least. Do you wish to look upon a picture which represents a
perfect wife? There is one drawn in words by an inspired writer. Turn
to Proverbs xxxi., and read from the tenth verse to the end.
Note, first, her value. “Her price is far above rubies.” Her
faithfulness. “The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her.”
Her devotion is of no fitful sort. “She will do him good and not evil
all the days of her life.”
She is clever and far-seeing, and able to turn the means with which
she has been entrusted to good account in her purchases of land and of
goods.
She is industrious. “She riseth also while it is yet night.” “She
layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.”
She thinks and cares for those she rules for. “She giveth meat to her
household, and a portion to her maidens.” “She is not afraid of the
snow for her household: for all ... are clothed with scarlet.”
In the midst of wealth and abundance she seeks out, and blesses by
her bounty, those who are less favoured. Note the expression. “She
stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands
to the needy.”
No niggardly giving here. She seeks rather than is sought by the poor.
She is the cheerful giver whom God loveth.
She does not despise rich and beautiful clothing, becoming to her
position. “Her clothing is silk and purple,” which she may well wear
with satisfaction, seeing that she has cared for the needs of others
both near and afar off. But she has better garments than the silk and
purple, for “strength and honour are her clothing” also.
With all her strength, riches, commercial shrewdness and industry, she
combines wisdom and kindness in deed and word. “In her tongue is the
law of kindness.”
Good mistress! Good wife! Good mother! “She looketh well to the ways
of her household.” “Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her
husband also, and he praiseth her.”
Note the summing up of the whole matter. “Favour is deceitful, and
beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be
praised.... Let her own works praise her.”
What, save a life spent in the faith and fear of God, could furnish
such a picture? What, save the grace of God and the guidance of the
Holy Spirit, could be sufficient for such things?
And these must have been sought by prayer, and God’s blessing on the
study of His Word.
I have said much to you, dear girl friends, of my own happy married
life. Shall I tell you what made it so?
It was the being of one heart and one mind in the highest and best
things. We knelt, prayed, worshipped, and worked as one, and love,
trust, and true respect were the foundation of our union which grew
ever closer and dearer with the years we spent together.
Of all the precious memories I retain of my wedded life, one stands out
beyond the rest.
It was on the last day of it that _he_ bade me lie down by his side.
Drawing me close to him, he held me in those dear, worn arms, as if he
could not bear to loose the clasp, kissing me tenderly and repeatedly.
Then, when he could no longer hold me for very weakness, he said, “Oh,
my darling, my darling! Even you do not know how much I have loved you.”
Have I done right in drawing aside the veil, and showing to you, my
dear girl friends, this picture of what was truly his farewell?
I hope it will not have been done in vain. People may talk as they will
about the first whispered words of love and their sweetness. I can
recall such to mind.
Think you that any or all of them are worth naming in comparison with
those precious last words from dying lips, after so many years of
wedded life and happiness together?
(_To be continued._)
FROCKS FOR TO-MORROW.
BY “THE LADY DRESSMAKER.”
One sign of high summer in London is an odd one, and that is the
presence of handsome furs in the West-End shop-windows, where they
may be seen any day after June has once begun. I used to think people
bought them, even when the thermometer was registering 68° in the
shade; but I have found cause to think that they are simply displayed
in the window as a measure of safety, for light, sunshine, air, and
dryness are the chief enemies of the moth, and both May and June
are the worst of months in which they do their deadly work on the
costliest of our raiment. In the shops where furs are kept, they are
beaten with tiny canes, and exposed as much to the air and light as
possible. So we may take a leaf from this open book, and perhaps save
ourselves loss and disappointment. Of course, I do not mean that furs
should be faded by exposure to the sun; but if they were really good
and undyed, a little sunshine would not hurt them, though too much may
do them harm.
This year furs were used up to June, as the weather remained cold till
then; but there was not enough sun to do them harm. Nevertheless,
I lean to the idea that they are best left off early, both for the
health of the furs and of ourselves, many people being inclined to wear
them too long. In the present month they will need attention—shaking,
airing, and beating, and a general careful looking-over.
[Illustration: THREE NEW GOWNS.]
One of the most frequently remarked peculiarities of the present day is
the kind of wobbling way adopted by many women and girls when they
walk. They go from one foot to the other just like a duck. Now, I know
I have said this before, but I am desirous of saying it again, because
I am told that the matter is even more serious than I fancied, and that
there are many more operations in the hospitals now than there were
for various foot troubles. Also I have been informed that the number
of chiropodists has trebled in London during the past three or four
years—really since the pointed-toe shoes came into fashion. There is no
doubt, as we look at one of these ungraceful walkers, that the reason
lies either in their present or their past foot-gear. One of the most
usual sources of trouble is our universal fashion of wearing too heavy
shoes or boots, with too thick soles. In fact, they are altogether too
thick and heavy for warm weather. A lighter shoe would be equally good
and serviceable, and even if it _did_ get damp and need changing, we
could manage this easily on our return home. Follow two rules in the
choice of your shoes. Choose those which do not compress nor curl your
toes under when wearing them, and remember that a shoe is as bad when
too large as when too small. A thin stocking is better than a thick
one; and I have seen many people recently who have obtained ease and
comfort by dismissing merino, wool, and spun silk, and adopting cotton
for winter, and thread for summer. I think a thick cotton stocking
quite as warm as a thick woollen one.
[Illustration: TWO LONG TUNICS.]
The linen collar is far less used this season with blouses than it was
last year. Instead we see lace ties, and lace and silk scarfs. It is
wonderful how pretty an effect is produced by using a lace scarf and
one or two paste brooches or pins, which look so well in the filmy
folds of the lace. The lace has a far softer effect than the plain
severe collar, and this is a question that every girl must consider
for herself. An easy way is to have a long lace scarf, not more than
five inches wide, and to put it on from the front to the back, crossing
it there, and bringing the ends to the front, where they should be long
enough to be tied under the chin in a lightly-knotted bow, in which may
be placed some paste pins, or the tiny brooches so much used at present.
[Illustration: A POINTED TUNIC.]
If I were asked what was the favourite colour, I should very certainly
respond “Blue” to that question. But there are blues and blues; and
I have seen so many that it is difficult to say which is the ruling
hue. A very bright shade is certainly much liked, which is quite of
the old Royal-blue description. Plaids and stripes are much on the
increase, and I should not be surprised if we were to see a winter
of them. These very narrow skirts are well suited to the cutting of
striped materials, which are arranged with a seam in front and one at
the back, the stripes meeting in points like arrow-heads at both these
seams. There are also many spotted materials, and any number of ribbed
and smooth cloths, of varying degrees of thickness. Serge, too, is much
in evidence, and is as popular as ever, and so is woollen poplin and
Venetian cloth. Satin is as much used, and as fashionable as it was;
but fancy silks of all kinds seem to have been less liked than muslins
were during the warmest days of the summer; while the satin-faced
foulards were very pretty, but were not so popular as they promised to
be.
The shoe most worn this season has been the Cromwell shoe, having a
buckle for ordinary daily use with afternoon attire. But where evening
dress is concerned, there has been a great development in luxury, and
they are now made of brocade and velvet; and as to the buckles, you
may expend any amount you like upon them, for they are sometimes set
with precious stones, and are really beautiful. As yet, these shoes are
exotics, and only worn by a few, but no doubt the brocaded ones have
been copied from those of the time of Elizabeth, which have been shown
at the various exhibitions held of late years.
There has been rather a revival in the fashion of cycling, which
has recently suffered rather an eclipse, and there is a very great
improvement in the style and cut of skirts for this exercise, and also
in the general appearance of women a-wheel. The new method is to sit
high and straight, with the handle-bars within easy reach; and there
seems much less exertion in the management of the machine than when the
seat was lower. The cut of the new skirts is so good that they hang
down on either side of the machine quite straight, and there is plenty
of room for pedalling without any of that ungraceful drawing up of the
knees and of the skirt as well that used to be seen and is noticeable
even yet when some careless rider passes us by. We have all, I suppose,
read the Prime Minister’s speech about the ungracefulness of the attire
used in wheeling, and I for one feel quite grateful to him for his
plain speaking. So far as in each of us lies, we should strive to be
graceful, and as pretty as possible, while on our favourite iron steed.
The pattern of these skirts is sold at several paper pattern depôts, so
they can be cut and made at home.
The seated figure in our illustration, which shows a simulated tunic
trimming on the skirt, wears a pretty gown of pale grey summer-cloth,
the bands on the skirt and on the gown bodice being of embroidered
purple silk, while the vest in front is of pale green silk, and bands
of cream-coloured silk embroidery on cream silk. The same embroidery
heads the flounce at the bottom of the skirt. The lining of this gown
is of purple silk; and it has a grey hat and grey and purple ostrich
feathers to wear with it.
The group of “Three New Gowns” begins to show some slight evidences
of autumnal styles, especially the lady in the centre, who wears a
light fawn-coloured braided jacket, with a skirt of light brown cloth,
which is scalloped with velvet of a darker shade, the lower flounce
being embroidered also in silks of a darker brown. This is a charming
autumnal costume for short visits and journeys in England. The hat is a
sailor one, trimmed as these hats generally are at present, with more
or less elaboration. The present one has trimmings of yellow chiffon,
with wheatears laid over it.
The figure on the left hand wears an embroidered and ribbon-trimmed
gown of black satin, the front of the skirt and vest being of pale
lemon-coloured silk, with chiffon of the same hue, and bands of ribbon.
The hat is of the new burnt straw, and is trimmed with white chiffon,
with poppies and bunches of oats arranged amongst it. The right-hand
figure wears one of the new scarf bodices, crossed over in front, a
shirt-front of white silk, and a light green tie. The dress is of
figured poplin, with bands of green silk on the skirt. The toque is of
crinoline, with green and black chiffon, and black ostrich feathers.
The newest style is to have a neck and waist-band of a different colour
from the rest of the dress. For instance, if the gown be mauve, the
velvet at the neck or waist may be of pale blue or pale green, and
with a black gown orange is much worn. There has been a great feeling
towards mixed colours, and it is quite wonderful how we have got over
the old idea that it was both vulgar and ugly to wear many colours, or
to mix two incongruous materials in one gown.
The third illustration shows two charming gowns. The one on the
extreme right wears one of the new satin foulards of dark blue, with
a small white pattern on it. It is trimmed with light blue ribbon in
scallops round the skirt and up the side, the sleeves, and the yoke.
The last-named is of white silk, and so is the under-skirt. The second
figure wears a dress of white figured muslin, the bodice trimmed with
ruffles, and the vest is of tucked muslin. Straps of ribbon are on the
top of the sleeve and round the points of the tunic and waist. The
under-skirt is of muslin flounced, and with folds of muslin between
each. This model would be suitable for a coloured muslin, as well as a
white one.
The bolero has retained its popularity throughout the whole of the
season, and has quite superseded the longer jacket for afternoon and
dress wear. There are also revers to nearly all dresses. But I am
assured that our autumn novelties will be minus both these items, and
that the long three-quarter coat is likely to be the garment of the
winter.
THE COURTSHIP OF CATHERINE WEST.
CHAPTER IV.
Granville Gray was sitting in the library of Lord Mayne’s town house.
He was very busy, for though it was the recess, and his lordship was
away shooting in Scotland, and all the political and fashionable
world was dispersed in different directions, this was just the time
that he could devote to his own pursuits, and to certain important
investigations regarding the industrial life of the country by which
he hoped some day to make his name. But his attention was not as
undivided as usual. He would suddenly interrupt his work to walk up
and down the room, or to gaze absently out of the window at the dusty
lime trees that shaded the iron railing. For his work at the present
moment was not an aim, but a distraction. Catherine’s sudden flight
and the simultaneous appearance of Lady Blanche had made him realise
how strong and genuine was his passion for the former. How precise,
and commonplace, and conventional did the heiress appear beside the
glorified recollection of the girl he loved, as she had stood trembling
and clinging to him on the hillside. So when he read her little note,
with its tender farewell, which convinced him of her affection for him
at the same time as he became fully conscious of his own devotion, he
resolved that no other woman should be his wife, and determined to
set out in search of her at once. In spite, therefore, of Margaret’s
remonstrances, he excused himself to Lady Blanche on the plea of urgent
business, but he did not attempt to conceal the real state of the case
from his sister. Margaret was really very much disappointed, and blamed
herself exceedingly. She knew her brother well enough to realise that
when he had once made up his mind, persuasion was useless; she was
obliged to acquiesce, and to console herself with the thought that
if she had been unwise in bringing her brother and friend together,
Catherine was a very charming girl who could do him no possible
discredit.
So leaving the two women at the hotel, Granville had set out for the
address given on Catherine’s card. He hardly hoped to find her in so
obvious a retreat, yet supposed that he would at least be able to learn
something about her movements there. Great was his disappointment,
therefore, when he discovered that though the object of his pursuit
had been there only two days before, nothing was known of her
present address. The landlady, who scented a romance the moment this
interesting-looking gentleman inquired for Miss West, advised him to
write to the head-mistress of the High School. Granville had at once
acted on this, but as this lady was abroad, and her exact address was
doubtful, he was not surprised that he had not yet received an answer.
Three weeks had passed away in suspense and fruitless inquiry. He had
traced Catherine to Euston, where she had changed for Victoria, on her
way to St. John’s, but all further effort had been useless. Even now,
he thought, she might be within a few miles of him, somewhere in this
vast city; for what better hiding-place than London could anyone want?
His musings were interrupted by a sudden sound of wheels, and the
shrill ringing of the electric bell. Presently the door opened, and a
man brought in a card.
“A lady to see you, sir. She asked for his lordship’s address, but when
she heard you were in, she said she would like to see you.”
Granville was annoyed; he did not feel in the least inclined for an
interview with an unknown lady. Why should the man be so officious?
Then as he looked at the card his heart gave a sudden bound. Had
Catherine sought him out? But what an unlikely idea; West is not an
uncommon name. Nevertheless, it was with a quickened step that he
crossed the hall to the room where the visitor was waiting.
His heart sank when the little old lady, almost old enough to be his
grandmother, rose to meet him.
“I must explain my business,” she said, looking at him with a keen
scrutiny that would have confused a less self-possessed person. “I
asked for Lord Mayne, but I have come on a matter connected with
yourself.”
“With me? I am afraid——”
“Of course, you do not know me. Now will you tell me why I have had the
good fortune to find you in London at this unseasonable time?”
Granville felt more and more astonished, and began to think that his
visitor was mad, and must be humoured.
“I have come here on urgent private business,” he answered. “But you
wished to see Lord Mayne; is it on any matter that I can answer?”
“As I said before, you can probably satisfy me better than anyone else.
But before I put any more questions, let me tell you a story.”
And forthwith she poured out to him all the history of her quarrel
with Catherine’s father, and of her reconciliation with his daughter,
carefully avoiding the mention of the latter’s name. But Granville,
listening attentively, soon solved the enigma. He could hardly wait
with patience till she concluded, saying—
“I am naturally anxious about my niece’s future. She will inherit a
larger fortune than she has any idea of. I may die at any moment, and
she will be left alone in the world, a prey to fortune-hunters, and
quite unprepared to grapple with such difficulties as are sure to meet
her.”
“But why have you told me this?” he asked. “I cannot pretend not to
understand to whom you refer. But has Miss West——”
“Catherine, who, as you have guessed, is my niece, has told me very
little. But, apparently, you are almost the only man she knows. I
believe that I can trust you, for in a long life my powers of intuition
have seldom played me false. What I want to know is whether you would
be prepared to be one of the executors of my will, and to look after
her interests when I am gone?”
“You place me in a very difficult position,” answered he. “Whatever may
be Miss West’s feeling towards me, I tell you plainly that no other
woman shall ever be my wife. But though I am glad for her sake that
she has found you, your news is a personal disappointment to me. I
have spent the last three weeks in a ceaseless search for her. I had
hoped in a few days to go to her and offer all I have—which, if not
much, would at least have been something. How can I do so now? And if
I accept the executorship I shall be placed in the painful position
of seeing her continually without feeling at liberty to declare my
affection.”
“But why should you not declare it? Catherine may return your
affection, and she is quite without fortune at present. If you honestly
care for her now, why not follow up your acquaintance. Come and see her
as my visitor, and win her by a gradual courtship?”
“I cannot do it,” he said. “Simply because I love her, I will not
owe anything to her. I will not expose myself to the imputation of
interested motives, nor her to the humiliating suspicion of having been
sought for her money.”
“Really! Were ever two people more contrary?” exclaimed Aunt Cicely.
“But suppose she already——”
“Stop, I beg of you,” he interrupted. “You have no right to betray your
niece’s confidences.”
“Well,” said his visitor, standing up, “I see that you are
unmanageable. I will give you a week to think it over. You say you love
her, and you have the opportunity of doing her a great service. Will
you not sink these quixotic ideas in the desire to help her?”
And with these words she departed, congratulating herself on
having discovered the state of Granville’s mind without hopelessly
compromising Catherine, or doing anything at the discovery of which her
niece need blush. She drove off in high spirits to her lawyer, planning
a scheme which would inevitably bring the two lovers together without
sacrificing the pride of either. And after spending some time with her
solicitor, she took the last train home, feeling very tired, but with
the pleasant consciousness of having performed a good day’s work.
Meanwhile Catherine had spent a miserable day. She had lain awake most
of the previous night, planning a reconciliation with her aunt; but
towards morning she had fallen asleep, and did not wake till the maid
entered her room at nine o’clock. Her aunt had gone, had taken the 7.30
train to London, they said. At first Catherine had wild thoughts of
following her thither; she was not in a fit state of health to travel
alone, but ignorance of her destination was a hopeless obstacle. So
after spending the morning in vain attempts to read and practise, the
girl set out for the station, where she met every down train that
afternoon. Her patience was at length rewarded by the appearance of
her aunt, looking so pale and tired that Catherine was seized with
sudden alarm. She saw that Miss West was almost too much exhausted to
speak, so, hurrying her into the carriage, she drove quickly home, and
persuaded her to go to bed at once. Little was said on either side,
but the kisses that were exchanged as her niece left her for the night
satisfied Catherine that she was forgiven.
But the exertion and excitement had been too much for Aunt Cicely.
There was a sudden alarm in the night, the sound of hushed and hasty
footsteps on the stairs, a hurried consultation between Catherine and
the housekeeper. The former stood by the bedside, holding her aunt’s
hand, and feeling as if her last earthly support were slipping from
her. Then came the doctor, only to pronounce that the sufferer was past
his skill; even if he had come earlier he could not have helped her.
The grey September dawn found Catherine once more alone in the world,
and feeling more desolate than ever.