[Illustration: THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER
VOL. XX.—NO. 1019.] JULY 8, 1899. [PRICE ONE PENNY.]
[Illustration: “‘A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU.’” (_See page 643._)]
_All rights reserved._]
SHEILA’S COUSIN EFFIE.
A STORY FOR GIRLS.
BY EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN, Author of “Greyfriars,” “Half-a-dozen
Sisters,” etc.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHRISTMAS TIME.
“A merry Christmas, Miss Cossart! Why, you don’t mean to say you are
not coming to church! I thought you’d be sure to make a fresh start on
Christmas Day!”
“Oh, I’m a regular heathen! I haven’t been to church twice the whole
year! I can’t stand stuffy places, and I expect the scent of the
flowers will make it twice as bad as usual to-day.”
“Well, you’re coming anyway, Miss Cholmondeley? Shall we start? It’ll
be hot walking, and I hate that omnibus, and the carros are so slow.
Come along. Miss Cossart will tell them that we’ve started.”
Sheila hung back a moment; she had an instinct that her aunt would be
vexed, but she never knew how to refuse Ronald’s suggestions, made in a
half masterful, half-pleading way. He took her prayer-book and walked
off beside her, whilst Effie looked after them with a rather stormy
light in her eyes.
“Does she really never come to church?” asked Ronald, as they took
their way along the sunny road together.
“She has only been once or twice since I have known her,” answered
Sheila. “She thinks the air might bring on asthma.”
Ronald was silent for a few minutes, swinging his stick. His face was
rather graver than its wont.
“Somehow I don’t like to see people staying away from church like
that. I know it isn’t fashionable to say such things, but I have a
feeling that church is the place to help us to get the better of our
infirmities, bodily and spiritual. My brother Guy will struggle out to
church when he goes nowhere else, and I’m sure he is never the worse
for it. I don’t like to hear a girl call herself a heathen in that
flippant way. She must remember she won’t be judged by the standard of
the heathens!”
It was so unusual for Ronald to speak seriously that Sheila was quite
surprised, yet somehow it seemed to draw them closer together. That
was how Oscar sometimes talked, and upon this Christmas morning her
thoughts were very much with Oscar. It was the first Christmas they had
ever spent apart, and Sheila was a little bit homesick in consequence.
“I should hate not to go to church on Christmas morning,” she said. “It
seems to bring us near to everybody all round the world. It is so hard
to realise that it is Christmas here. A few days ago when it rained
so, and the snow came on the mountains, one could fancy, perhaps, that
it might be winter somewhere; but with this glorious sunshine! It seems
almost ridiculous!”
“Do you like Christmas out here, Miss Sheila?” asked Ronald, who often
called her that, and sometimes “Miss Baby,” “or would you rather be at
home?”
Sudden tears came quite unexpectedly into Sheila’s eyes. She looked
down that Ronald might not see them.
“I don’t think I have a home exactly—now,” she said.
He looked at her quickly, a flash in his eyes.
“But surely your home is with your uncle and aunt?”
“Yes,” answered Sheila a little unsteadily, “in a way it is, but
sometimes it doesn’t seem quite a real home.”
A tear plashed down, but Sheila turned her head away, and then looked
back with a brave smile.
“I oughtn’t to say that, perhaps. It sounds ungrateful, but, of course,
it can’t be the same as one’s own house, and last Christmas we were so
happy, and I never thought of things changing like this!”
Ronald, of course, knew all Sheila’s story by this time. He looked the
sympathy he felt.
“I know, I know. It must have been very hard! But you are happy with
your relations, are you not?”
“Y—yes,” answered Sheila a little doubtfully, adding after a brief
pause; “only sometimes I think my aunt doesn’t much like me now.”
“Oh, don’t think that! Everybody has ups and downs, you know. We all of
us have our cross days.”
“You don’t,” answered Sheila, “nor Miss Adene, nor any of you! But Aunt
Cossart is sometimes very glum and cross with me.”
There was a little gleam in Ronald’s eyes. It is a known fact that
lookers on sometimes see most of the game, and it had not been
unnoticed by the Dumaresq party that Sheila was rather out of favour
with her aunt. They could see the reason plain enough. The hotel was
filling up now, and still Sheila held her place as the favourite,
and small notice comparatively was bestowed upon Effie. There was no
blinking the matter that Effie bored people. Her sprightliness was
not of an engaging kind, it had a contradictious defiance about it
that was irritating, and her shallow theories and self-centred way of
looking at life made her conversation monotonous and tiresome. When she
allowed herself to forget herself, she could be much more agreeable;
but generally she could not get away from herself, and the result was
disastrous for herself.
Some other young girls had come, and Sheila would romp up and down the
house with them, leading them into fun and frolic, teaching them the
Washington Post up and down corridors or verandah, throwing herself
into games of which she was the life and soul, and in which Ronald
was always an able assistant, and in a hundred little ways making
life merry for herself and others, whilst Effie never seemed able to
amalgamate in the merry crowd.
Health might be one cause; but another was a certain quality in
herself. She was so used to being the first thought and consideration
with those about her, that if she was not that, she did not know
how to take any place at all. Her mother would look on anxious and
dissatisfied, utterly perplexed to find the answer to the question
always forcing itself upon her. At last she reached the conclusion that
Sheila was somehow in fault. If Sheila were different and made Effie
welcome, things would go differently. Effie ought not to be sitting
with a book in the drawing-room whilst the young folks were frolicking
outside. It was not right or proper; only if Effie did go out to them,
she speedily returned, not finding any fun in what amused them.
So Sheila got into disgrace with her aunt by imperceptible degrees,
and upon this Christmas morning her heart was rather heavy within her,
though she scarcely knew why.
The service, however, did her good, though she could not always keep
back her tears. The building recalled no associations; it was but
an ugly little place, something between a round and a square, the
authorities refusing to permit a cruciform church to be built. The
flowers, too, did not look at all Christmas-like in spite of a few bits
of holly here and there; arum lilies were the great feature with roses
and poinsettias. But the familiar hymns brought home back, and Sheila
choked once or twice, thinking of Oscar, the father who had left them
so suddenly, and the dear old home she never expected to see again.
She walked home with Miss Adene, who talked kindly and comfortingly to
her. She had seen that the child was in danger of getting in trouble,
and had warned Ronald to be careful; for she half-suspected Mrs.
Cossart’s ambitions for her daughter. Ronald would never think of such
a thing himself, nor would Sheila, who had the mind of a child in all
such matters; but Miss Adene had seen a good deal of the world, and her
kindly eyes were very keen and quick.
“Don’t be downhearted, little girl,” she said, “life is never all
sunshine for any of us. We should not be good for much if it were. We
want our east winds and rainy days, as well as the plants and flowers,
to make us thrive. We should be dry and arid like a desert if we had
nothing but our own way all our lives, and no little crosses to bear.”
“Yes, I suppose so; only it seems hard when people are unjust. Aunt is
vexed with me, and she won’t say why. She calls me rude and forward;
but I don’t think I am, do you? I like fun, and they all play. Why
should I be left out?”
Christmas was a gay day at the New Hotel, and nobody was left out in
the general fun. The whole place was decorated with greenery—trailers
of giant smilax twenty feet long, making the task of decoration easy.
They were wreathed round the balusters of the staircase and festooned
overhead in the dining-room, the waiters and maids got “tips,” and were
more smiling than ever, whilst guests exchanged greetings and little
gifts, and the table reproduced the typical fare of England—turkey,
roast beef, and plum puddings all aflame!
There was tennis in the afternoon, and dancing for the young people
in the evening; and Effie for the first time went down to the
billiard-room, and Miss Adene kindly interested herself in getting
partners for her amongst some of the visitors from the houses on the
island, who had come to join the fun.
Miss Adene had several acquaintances in Madeira, and many persons had
called upon Lady Dumaresq and her husband. Sheila from being much with
them had received invitations to go out with them; and at first the
girl had accepted, not knowing how to refuse. This had been another
cause of offence; and now Miss Adene was good-naturedly seeking to
induce their friends to call upon the Cossarts; and Mrs. Cossart had
been made happy to-night by an invitation for New Year’s Eve to one
of the biggest quintas in the island, where there would be a grand
entertainment, culminating in a giant display of fireworks, which
display, they heard, would be universal all over the island. For it was
the custom in Madeira to welcome in the New Year by a perfect storm of
fireworks. Even the poorest of the people spent their little savings
in a few squibs or crackers. Every child who had a “bit” to spend laid
it out in fireworks. Miss Adene said it was the most curious sight
possible—the whole island, as far as the eye could see, alight and
ablaze; for as the quintas and smaller houses ran right up into the
hills to a considerable height, and extended far on either side, the
panorama of coloured lights was something unique.
“Isn’t it nice that we have been asked to the big party?” asked Effie
that night. “Not that I care so very much about parties, but I like
to see all that is characteristic of a place. I suppose you were asked
too, Sheila?”
“Why, yes,” answered Sheila gleefully; but Mrs. Cossart, who was in the
room, said coldly—
“I am not sure about your going, Sheila.”
“Oh, aunt! Why not?”
“I am not sure that it is suitable; a big party like that, and your
father not a year dead. I don’t know if it is seemly.”
Sheila was silent; she had never thought of that, certainly. It seemed
a long, long time now since her father’s death; and even in the summer,
when her loss was so recent, she had gone about with her cousins to
little friendly gatherings at houses where they were intimate. Now
here, in this far-away country, where nobody knew them, the objection
did sound a little far-fetched; but Sheila did not know how to answer
it, though her face fell.
“I know you don’t think about things as other girls would,” said Mrs.
Cossart with a little asperity; “you go romping and playing and dancing
just as though you had never had a loss of any kind, and I haven’t
checked you, because I don’t want a scene every day, and you are so
self-willed. But this big party is another affair. Why, you have not
even a dress fit for it. I never thought of your going out to regular
parties. No, I don’t think it would do at all.”
For a moment Sheila was tempted to rebel. She had heard so much about
this New Year’s Eve party and she did so want to see it, and she did
like the lights and music and flowers, the little dancing there was
likely to be, and the gay greetings when the New Year came in. It
did seem hard to be left out! But then the remembrance came over her
of the words she had heard spoken in church, of Miss Adene’s kindly
talk, of the resolutions she had made for herself. So gulping down her
disappointment and sense of injury, she answered meekly—
“Very well, Aunt Cossart. I suppose you know best. I will stay at home.”
For a moment Effie looked as though she would like to speak, but
then the impulse passed, and she said nothing. It had flashed into
Effie’s head that it would be nice to go out without Sheila. Effie
had begun to think a good deal about Ronald Dumaresq. Her mother had
unconsciously led her to do this, though not with intention. Effie had
been interested once in Cyril, but she had had her faith in him rather
shaken, and his image was waxing proportionately faint. Ronald was
the leading figure in her little world now, and when the evening came
at last, and she was being dressed for the great party, she was more
particular than ever in her life before, and Sheila’s clever tasteful
fingers were called into requisition again and again before she could
be satisfied.
But at last all was done to her satisfaction. She looked as well as it
was possible for her to look, and Sheila admired her cordially. She
would not let herself be dull; she declared she should sit up and watch
the fireworks from the verandah, where a fine view was to be obtained,
and as there were many people in the hotel who would be staying, she
would not be left alone.
* * * * *
Bang! Bang! Bang! Sheila started from her doze in a snug corner of the
verandah, and behold the island was a blaze of coloured lights, whilst
the noise was like that of a bombarded city. She started up and ran
forward, and then gave a little startled cry, for there was Ronald
putting out his hand for hers, whilst he said in merry friendly tones—
“A happy New Year to you, Sheila!”
“Oof, how you startled me! But you are over there!” she cried laughing,
and pointing to the quinta up in the hills, where a splendid show of
rockets marked the exact spot.
“Am I? I thought I was here, but no matter. Here or there, I meant to
be the first to wish you a happy New Year!”
“How nice of you!” cried Sheila, bubbling over with delight at the
beautiful sight before her, and the happy feeling of having a friend at
her side, “but you did go there surely?”
“Oh, yes, I showed up and did my duty; but somehow it seemed dull and
flat. Something was wanting. Then, you know, this is the place of all
others for seeing the whole panorama of the illumination. Up there
you are too much in the middle of it. So I just made my escape, got a
fellow to run me down to the bottom of the hill, and here I am. Are you
glad to see me, Sheila?”
She looked frankly into his eyes, but saw there something that made her
suddenly drop her own. With a new sense of shyness she dropped his arm,
yet her voice had a happy ring in it as she answered—
“I am very glad to see you. I wish you a happy New Year too.”
“And I mean to get one,” said Ronald, suddenly possessing himself of
her hand.
(_To be continued._)
VARIETIES.
GOOD MANNERS.—To be always thinking about your manners is not the way
to make them good; the very perfection of manners is not to think about
yourself.
BE ALWAYS LEARNING.—Of all treasures, knowledge is the most precious,
for it can neither be stolen, given away, nor consumed.
SELFISH PEOPLE.—The more self is indulged the more it demands, and
therefore of all girls the selfish are the most discontented.
INSIGHT.
The riddle of the world is understood
Only by him who feels that God is good.
_Whittier._
MEANING IN MUSIC.—Mendelssohn felt intensely the meaning of music.
Comparing music with words, he said, “Die Worte reichen nicht
hinzu”—“Words do not go as far.”
LIVING.—To live is nothing unless to live be to know Him by Whom we
live.—_Ruskin._
THE HOME OF THE EARLS POULETT.
[Illustration: HINTON ST. GEORGE.]
It is a bright day in early spring—the ash-buds still look quite black
in the front of March—as we mount slowly the steep hill that leads
to the quiet village of Hinton St. George. The fresh air breathes out
vigour, but still we rest near the top to look back over the lovely
browns and purples of the plain below dotted with red-tiled barns and
towers of churches—Lopen, Merriott, South Petherton—built of the soft
Ham stone of the county.
The road we go by has a rare charm, with tall ash-hedges not yet lopped
to the shabby level demanded by the new injunctions. The crescent
bending ash saplings with their ebony tips look to be some guard of
halberdiers ready to marshal whichever earl eventually wins the day and
comes to the old home to claim his heritage.
Primrose buds look out from the hedge-rows, but there is not yet
much cheerful colour in the landscape. After the ash saplings come
elder-bushes, whose boughs are just breaking in a sad green tinged with
purple. The only warm colour that Dame Nature has taken on her brush
is the deep blue of the hills that lie beyond Seavington and Shepton
Beauchamp.
Busy folk tramping through noisy London streets are much exercised
just now about the law-suit that is to be fought over this far-off
spot. What a contrast there is between the distant city and this still
village so remote that no builder has spoiled the quiet street, the
houses with latticed panes and generous bow-windows, the old stone
cross with its mutilated figure, and the long low stone farm with green
palings sparkling in the sunlight!
Yet it was in the London church of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields that
Queen Mary Stuart’s gaoler, Sir Amyas Poulett, was buried in 1588, and
this most remarkable of a long line of Pouletts was not brought to
Hinton—perhaps up this very road—till 1728, when no room could be
found for him in Gibbs’ new church. This transference seems to form a
link between the busy city and the quiet village.
Another bend brings us to the beautiful perpendicular church with its
brightly gilded weather-cock dinted by the shots of a past earl, who
used to practise shooting at the vane from the adjoining gardens.
Very lovely is the old churchyard, with the great cedars in the garden
beyond for a background, and the tall tower, characteristic of the
county, softened into the mellowest greyish yellow and flecked with
lichens. We linger over the grave-stones, of which many have some
link with the Pouletts, and notice the curious Somersetshire name of
Tryphena on the tomb of one old servant who had lived in “exemplary
servitude” with the family for forty-four years, dying in 1801. On an
altar-tomb, with date 1691, is the curious inscription—
“Elizabeth Powlet lies interred here
A spotless corpes, a corps from scandal clere.
Deny her not the trouble of your eye,
She a saint in Heaven free from misery,” etc.
Over the pretty turf crosses, which are a peculiarity of this
churchyard, a gay peacock walks, very unconscious that he is the old
emblem of that immortality which shall survive “when all that seems
shall suffer shock.”
Through the deep porch we pass into the church where the pallid marble
monuments of many Pouletts go far to overpower the little building,
but are relieved by the warm tones of the pinkish fawn stone roof
of the chancel, the tender yellow of the Ham stone columns, and the
unassuming white plaster of the walls. A beautiful window by Clayton
and Bell sends red and purple lights along the stone floor that rest on
the heads of little Elizabethan Pouletts who kneel in prayerful line
beneath their placid parents in ruff and doublet, seeking—
“For past transgressions to atone
By saying endless prayers in stone.”
We do not linger long over the virtues of the earls of last century,
though we are amused at the wire-drawn periods of the epitaph to the
Honourable _Anne_ Poulett, fourth son of the first Earl Poulett, to
whom Queen Anne was godmother. A suite of rooms was prepared for the
Queen in the great house hidden in its cedars, and her bed used to be
shown there; but death called her to follow her eighteen dead babies
before the visit came to pass. She stood sponsor for the fourth son of
the first earl and named him Anne just as she did Lord Anne Hamilton,
the third son of the Jacobite duke who was killed by Lord Mohun in the
famous Hyde Park duel described by Thackeray in _Esmond_. Lord Anne
Poulett’s epitaph tells us that his “sedate fortitude, propriety of
judgment, and universal knowledge, could not avert that death which
tore him from his afflicted family”!
As we mount some steps into the Earl’s great pew, upholstered in red
cloth, we pass a severely simple pulpit which is so in harmony with the
church that it seems to melt into it, and leave all to the eloquence of
the preacher. The low stone rail, bound with fair worked brass, recalls
George Herbert’s words about the reading-desk and pulpit in his church
of Layton Ecclesia, “for he would often say Prayer and Preaching, being
equally useful, might agree like brethren and have an equal honour
and estimation.” The red pew is spoiled by a very ugly window which,
happily, is so far back from the main aisle of the church that it
does not spoil the general effect. A little door leads us down into a
space which was perhaps once the Lady Chapel, and which contains many
monuments of great interest.
Much might be written about the early Paulets from Pawlet, near
Bridgwater, and their descendant who wedded a Deneband, and so came to
Hinton St. George; but in this family the chief interest centres in
the early sixteenth century and the age of Elizabeth. In the mailed
warriors under the north wall with their dames in curious head-dresses
we see probably the warlike Sir Amias, who helped defeat Lambert Simnel
at Newark in the days of Henry VII., built much at Hinton, and left his
mark on the Middle Temple in London, where chiefly he lived. Beyond
lies his son Sir Hugh, who helped Henry VIII. in his French war with
Francis I., and is said to have put Wolsey in the stocks when he was
a youth at Lymington School. This Sir Hugh perhaps helped to bring
misfortune on the house, for he had the ill-fated office laid upon
him of being supervisor of all the manors, etc., lately belonging to
Richard Whiting, last abbot of Glastonbury.
But by far the most interesting monument in the whole church is that in
the west wall of this chapel to the memory of Sir Amyas Poulett, son of
Sir Hugh, and gaoler of Mary Queen of Scots during the last two years
of her life. It is seldom indeed that so much personal character is
expressed in marble as in the curious veins of this pale alabaster. One
would think that many a Londoner must have paused, struck by the stern
even irritable face, before the monument was removed from St. Martin’s,
where it was situate so long under the same roof as Nell Gwynne and
many another notable. How strangely it brings us into touch with past
times to look at this strong face of the man who had so much to put
up with! There he lies motionless in ruff and doublet upon a marble
pillow, and yet he moved in the stirring world we know so well from
Froude’s vivid pages and Alexandre Dumas’ bustling novels. In 1576 he
was sent ambassador by Elizabeth to that frivolous court of Henry III.,
the king of favourites, who lives again in the pages of _Chicot the
Jester_, with his swarms of little spaniels and his effeminate hands
smeared with cream, surrounded by the plots and counter-plots of the
Guises and the aged queen-mother Catherine of Medici.
Whilst Sir Amyas was in Paris, the negotiations were afoot for marrying
Queen Elizabeth, a woman of forty-six, to the French King Henry’s
brother Alençon, Duke of Anjou, a lad of twenty-three, “a small brown
creature, deeply pock-marked, with a large head, a knobbed nose,
and a hoarse croaking voice.” When he came to visit her in 1579,
Elizabeth pretended to like him and called him her “grenouille,” her
frog-prince, but the English nation had not forgotten the massacre of
St. Bartholomew seven short years ago, and would have none of him.
Sir Philip Sidney wrote out his indignation in an honest memorial to
the Queen, and then retired for some time from Court to Wilton, where
he wrote the _Arcadia_. On Stubbs, a Puritan pamphleteer, who opposed
the match, the Queen vented her spleen by having his hand chopped off
by the common hangman. “Long live Queen Elizabeth!” cried the loyal
Englishman as he waved his hat with his left hand. Feeling such as
this proved to the Queen that her Englishmen would have none of the
Italianated foreigner, but with her usual intricate diplomacy she kept
up the negotiations for years, and Sir Amyas Poulett had to bear the
brunt of Parisian indignation. “I have been baited here for a month or
more as a bear at a stake, and had nothing to say,” he writes, “but
stood still at my defence for fear to take hurt.”
[Illustration: HINTON ST. GEORGE.]
We can fancy that the knowledge which Sir Amyas gained of French
stratagems and spoils made him a suitable warder for the resourceful
Scottish queen whom he watched over at Tutbury, Chartley and
Fotheringay with a surly fidelity, for the last two out of her eighteen
years’ captivity. His restless desire to force his own particular
tenets upon her must have added to the trials of her last moments,
though his honest refusal to let her be murdered by any secret
assassin made the last sad pageant of execution possible, in which her
unwavering fortitude won for her the sympathy of posterity. Sir Amyas
liked plain dealing, and seems to have fretted much at the tortuous
policy of Walsingham and Burghley. He discovered a priest in disguise
in the Queen’s household at gloomy Tutbury, but knew not what to do
with him, because Elizabeth, as he said, “so dandled the Catholics.”
Sir Amyas yielded to Walsingham so far as to give in, perhaps
perforce, to the shameful plot which entrapped Mary into a treasonable
correspondence carried on by means of a water-tight box at the bottom
of the ale-casks supplied to her at Chartley by a brewer from Burton,
and then shamelessly copied for Walsingham. This double-dealing must
have been grievous to the old man, and the terrible responsibility
laid upon him, added to the pangs of the gout, shortened his own life.
Poor Queen Mary was so unconscious of the toils she was in that hope
improved her health, her swollen legs healed, and she was able to ride
hunting with the hounds and kill a deer with her cross-bow.
Stand with me in fancy in the little chapel at Hinton, and recall some
of the strange scenes beheld by that marble face.
Think of the sunny August morning in 1586, when Sir Amyas persuaded
the unconscious queen to ride out nine miles to Tixall and kill a
buck in Sir Walter Aston’s park. Mary is in high spirits, perhaps her
many plots have seared her conscience, and if she does know of the
purposed assassination of Elizabeth, it seems to her no high price to
pay for her liberty. Sir Amyas on the other hand knows that Babington’s
conspiracy is discovered, that he has had to flee from the forest of
St. John’s Wood, and that in a few moments Queen Mary will be arrested
for high treason. Deeply as he detests her Popish wiles, a little
sympathy must surely cross his harsh features when the armed men whom
she hails as her deliverers arrest her as a traitor in the Queen’s name.
Again. The fortnight of neglect and hardship at Tixall is over, and the
queen returns to Chartley with her doom upon her to find her treasures
and secrets all torn open, and her favourite attendant Barbara Curle
stricken by terror to a bed of sickness with the new-born baby
unchristened at her side. You can fancy the furrowed forehead of Sir
Amyas as he harshly refuses to christen the poor babe by the traitor’s
name of Mary, and the queen, ever with an instinct for the drama of
history, as she promptly lays the infant on her lap and baptises it
Mary in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
The weeks fly past. Elizabeth will not sign the death-warrant, but has
a letter written to Poulett in which she roundly complains of his want
of love and zeal for not having found some way to shorten the life
of the Scottish Queen. The letter reaches Sir Amyas at five in the
evening, and before an hour has passed he has written the letter, which
you may see to this day, to say in hot haste, “God forbid that I should
make so fowle a shipwracke of my conscience or leave so great a blot to
my poor posteritie to shed blood without law or warrant.” Sir Amyas had
to put up with Elizabeth’s angry pacings to and fro, and her words that
he was “a dainty and precise fellow who would promise much and perform
nothing,” but her later letters to him suggest that in the end she was
not sorry that the rough honest man had stood like a rock.
It must have shaken most men’s fortitude to witness the terrible
scene when Queen Mary knelt in the hall at Fotheringay and recited
the penitential psalms in Latin and English in deep tones that
sounded above the Puritan prayers of the men who refused her the last
sacraments of her church and met to see her die. When the last moment
came, she knelt calmly by the block among her black-robed executioners,
herself clothed in blood-red from head to foot, and never flinched when
the blow swerved and fell a second time.
In any case Sir Amyas only lived eighteen months after the Queen’s
execution, and died soon after his return from the negotiations at
Ostend for peace with Spain. Perhaps he endured hardships in that
devastated Netherland country, where partridges were plentiful because
the tilled land had become a wilderness. In any case the negotiations
did not avert the Spanish Armada, and Sir Amyas died in September,
1588, a month after it had perished. He must have breathed more freely
when the waves closed over the Spanish galleons, for in Queen Mary’s
last letter to the Spanish ambassador, Mendoza, she had bidden him tell
King Philip not to forget how she had been used by certain men, and
among their names was that of Sir Amyas Poulett.
Beneath the recumbent figure there is a curious French epitaph to this
quondam Governor of Jersey, in which are some touching lines—
“Non, non, je ne croy pas qu’un si petit de Terre
Couvre tant de Virtus, ait esteint tant d’Honneur,
Que ce preux Chavalier, ce renommé Seigneur,
Avoit acquis en Paix, avoit acquis en Guerre.”
His widow Margaret contributed a loving Latin epitaph, which may
have been composed by herself in this age when Latin was no uncommon
accomplishment for a lady. Queen Elizabeth puts her royal initials
above a verse on the right hand of the figure—
“Never shall cease to spread wise Poulet’s fame,
These will speak and men will blush for shame;
Without offence to speak what I do know,
Great is the debt England to him doth owe.”
There are other inscriptions playing upon the characteristic words of
his motto, _Garde la Foy_, and the three swords of his crest; but it
is time for us to leave the stone precincts and mount the old tower,
from which we get an exquisite view of the surrounding country and the
rambling old house.
The most ancient part of the present building was the work of Sir
Amyas’ grandfather. The present front was built by the first Earl
Poulett, Queen Anne’s minister. We cannot help regretting the “right
goodly manor place of free stone with two goodly towers embattled in
the inner court,” which old Leland saw in Henry VIII.’s days; but we
may rejoice that the pretty wings remain in which “the slabs of the
sandstone of the country forming the outer walls are cut in the shape
of the rounded stones of the sea-shore.” When gay flowers again relieve
the long line of stone, and a touch of green is added to the rows of
white jalousies, perhaps a look of home will return to the old mansion.
The quiet park where deer haunt the glades must have looked gay
indeed when the grandson of Elizabeth’s Sir Amyas entertained Mary of
Scotland’s grandson, Charles I., at Hinton in 1644, with a loyalty that
was ready to face much and pay heavily for his allegiance to the King.
It was only fifty-five years from the day of Queen Mary’s execution
when the two grandsons met at Hinton. Five short years were to pass,
and the head of Charles I. fell from the block with a fortitude not
unlike that of his grandmother, Mary Queen of Scots.
A few years more, and Hinton is holding high festival again, and
feasting the Duke of Monmouth with junketing in the park. Almost
directly after, the Duke was fleeing from Sedgemoor to be captured in
the Hampshire fields, and travel to London and the headsman’s axe on
Tower Hill.
As we walk back past the closed windows and fancy the treasures inside
of portraits and statues, and frames by Grinling Gibbons, we find a
poor dead thrush, called a “home-screech” in these parts, because its
note is not so tuneful as that of its brother thrushes. The bird and
its empty nest expresses the want we feel about this lovely spot with
its sad memories. The nest is too good and fair to be left untenanted.
CLOTILDA MARSON.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
LESSONS FROM NATURE.
BY JEAN A. OWEN, Author of “Forest, Field and Fell,” etc.
PART V.
ADAPTABILITY TO CIRCUMSTANCES.
Many persons look upon plants as still life, forgetting, or ignorant
of, the fact that their existence depends on the movement of the juices
which are embodied in them. This is not even quiet in winter, when all
about the plant would seem dead indeed. There is still motion being
carried on, although it is necessarily of a very feeble or languid
nature. There is perhaps only a very slight enlargement of the buds,
but there it is nevertheless; the almost imperceptible development
preparing for spring’s coming.
If a small part of the cuticle of the _Vallisneria_, an aquatic plant,
is placed under the microscope, there is visible in every one of
its tiny cells a number of little globules coursing in order, round
and round, faster or slower, in a varying degree of motion, until
the portion under observation has exhausted its vitality. And by a
wonderful instinct—as we say—the flowers of this species, male and
female, which grow on different plants, are able to detach themselves
at the right season. That is, the male flowers can leave the plant
stems, and floating about on the stream, they join the female flowers,
and so the reproduction is effected in them by a spontaneous action on
their part which is brought about in many other cases by an outside
agency, the action of bees, for instance.
When the waters of a stream rise, another aquatic plant, the _Kuppia
Maritima_ is able to coil and uncoil its flower stalks, which are
curled in a spiral fashion; and, as the depth of the water in which it
grows changes, its blossoms are always kept on a level with the surface.
In plant as in animal life, there is this wonderful power of
accommodation to circumstances which might otherwise prove entirely
adverse to the continuation of that life. Instinct is the term applied
to vegetable as well as animal life. We use it for want of a better,
although it certainly does not cover all that is implied in innumerable
instances.
A thoughtful writer says that instinct, which belongs to the
physiological expression of life, has no other end or function than
the maintenance of these forms, whence it never operates without
manifesting effects in the organic mechanism. Reason, on the other
hand, has no relation to the body, except as the soul’s body or
instrument; it belongs to the soul purely, and may be exercised without
giving the slightest external token.
“The life whose phenomena are the instincts impels us only to eat,
to drink, to propagate, to preserve our fabric safe and sound; the
spiritual life, the phenomena of which are forms of reason, gives
power, not to do corporeal things, but to think and to rise emotionally
towards the source of life. It is by reason of this supra-instinctive
life that man stands as the universal master.”
The great naturalist Buffon also says, “Man thinks, hence he is master
over creatures which do not think.” And an ancient author writes
finely, “While other animals bend their looks downwards to earth, He
gave to man a lofty countenance, commanded him to lift his face to
heaven, and behold with upturned eyes the stars.”
This has been a digression into which the use of the term instinct
led me. Instinct leads the carnivorous animal to feed on flesh; but
if this is scarce—even if fruit is plentiful, and offers itself in
profusion—the puma will devour wild gooseberries and raspberries; so
will the coyote wolves in the Rocky Mountains. I stayed for some time
in a mountain region in Colorado—the district in which I made my notes
for “Candelaria,” a story some of you have perhaps read in the pages
of this magazine—and there in the autumn the big bears would come in
their heavy rolling gait down the mountain-sides to devour the wild
fruits, “choke cherries” and the like.
The power of accommodation to the exigencies of circumstance is so
great that, as scientists will tell you, species will often develop
through these, in time, an extra member. And again, faculties and
powers, by their non-use, will desert us in time. Our power of
adaptability is in point of fact beyond calculation. “All things are
possible to him that believeth” is a truth too little tested by most of
us.
Could yon slender reed, which is swayed by the slightest breeze, stand
the fierce onslaught of a tempest? No, but it bends gracefully before
it and escapes unhurt where stouter stems have been snapped asunder.
And, to take a simile from the bird world, all the herons, the
different species of the _Ardeidæ_, which have ordinarily a slow and
heavily flapping flight, when alarmed or pursued by their natural
enemies, have a habit of easing themselves. They will disgorge the food
which they have just swallowed in order to lighten themselves for more
rapid flight.
This reminds me of a little incident in my own life. Some years ago
I was in a collision at sea; the bow of a large steamer ran into the
stern of the vessel in which I was, when both were going at top speed,
and both vessels went down beneath the waters almost as soon as we
passengers, most of us in our night clothing, had got free in the small
boats. Over fifty lives, unfortunately, were lost that night, but only
one woman out of very many others perished. That need not have been,
but she was timid, and she would not risk the leap that other women had
had to make down into the boat which waited for her ten feet below. As
soon as the boat in which I was, arrived, a few hours later, alongside
of a rescuing steamer, the women were most of them taken up into this
by means of a rope and band fastened round the waist, but I climbed
up a rope ladder which was overhung on the side of the ship. In order
to grasp this firmly with both hands I had to lose my hold of a bag I
had contrived to save, in which were some valuables very dear to me.
I put it down on the boat seat, and of course I never saw it again.
My precious things were lost, but my life was saved. A poor lady who
was in the same wreck suffered a still greater loss, and she was one
of those conservative sensitive natures who find it so hard to adapt
themselves to changeful circumstances. She has never recovered her
mental balance since that terrible night.
To preserve a trustful, cheerful frame of mind under adverse
circumstances, to be able to adjust one’s resources, one’s capabilities
to the exigencies of a life so liable to changes, is a gift for which
the possessor cannot be too grateful to the Giver of all good gifts.
Science has been defined by someone as “the discovery of the changeless
in the ever-changing.” I was sitting in a weak, fatigued state of mind
once in a train at a great terminus. We were waiting for the moment of
departure, and not being drawn up to the end of the platforms, trains
moved constantly on either side of us. To my tired head—I had lately
come off the sea, which had been a rough one—I did not seem able to
make out whether it was our train or the other that was in motion when
this occurred. Presently my eyes found a refuge in the contemplation of
a massive column within sight. So long as they rested there, all was
simple. I saw it was the others that were in motion, and we were quiet.
God is the changeless amid the ever-changing. If the eye of our soul
is fixed on Him, all else adjusts itself. We have “an anchor sure and
steadfast.”
The conies, says the wise man in the book of Proverbs, “are but a
feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks.” The conies
belong to the same family as do our rabbits, but they have not paws
suitable for burrowing, and their homes are in the clefts of the
immovable rocks. Thither they flee to hide themselves when the enemy
is in pursuit, or when the elements are adverse. They find tiny
fastnesses, where, protected from all stress of weather, they can sleep
in safety, and into which the great birds of prey cannot penetrate.
For some situations our powers of adaptability are all inadequate. The
combat is too great for our forces, and the best course, the wisest,
nay, often the only possible course lies in flight and in seeking
a haven of refuge, until, as the Psalmist says, “the tyranny is
overpast.” “I will flee to the Rock to hide me.” And as “that feeble
folk, the conies” make their houses in the rocks, so we, like the wise
man in the parable, build our house on the Rock, not on the shifting
foundations of sand.
(_To be continued._)
THE COURTSHIP OF CATHERINE WEST.
CHAPTER I.
A hot August day, hot with the heat cherished through a sunny fortnight
of rainless days; in which the earth radiated back to the atmosphere
the warmth bestowed upon her by the cloudless skies, so that a light
haze overhung the broad plains, and lay like a belt around the
dark-foliaged trees and whitewashed villages of the surrounding country.
It was a monotonous and little-varied scene, yet the girl who was
watching it from a railway compartment, as the train sped past it,
found it full of interest and delight. It was all so distinctly
un-English, and poorly as it might compare with the woody slopes and
fruitful orchards of the land she had left behind her, these severe,
hedgeless fields and austere lines of tall poplars had to her a
special beauty of their own. She took little heed of her travelling
companions, so absorbed was she in the novelty of her surroundings. And
she was conscious, too, that this was only the beginning, that better
things were in store for her. One short night and day, and then—the
snowy mountains, hitherto visible only in dreams, the green pastures
and tinkling cattle-bells, the climbing woods and glowing flowers.
Truly, for the realisation of such a vision all past toil and patient
expectation were well worth endurance.
If she had been less occupied with her observations, she might have
noticed that one of her fellow travellers was keenly interested in
her, and that the comic papers that were littered on the seat beside
him received very little of his attention. A slight service rendered
at Dover apparently gave him, at least in his own opinion, some sort
of proprietary interest in this young woman, whose solitary journey
seemed to him a challenge to his attention. Nevertheless, since they
had entered the compartment, he had not been able to obtain so much as
a glance from her. This, to one who was accustomed to think himself
irresistible, was not a little irritating; a brilliant idea struck
him, and he now held out to her one of the gaily-coloured periodicals.
The familiarity of his tone, coupled with the fact that she had been
accustomed to view such productions with disgust, impelled her to
decline it; but remembering the relief she had felt at his help on the
way, she accepted with a shy hesitation. The leaves fluttered in her
hands, but the pictures that caught her eye, as she turned the paper
over, distressed and annoyed her. In another moment she summoned up
courage to hand it back to the owner.
“What—don’t you like ’em?” he asked in surprised accents. “Come, this
is good, don’t you think so?”
He spoke with the assurance of an old friend, and the girl, who had
entered the carriage with him, was seized with a sudden horror lest
the other occupants of the compartment should identify her with this
stranger.
“Thank you, my eyes ache when I read in the train,” answered she,
searching about for some plausible excuse.
“Ah, that’s a pity, they’re much too pretty for that,” responded he
with intended gallantry.
Her eyes swam in a mist of tears. A less diffident girl would have
instinctively known how to rebuke the offender, but she was accustomed
to think humbly of herself, and at once concluded that something in her
own conduct had led the man to think that he might take liberties with
her. Suddenly, to her intense vexation, a large tear splashed on her
lap; but at the critical moment, a voice said to her—
“Pardon me, but I believe you would like a window seat. It is so much
more comfortable. See, let me move your things.”
In another moment, the speaker, who had been sitting beside her, and
next to the window, had changed places with her, and had moved her bag
and rugs so as to make a comfortable barrier round her. She tried to
thank him, and met the eyes of a young lady to whom he had been talking
and who, she supposed, must be his wife.
“You are very tired, I am sure,” said the latter. “Granville, pass me
my bag. Now, do have a little milk, it will be so good for you.”
“Thank you so much, but I really do not need it,” protested the girl.
“Oh, nonsense, you don’t know what is good for you! Come, I insist on
it!”
So she swallowed the milk mechanically, and then went on looking out
of the window, inwardly struggling between gratitude to the unknown
lady and embarrassment at having her confusion noticed. She was angry
with herself too. She had felt so perfectly competent to undertake this
expedition—a High School mistress, living in rooms, she was accustomed
to look after herself—and here was she, Catherine West, who had taken
a high class at Cambridge, actually crying because an under-bred man
had annoyed her! But the truth was that she knew very little of the
world. She had gone straight from school to college, straight from
college to the post that she now held. She had thought little of men
or of their relations to her, for women, whose youth is absorbed in
intellectual interests, are later in development on the emotional side
than others, yet, when the awakening comes, are apt, perhaps because
of the severity of their early training, to feel more strongly and to
suffer more deeply.
The journey passed without further incident. One by one, as
evening came on, the passengers settled themselves, comfortably or
uncomfortably, against air-cushions or feather pillows, and fell
asleep. But sleep was a long time coming to Catherine; she closed her
eyes, but her excitement kept her awake, and when at last she fell into
an uneasy doze, it was only to rouse at every station, where the train
drew up with a jerk and scream, and to stare bewildered at the red
lights that flashed across the darkness.
Morning at last, and the frontier reached! Catherine thought that she
would never forget the breath of cool clear air that swept through the
close compartment like a cleansing touch. The occupants, dishevelled
and unwashed, rushed out for coffee and rolls, then back again, and the
train went steaming on through the early coolness of the Swiss dawn,
while Catherine watched the east growing rosy behind the pines that
fringed the hills, and then, in one rapturous moment, caught sight of
the first snowy peak, all hushed and stainless in the silence of the
morning.
Suddenly her glance met that of the lady opposite.
“How beautiful!” they both exclaimed in one breath.
From that moment the compact of friendship was sealed between the two
women; they began to talk to one another, and found that they had many
interests in common. So the time passed pleasantly, till, arrived at
length at their destination, they found that they were going to the
same hotel.
“Give my brother”—Catherine started at this revelation—“the ticket
for your luggage, and he will see after it for you,” said her friend.
“You and I will go on to the hotel. Oh, the delight of a wash! And
then——”
“Then something to eat would be advisable,” said her brother, who,
having despatched the luggage in the hotel omnibus, now caught them up.
His words came as a shock to Catherine. “Fancy thinking of that when
he has the mountains to look at!” Her opinion of masculine nature,
which was chiefly based on an intimate acquaintance with the poetry of
Shelley, went down a hundred degrees.
In a few minutes more she found herself in the little bare room
allotted to her, where the furniture was of the simplest and the
cleanliness complete. She felt herself, in her dusty dress, a stain on
its exquisite purity. She rushed to her portmanteau and opened it.
“It is extravagant, I know, but I can’t help it!” And she shook out
of its folds a white muslin dress that had hitherto been sacred to
“functions” and festivals. And as she arrayed herself in it before the
glass the conviction came to her that she really looked very nice. Was
she growing vain, she wondered, or why was it that she felt such a
sudden interest in her appearance?
She left her room and came timidly down the corridor. Now that she was
alone in this big hotel, a certain fear came over her. She had boasted
to herself that she was able to take care of herself; she had had no
compunctions in coming alone on this expedition; of course she would
have preferred to have a companion, but since all her efforts to obtain
one had been unavailing, she had determined not to be disappointed of
the anticipated pleasure, and had, therefore, come alone. But now she
felt almost sorry that she had done so; however innocent her intention,
she felt that she had laid herself open to misconstruction; her
experience on the journey had told her that.
“My sister has sent me to see if I could find you,” said a voice beside
her. “The dining-room is this way. She has kept a seat for you—unless,
of course, you prefer to sit somewhere else.” The tone was rather
constrained, as if the speaker had been party to an arrangement of
which he did not altogether approve. Inwardly he was thinking, “She
seems a nice girl enough, and is certainly very pretty, but I wish
Margaret would not rush into these impulsive friendships.”
Catherine felt the coldness, and was glad to sink into the chair that
he placed for her. His sister sat between them, and bravely tried to
keep up a conversation. But Catherine was subdued and nervous, and her
brother was silent and restrained.
Nobody was sorry when dinner was over, and Margaret and Catherine
strolled into the verandah. The days were already drawing in, and
it was nearly dark, but a slender moon hung between the two snowy
peaks that guarded the valley, and in their ears was the murmur of a
torrent, that, slipping from the icy embrace of the mountains, rushed
impetuously from the glacier that was wedged between them.
[Illustration: MENDING THE QUILT.]
“And now let us produce our credentials,” said her new friend. “I am
Margaret Gray. I live by my wits, namely journalism; that is, I write
‘Answers to Correspondents’ for half-a-dozen ladies’ papers. My brother
is also engaged in the pursuit of letters. He is, in fact, Lord Mayne’s
private secretary. He is very clever, as all brothers ought to be, and
took a First in Greats. He is to marry, of course, an heiress, and go
into Parliament, and make a name for himself and the family, the family
being at present comprehended by himself and me. Finally, we are too
poor at present to think of heiresses or even to approach the only
available one, having piles of other people’s debts to pay off. Now for
yours.”
Catherine told her simply and frankly all her short history. How, left
an orphan, with just sufficient money to pay for her education, she had
been brought up at an endowed school, and had then won a scholarship
to Cambridge, and how, on leaving college, she had found a post in a
High School in a large manufacturing town, where she lived by herself
in rooms. She had only been there a short time, and did not know many
people; there were so few people that she could know, except the other
mistresses, living for the most part alone or sharing rooms together.
It was less by what she was told than by her quick imagination, aided
by her knowledge of other professional women, that Margaret was able
to conjure up to herself the long harassing days, the physical fatigue
that could seldom find relief, and then the solitary evenings in a
dreary lodging-house. She contrasted it with her own life spent in
London, among interesting people, and full of change and movement.
Certainly she worked hard, but the possession of some private means and
the knowledge that her future was comfortably provided for took away
the anxiety that haunts the working days of so many women. Her heart
went out in sympathy to this girl, who hardly realised as yet the whole
significance of her position.
“Isn’t it dreadfully monotonous sometimes? Don’t you long to get away?”
“Sometimes I feel as if I could endure it no longer, especially in the
evening, when I have finished my corrections and am too tired even to
read. But then there are the children, and children are so delightful;
though at the end of the term I do feel as if I never wanted to see
another child all my life. But that feeling soon wears off; they are so
innocent and fascinating, and never mind showing what they think. Oh,
yes; of course it is only the children who make things bearable.”
“Now I can understand the apparent absurdity of a girl like you rushing
off on a Swiss tour by yourself. Even I, who am several years older,
and have much more knowledge of the world, and no pretension to beauty,
should hesitate about such a thing. Did it never strike you that people
might misunderstand you, that you were laying yourself out to be
misunderstood?”
“Never! Why should it? I did not think the world so cruel. Must we wait
till we are too old to enjoy things, from fear of what people will
say? In twenty years I shall be too old to climb mountains and travel
cheaply. Then it will be quite proper, I suppose, but quite impossible.”
There was a touch of bitterness in her tone that threw a new light on
her character to Margaret.
“The world is hard on us women,” she answered gently. “We are in a
transition state at present. Only the most enlightened and sympathetic
men understand the independent woman. The very fact of her independence
makes her a prey to men like that cad in the railway carriage, or quite
incomprehensible to chivalrous men like my brother. You understand;
he would do anything to help you out of a difficulty, but would not
understand your preference for all the perils of a solitary tour over
the security and boredom of those dreadful lodgings. Most men still
prefer the clinging trustful girl who claims their protection at
every other step. She makes them so conscious of their own superior
power. But the woman who strikes out for herself and asserts her own
individuality is a challenge to the cad and an unknown quantity to most
men of honour.”
“I suppose that we can only suffer and wait for better things.”
“Yes. Sometimes I think we are suffering vicariously for the good of
generations of unborn women. If we maintain the right of women to live
independently and to think for themselves, a future age will concede it
as a matter of course. And yet one must be very sure of oneself to take
up that independent stand. Are you sure?”
“I don’t quite understand,” answered Catherine.
“Only this, dear”—there was a lingering, protective stress on the last
word that appealed to the lonely girl—“you seem to me one of those
women who are independent by circumstance rather than by choice. One
of those who proclaim aloud their independence at twenty and at thirty
wail privately for the dependence they appear to scorn. One of those,
in fact, who would seem more in her place with her foot on a cradle
rocker than rushing over Europe accompanied only by a travelling trunk
and a green ticket case.”
“Oh, you are mistaken, quite mistaken,” cried Catherine—“quite
mistaken. I am not that kind of woman at all. And besides, if I were,
what would be the good? Surely I am happier struggling by myself than
making myself miserable over some man; for I can never marry, you know.”
“Never marry? But why?”
“I am so poor, and the only kind of man that I could think of would
never look at an insignificant person like me. No, I shall never marry;
and that being so, I would rather school myself to independence.”
“You goose! How little you know of men. But I can assure you that till
you have made yourself miserable—or otherwise—over some man, you will
be an incomplete and, so far, an ineffective character.”
Catherine was unconscious of what Margaret’s intuition led her to
suspect, namely, that her conviction of insignificance and renewed
enthusiasm for independence were due to Mr. Gray’s polite indifference
at dinner. He now joined them, and Catherine immediately said “Good
night” and disappeared. She did not know that his eyes were following
her slim white figure as it disappeared between the festoons of
Virginia creeper that draped the verandah.
“Don’t lecture me!” cried Margaret when she had gone. “I know what you
are going to say.”
“Well?” asked her brother, raising his eyebrows.
“Oh, that I am too impulsive and all that, and that I shall get into
trouble some day by making friends of unknown strangers, who may turn
out after all to be disreputable actresses or anarchists in disguise.”
“Nonsense! But really, Margaret, you can never tell; all sorts of
people come to these hotels.”
“Just as if I didn’t know that! Ah, my dear Granville, you may be very
clever; your head is full of classics and politics, and things I don’t
know anything about, but you’ve ‘no art to find the mind’s construction
in the face,’ and that is just what I have. Now, can you say you have
ever known me wrong in my estimate of people?”
“Not so far, certainly. But doesn’t it strike you as a little odd that
so young a girl should be running about the country by herself?”
“Not at all,” and Margaret poured out Catherine’s story. “Poor little
thing! She is terribly lonely. You and I must do our best to look after
her, and give her a good time while we are here.”
Now this was a very heroic and unselfish resolution on Margaret’s part,
for she did not often get her brother to herself, and this holiday had
been anticipated with all the more pleasure on that account.
“As you will,” he said. “I will do my best to please you. I only hope
that your charity may not be blinding your judgment. You are the only
woman I know who is absurdly susceptible to beauty in her own sex.”
“Susceptible to beauty!” cried Margaret, with laughing eyes. “Just as
if I should have noticed her at all if you had not made her change
places with you. After all, Granville, you see it was you who began the
acquaintance.”
“How absurd! Any fellow would have done that. Didn’t you see that she
was on the point of tears?”
Margaret smiled wisely.
“Oh, you noticed that, too? And yet you suspect her genuineness. Now,
do you think that any girl who wasn’t nice would let an incident like
that trouble her?”
“Oh, well, I give it up. I daresay you are right. At any rate I will do
my best for your _protégée_!”
“Mine? Remember your responsibilities,” she answered, and so they
parted for the night.
(_To be continued._)
THE PLEASURES OF BEE-KEEPING.
BY F. W. L. SLADEN.