THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER

{337}

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

ABOUT PEGGY SAVILLE.
LOOKING BACK: A RETROSPECT, WITH SOME SURPRISING FIGURES AND A PRESENTATION TO THE EDITOR.
VARIETIES.
“OUR HERO.”
SUCCESS AND LONG LIFE TO THE “G. O. P.”
OUR 1000 ^th NUMBER.
IN THE TWILIGHT SIDE BY SIDE.
GIRLS AS I HAVE KNOWN THEM.
THE RULES OF SOCIETY.
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
“MY FAVOURITE CONTRIBUTORS” COMPETITION.
OUR SUPPLEMENT STORY COMPETITION.

ABOUT PEGGY SAVILLE.

By JESSIE MANSERGH (Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey), Author of “Sisters Three,” etc.

“‘BUT OH, HAVE YOU GOT ANY BOOT POLISH?’”

All rights reserved. ]

CHAPTER XXI.

Dinner was served unusually early that evening, and was an embarrassing ordeal from which Peggy was thankful to escape. On her way upstairs, however, Rosalind called her back with an eager petition.

“Oh, Peggy! would you mind awwanging some flowers? A big hamper has just awwived from town, and the servants are all so dweadfully busy. I must get dwessed in time to help mother to weceive, but it wouldn’t matter if you were a few minutes late. Thanks so much! Awfully obliged.”

She gave her thanks before an assent had been spoken, and tripped smilingly away, while Peggy went back to the big room to find a great tray full of hothouse treasures waiting to be arranged, and no availing vases in which to place them. The flowers, however, were so beautiful, and the fronds of maidenhair so green and graceful, that the work was a pleasure; she enjoyed discovering unlikely places in which to group them, and lingered so long over her arrangements that the sudden striking of the clock sent her flying upstairs in a panic of consternation. Another quarter of an hour and the Vicarage party would arrive, for they had been {338} bidden a little in advance of the rest, so that Robert might help his mother and sister in receiving their guests. Peggy tore off dress and apron, and made all the speed she could, but she was still standing in dressing-jacket and frilled white petticoat, brushing out her long waves of hair when the door opened and Esther and Mellicent entered. They had begged to be shown to Miss Saville’s room and came rustling in, smiling and beaming, with woollen caps over their heads, snow shoes on their feet, and big fleecy shawls swathed round and round their figures, fastened with a hairpin on the left shoulder, in secure and elegant fashion. Peggy stood brush in hand, staring at them and shaking with laughter.

“Ho! ho! ho! I hope you are warm enough! Esther looks like a sausage, and Mellicent looks like a dumpling. Come here, and I’ll unwind you. You look as if you could not move an inch, hand or foot.”

“It was mother,” Mellicent explained. “She was so afraid we would catch cold. Oh, Peggy, you are not half dressed. You will be late! Whatever have you been doing? Have you had a nice day? Did you enjoy it? What did you have for dinner?”

Peggy waved her brush towards the door in dramatic warning.

“Rosalind’s room!” she whispered. “Don’t yell, my love, unless you wish every word to be overheard. This is her dressing-room which she lent to me for the occasion, so there’s only a door between us.—There, now, you are free. Oh, dear me, how you have squashed your sash! You really must remember to lift it up when you sit down. You had better stand with your back to the fire to take out the creases.”

Mellicent’s face clouded for a moment but brightened again as she caught sight of her reflection in the swing glass. Crumples or no crumples, there was no denying that blue was a becoming colour. The plump, rosy cheeks dimpled with satisfaction, and the flaxen head was twisted to and fro to survey herself in every possible position.

“Is my hair right at the back? How does the bow look? I haven’t burst, have I? I thought I heard something crack in the cab. Do you think I will do?”

“Put on your slippers and I’ll tell you. Anyone would look a fright in evening dress and snow shoes.”

Peggy’s answer was given with a severity which sent Mellicent waddling across the room to turn out the contents of the bag which lay on the couch, but the next moment came a squeal of consternation, and there she stood in the attitude of a tragedy queen, with staring eyes, parted lips, and two shabby black slippers grasped in either hand.

“M—m—m—my old ones!” she gasped in horror-stricken accents. “B—b—b—brought them by mistake!” It was some moments before her companions fully grasped the situation, for the new slippers had been black too, and of much the same make as those now exhibited. Mrs. Asplin had had many yearnings over white shoes and stockings, all silk and satin, and tinkling diamond buckles like those which had been displayed in Peggy’s dress-box. Why should not her darlings have dainty possessions like other girls? It went to her heart to think what an improvement these two articles would make in the simple costumes, then she remembered her husband’s delicate health, his exhaustion at the end of the day, and the painful effort with which he nerved himself to fresh exertions, and felt a bigger pang at the thought of wasting money so hardly earned. As her custom was on such occasions she put the whole matter before the girls, talking to them as friends, and asking their help in her decision.

“You see, darlings,” she said, “I want to do my very best for you, and if it would be a real disappointment not to have these things, I’ll manage it somehow, for once in a way. But it’s a question whether you would have another chance of wearing them, and it seems a great deal of money to spend for just one evening, when poor dear father——”

“Oh, mother, no, don’t think of it! Black ones will do perfectly well. What can it matter what sort of shoes and stockings we wear? It won’t make the least difference in our enjoyment,” said Esther the sensible, but Mellicent was by no means of this opinion.

“I don’t know about that! I love white legs!” she sighed dolefully. “All my life long it has been my ambition to have white legs. Silk ones with little bits of lace let in down the front, like Peggy’s. They’re so beautiful! It doesn’t seem a bit like a party to wear black stockings, only of course I know I must, for I’d hate to waste father’s money. When I grow up I shall marry a rich man and have everything I want. It’s disgusting to be poor. Will they be nice black slippers, mother, with buckles on them?”

“Yes, dearie. Beauties! Great big buckles!” said Mrs. Asplin lovingly, and a few days later a box had come down from London, and the slippers had been chosen out of a selection of “leading novelties”; worn with care and reverence the previous evening “to take off the stiffness,” and then after all—oh, the awfulness of it!—had been replaced by an old pair in the bustle of departure.

The three girls stared at one another in consternation. Here was a catastrophe to happen just at the last moment, when everyone was so happy and well satisfied! The dismay on the chubby face was so pitiful that neither of Mellicent’s companions could find it in her heart to speak a word of reproof. They rather set to work to propose different ways out of the difficulty.

“Get hold of Max, and coax him to go back for them!”

“He wouldn’t, it’s no use. It’s raining like anything, and it would take him an hour to go there and come back.”

“Ask Lady Darcy to send one of the servants——”

“No use, my dear. They are scampering up and down like mice, and haven’t a moment to spare from their own work.”

“See if Rosalind would lend me a pair!”

“Silly goose! Look at your foot. It is three times the size of hers. You will just have to wear them, I’m afraid. Give them to me and let me see what can be done.” Peggy took the slippers in her hands and studied them critically. They were certainly not new, but then they were by no means old; just respectable, middle-aged creatures, slightly rubbed on the heel and white at the toes, but with many a day of good hard wear still before them.

“Oh, come,” she said reassuringly, “they are not so bad, Mellicent! With a little polish they would look quite presentable. I’ll tap at the door and ask Rosalind if she has some that she can lend us. She is sure to have it. There are about fifty thousand bottles on her table.”

Peggy crossed the room as she spoke, tapped on the panel and received an immediate answer in a high complacent treble.

“Coming! Coming! I’m weady.” Then the door flew open; a tiny pink silk shoe stepped daintily over the mat, and Rosalind stood before them in all the glory of a new Parisian dress. Three separate gasps of admiration greeted her appearance, and she stood smiling and dimpling while the girls took in the fascinating details—the satin frock of palest imaginable pink, the white chiffon over dress which fell from shoulder to hem in graceful freedom, sprinkled over with exquisite rose-leaves—it was all wonderful—fantastic—as far removed from Peggy’s muslin as from the homely crepon of the Vicar’s daughters.

“Rosalind! what a perfect angel you look!” gasped Mellicent, her own dilemma forgotten in her whole-hearted admiration, but the next moment memory came back and her expression changed to one of pitiful appeal. “But oh, have you got any boot polish? The most awful thing has happened. I’ve brought my old shoes by mistake! Look! I don’t know what on earth I shall do if you can’t give me something to black the toes.” She held out the shoes as she spoke, and Rosalind gave a shrill scream of laughter.

“Oh! oh! Those things! How fwightfully funny; what a fwightful joke! You will look like Cinderwella, when she wan away and the glass slippers changed back to her dweadful old clogs. It is too scweamingly funny, I do declare!”

“Oh, never mind what you declare! Can you lend us some boot polish, that’s the question!” cried Peggy sharply. She knew Mellicent’s horror of ridicule, and felt indignant with the girl who could stand by secure in her own beauty and elegance, and have no sympathy for the misfortune of a friend. “If you have a bottle of Peerless Gloss or any of those shiny things with a sponge fastened on the cork, I can make them look quite respectable, and no one will have any cause to laugh.”

“Ha, ha, ha,” trilled Rosalind once more, “Peggy is cwoss! I never knew {339} such a girl for flying into tantwums at a moment’s notice! Yes, of course, I’ll lend you the polish. There is some in this little cupboard—there! I won’t touch it in case it soils my gloves. Shall I call Marie to put it on for you?”

“Thank you; there’s no need—I can do it! I would rather do it myself!”

“Oh—oh, isn’t she cwoss! You will bweak the cork if you scwew it about like that, and then you’ll never be able to get it out. Why don’t you pull it pwoperly?”

“I know how to pull out a cork, thank you; I’ve done it before!”

Peggy shot an angry glance at her hostess, and set to work again with doubled energy. Now that Rosalind had laughed at her inability, it would be misery to fail; but the bottle had evidently lain aside for some time, and a stiff black crust had formed round the cork which made it difficult to move. Peggy pulled and tugged, while Rosalind stood watching, laughing her aggravating, patronising little laugh, and dropping a word of instruction from time to time. And then, quite suddenly, a dreadful thing happened. In the flash of an eye—so quickly and unexpectedly, that, looking back upon it, it seemed like a nightmare which could not possibly have taken place in real life—the cork jerked out in Peggy’s hand, in response to a savage tug, and with it out flew an inky jet, which rose straight up in the air, separated into a multitude of tiny drops and descended in a flood—oh, the horror of that moment!—over Rosalind’s face, neck and dress.

One moment a fairy princess, a goddess of summer, the next a figure of fun with black spots scattered thickly over cheeks and nose, a big splash on the white shoulder, and inky daubs dotted here and there between the rose leaves. What a transformation! What a spectacle of horror! Peggy stood transfixed; Mellicent screamed in terror, and Esther ran forward, handkerchief in hand, only to be waved aside with angry vehemence. Rosalind’s face was convulsed with anger; she stamped her foot and spoke at the pitch of her voice, as if she had no control over her feelings.

“Oh, oh, oh! You wicked girl; you hateful, detestable girl! You did it on purpose because you were in a temper! You have been in a temper all the afternoon! You have spoiled my dress! I was ready to go downstairs. It is eight o’clock. In a few minutes everyone will all be here, and oh, what shall I do—what shall I do! Whatever will mother say when she sees me?”

As if to give a practical answer to this inquiry, there came a sound of hasty footsteps in the corridor, the door flew open, and Lady Darcy rushed in, followed by the French maid.

“My darling, what is it? I heard your voice. Has something happened? Oh-h!” She stopped short, paralysed with consternation, while the maid wrung her hands in despair. “Rosalind, what have you done to yourself?”

“Nothing, nothing! It was Peggy Saville; she splashed me with her horrid boot-polish—I gave it to her for her shoes. It is on my face, my neck, in my mouth——”

“I was pulling the cork. It came out with a jerk. I didn’t know; I didn’t see!”

Lady Darcy’s face stiffened with an expression of icy displeasure.

“It is too annoying! Your dress spoiled at the last moment! Inexcusable carelessness! What is to be done, Marie? I am in despair!”

The Frenchwoman shrugged her shoulders with an indignant glance in Peggy’s direction.

“There is nothing to do. Put on another dress, that is all. Mademoiselle must change as quick as she can. If I sponge the spots, I spoil the whole thing at once.”

“But you could cut them out, couldn’t you?” cried Peggy, the picture of woe, yet miserably eager to make what amends she could. “You could cut out the spots with sharp scissors, and the holes would not show, for the chiffon is so full and loose. I—I think I could do it, if you would let me try!”

Mistress and maid exchanged a sharp, mutual glance, and the Frenchwoman nodded slowly.

“Yes, it is true; I could rearrange the folds. It will take some time, but still, it can be done. It is the best plan.”

“Go then, Rosalind, go with Marie; there is not a moment to spare, and for pity’s sake, don’t cry! Your eyes will be red, and at any moment now the people may begin to arrive. I wanted you to be with me to receive your guests. It will be most awkward being without you, but there is no help for it, I suppose. The whole thing is too annoying for words!”

Lady Darcy swept out of the room, and the three girls were once more left alone, but how changed were their feelings in those few short moments! There was not the shadow of a smile between them; they looked more as if they were about to attend a funeral than a scene of festivity, and for several moments no one had the heart to speak. Peggy still held the fatal cork in her hand, and went through the work of polishing Mellicent’s slippers with an air of the profoundest dejection. When they were finished she handed them over in dreary silence, and was recommencing the brushing of her hair, when something in the expression of the chubby face arrested her attention. Her eyes flashed; she faced round with a frown and a quick “Well, what is it? What are you thinking now?”

“I—I wondered,” whispered Mellicent breathlessly, “if you did it on purpose! Did you mean to spoil her dress and make her change it?”

Peggy’s hands dropped to her side, her back straightened until she stood stiff and straight as a poker. Every atom of expression seemed to die out of her face. Her voice had a deadly quiet in its intonation.

“What do you think about it yourself?”

“I—I thought perhaps you did! She teased you, and you were so cross. You seemed to be standing so very near her, and you are jealous of her—and she looked so lovely! I thought perhaps you did....”

“Mellicent Asplin,” said Peggy quietly, and her voice was like the keen east wind that blows from the icy-covered mountains, “Mellicent Asplin, my name is Saville, and in my family we don’t condescend to mean and dishonourable tricks. I may not like Rosalind, but I would have given all I have in the world sooner than this should have happened. I was trying to do you a service, but you forget that. You forget many things! I have been jealous of Rosalind, because when she arrived, you and your sister forgot that I was alone and far away from everyone belonging to me, and were so much engrossed with her that you left me alone to amuse myself as best I might. You were pleased enough to have me when no one else was there, but you left me the moment someone appeared who was richer and grander than I. I wouldn’t have treated you like that if our positions had been reversed. If I dislike Rosalind, it is your fault as much as hers; more than hers, for it was you who made me dread her coming!”

Peggy stopped, trembling and breathless. There was a moment’s silence in the room, and then Esther spoke in a slow, meditative fashion.

“It is quite true!” she said. “We have left you alone, Peggy; but it is not quite so bad as you think. Really and truly we like you far the best, but—but Rosalind is such a change to us. Everything about her is so beautiful and so different, that she has always seemed the great excitement of our lives. I don’t know that I’m exactly fond of her, but I want to see her, and talk to her, and hear her speak; and she is only here for a short time in the year. It was because we looked upon you as really one of ourselves that we seemed to neglect you, but it was wrong all the same. As for your spoiling her dress on purpose, it’s ridiculous to think of it. How could you say such a thing, Mellicent, when Peggy was trying to help you, too? How could you be so mean and horrid?”

“Oh, well, I’m sure I wish I were dead,” wailed Mellicent promptly. “Nothing but fusses and bothers, and just when I thought I was going to be so happy! If I’d had white shoes, this would never have happened. Always the same thing! When you look forward to a treat, everything is as piggy and nasty as it can be! Wish I’d never come! Wish I’d stayed at home, and let the horrid old party go to Jericho! Rosalind’s crying, Peggy’s cross, you are preaching! This is a nice way to enjoy yourself, I must say!”

Nothing is more hopeless than to reason with a placid person who has lapsed into a fit of ill-temper. The two elder girls realised this, and remained perfectly silent while Mellicent continued to wish for death, to lament the general misery of life, and the bad fortune which attended the wearers of black slippers. So incessant was the stream of her repinings, that it seemed as if it might have gone on for ever, had not a {340} servant entered at last with the information that the guests were beginning to arrive, and that Lady Darcy would be glad to see the young ladies without delay. Esther was anxious to wait and help Peggy with her toilette, but that young lady was still on her dignity and by no means anxious to descend to a scene of gaiety for which she had little heart. She refused the offer, therefore, in Mariquita fashion, and the sisters walked dejectedly along the brightly-lit corridors, Mellicent still continuing her melancholy wail, and Esther reflecting sadly that all was vanity, and devoutly wishing herself back in the peaceful atmosphere of the vicarage.

( To be continued. )

LOOKING BACK:

A RETROSPECT, WITH SOME SURPRISING FIGURES AND A PRESENTATION TO THE EDITOR.

By JAMES MASON.

Excuse me if I indulge in a personal reminiscence. It is in every way a pleasant incident to recall:—

Between nineteen and twenty years ago, in the Dark Ages, when as yet there was no Girl’s Own Paper , I remember a quite accidental meeting at luncheon in a London restaurant with the present Editor. We had become well acquainted before that, in connection with a magazine of which he was sub-editor and to which I then played the part of contributor.

THE AUTOGRAPH TEA-TABLE CLOTH.

I found him full of a scheme he had in view, a paper which he anticipated would be a lasting success, for it was going to appeal to {341} and cater for those sensible girls who are always in fashion and who hitherto had possessed no magazine which they could call their very own.

From the restaurant we adjourned to the Editor’s chambers, and there he read to me the proof of the prospectus about to be issued, announcing the publication of the first number of The Girl’s Own Paper . At this distance of time I cannot recollect the terms of that document, but, as it is not every day that editors write prospectuses, we may take it for granted that it was a very moving discourse which no girl could read without wishing at the very least to see Number One.

The confidence of the Editor in his project was infectious. Confident he was, and confident he deserved to be, for he had had considerable experience and, it was clear, knew well what he was about. From that day I believed in the fortunes of The Girl’s Own Paper . It is true that we might have paused to consider how it is impossible to tell beforehand what will hit the public taste, but to the enthusiasm of so long ago that fact was only a sort of bogey to frighten enterprising spirits from starting anything new.

Beginning with that interview it is pleasant to follow the career of The Girl’s Own Paper , leading up to its present flourishing fortunes. As the day is judged by its dawn, so girls apparently made up their minds about the aims, quality, and character of their special organ from the very first number. When it came out, “You are a treasure!” was uttered in every tone of voice, and with every inflection of enthusiasm.

The sunshine of that time has lasted up till now. From being a new serial The Girl’s Own Paper has become a well-established favourite, with an influence for good in the community to which an outsider to the editorial office like myself may with propriety call attention. It is a paper which has been always in the front in advocating what is best for girlhood; always up-to-date; always interesting; always, one can see, trying to be sensible, and—without forcing its recognition—never losing sight of the highest subject of all.

A few figures relating to the publication will no doubt be found of interest, showing, as they do, what a considerable enterprise the Editor entered upon when he launched his first number on the sea of public favour.

The thousand numbers now completed have endeavoured to bring their influence to bear by means of about ten thousand articles on subjects of all kinds interesting to girls. This is not counting fiction. When we come to fiction, we find that The Girl’s Own Paper has aided in the innocent amusement of its readers by the publication up to the present time of close on a hundred serial stories, and five times as many short stories and stories completed within the limits of a monthly part.

Suppose a girl, a model of perseverance, wanted to read through the whole thousand numbers aloud without skipping a word, she could not do it in much less than a year, reading for eight hours a day. She would have her reward at the end of that time, for she would have stored away in her head a collection of valuable matter which would make her a “none-such” for the rest of her life.

The illustrations have been about as many in number as the articles—excluding fiction. If a girl wanted to go through them all, giving to each one only half a minute of her time, she would have a picture-show that would last over ten days, giving to it eight hours a day.

If all the columns of matter were cut out and pasted in one long strip, the thousand numbers would stretch out as a narrow pathway over seven miles.

The figures are more startling when we come from columns to lines. Take all the lines of printed matter in the thousand numbers and extend them in one long line. Then whoever wants to run and read at the same time will have to run over a hundred and forty-five miles before she gets from the first words of Number One which were “Zara, or, My Granddaughter’s Money”—that being the title of the first story—down to the last syllable of the present number. Such is the distance the editorial eye has had to travel over. It is about thirty miles further than from London to Bristol, nearly twice as far as from London to Southampton, about three times as far as from Edinburgh to Glasgow, and a little less than three times the distance from London to Brighton.

Taking the whole circulation of The Girl’s Own Paper from the issue of the first number, we arrive at an imposing result. Suppose that instead of distributing the copies to subscribers, they had been hoarded up and made to form a tall pillar, one copy being laid flat on the top of another. And supposing a girl wished to read the topmost number—the present number, that is to say—without using a ladder, she would have to wait till she grew to be a hundred and seventy miles high.

It would be a pillar towering into the air to an inconvenient height, so it might be cut into sections, each of about the height, say, of Mont Blanc, and there would be about fifty-six of these.

If all the numbers which have been circulated since Number One were laid end to end, they would make a pathway long enough to go round the world at the Equator with a bit over. If one could only contrive to carry it over the sea, girls might in this way ramble round and round the globe treading on their own paper all the way.

The publication of the thousandth number of a magazine which can refer to such statistics as these is certainly an event worth taking note of. Making, as it does, a red-letter day in the history of the paper, it was resolved, on the kind and thoughtful suggestion of Mrs. Emma Brewer—whom all our readers know—to signalise it by presenting the Editor with the autograph cloth shown in the illustration. This wonderful tea-cloth was presented to him at Christmas, together with a letter containing the following cheering words:

“We hoped to have made this little gift quite complete; there are however still some names wanting, not for lack of inclination to write them, but of time to collect them.

“Imperfect as it is, it is eloquent in its expression of affection and good-will. As such will you accept it and be cheered by it? It is not only a tribute to you as a born editor, but as a good sterling friend. We do not think any other Editor in England will have a like gift to-day.”

It is a recognition on the part of a hundred contributors—literary, musical, and artistic—who have served under his flag, of the ability, friendliness, and discretion which have been all along displayed in his dealings with his staff. No one can go back, as I do, to the very beginning of The Girl’s Own Paper without seeing how much it owes of its best features to his presiding care. Under his capable management and under that of a long line of successors, to whom he will be able to transmit the best maxims of editorial success, there seems no reason why The Girl’s Own Paper should not go on flourishing till the printers have to add a fifth figure to the number on the front page—and that will be a hundred and seventy-three years and four weeks from the present date!

VARIETIES.

The Piano has been Sold.

A Dutch paper, the other day, published the following significant advertisement from a disconsolate wife—

“Adolphus. Return to your Matilda. The piano has been sold.”

Beauty in Ugliness. —“Ugliness of the right sort,” says the late Jean Ingelow, “is a kind of beauty. It has some of the best qualities of beauty—it attracts observation and fixes the memory.”

To make an Egg stand on End. —It is not generally known that an egg can be made to stand on end on any smooth, level surface. The process is very simple. Take the egg in the right hand and briskly shake it up and down for a minute or two, when the yolk will separate and sink to the broad end. If the egg be now properly poised on its broad end, it will stand perfectly upright even on a piece of glass.

Dogs Made Useful.

The dog in Belgium is universally employed in drawing barrows and small carts about the streets. In Brussels alone over 5000 dogs are so engaged, and the total number of draught-dogs in the whole country is probably not less than 50,000.

Generations of servitude have made the Belgian dog a race apart. For his size he is said to possess the greatest pulling power of any animal, four times his own weight being considered a load well within his power. Taking his average weight as half an hundredweight, this means that something like 5000 tons are daily dragged about by canine labour in Belgium.

Well Balanced.

“Aunt Emilina, what is it to be well balanced?”

“Well balanced? Why, it is having sense enough to make more friends than enemies.”

“Plenty More Days.”

In Spain, the people take no note of time, not even from its loss. Everything is to be done manana , to-morrow.

A wealthy Englishman, who had long lived in Spain, had a lawsuit. He pleaded his cause in person, and, knowing the customs of the country, won his case. The victory cost him three days of trouble and expense, so that when the judge congratulated him on his success, he replied—

“Yes, that’s all right; but it has cost me three days, and time is money. I am a busy man, and these three days are lost for ever.”

“Oh, you English!” answered the judge. “You are always saying that time is money! How are you to get your three days back? I will tell you. Take them out of next week. Surely there are plenty more days!”

Charity. —The highest exercise of charity is charity towards the uncharitable.

{342}

“OUR HERO.”

A TALE OF THE FRANCO-ENGLISH WAR NINETY YEARS AGO.

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

CHAPTER XXII.

A BITTER EXPERIENCE.

hat march from Verdun to Bitche! If Roy Baron should live to be a hundred years old, the bitter memory of it would stand out still, pre-eminent among memories.

He had at first only three English companions, middle-aged men, masters of merchantmen, accused of trying to escape from close confinement in the dungeon of the “Tour d’Angoulême” of the Verdun citadel. There, for no apparent reason beyond caprice, they had been flung by the commandant’s orders, and thence they were now no less arbitrarily remanded to the worse dungeons of Bitche.

They were honest sailor-like men, rough in manner, but kindly; and they looked with pity at the fresh-faced boy, whom many a time they had seen in the streets of Verdun. One of them spoke to him, but Roy was in no mood for talk. He held his head well up, and strode resolutely along, with a spirited imitation of the bearing which was characteristic of Ivor; yet at his heart lay a weight like lead. It was such cruel work, being thus torn away from all whom he loved, and sent he hardly knew whither, merely for one little boyish fit of recklessness.

At the first halting-place they were joined by a second and larger company, a party of English sailors, manacled two and two, like criminals. Sailors of the Royal Navy Roy knew at a glance, and he caught a glimpse also of three or four middies behind them. Then his attention was called off, as, to his unutterable wrath, he found himself also on the point of being put into fetters.

Roy Baron—son of a Colonel in His Majesty’s Guards—to be handcuffed!

The blood rushed to his face, then receded, leaving him as white as his own shirt-front. He clenched his hands fiercely; and the merchantman Captain, who had addressed him at the first, came a step nearer.

“Sir, it’ll be worse for you if you resist! I wouldn’t, sir—I wouldn’t really!”

As if in echo Roy seemed to hear Denham’s voice speaking too. “Think of your mother!” he had said. If he endured patiently, Roy might be the sooner sent back to her.

The frank weather-beaten face of the sailor had an anxious look upon it. Roy said gravely, “Thank you, Captain!” and submitted, though not without a sting of hot tears smarting under his eyelids at the indignity.

Then he flung himself flat on the ground, passionately hiding his face in those manacled hands, and refusing the coarse food that was offered to him. He had money in his possession, but Denham had advised him to be in no haste to betray the fact.

“Never you mind,” a voice said at his side, clear and chirpy as the note of a robin. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know. It isn’t our fault. The shame is for them—not us. Cheer up, comrade.”

The combined childishness and manliness of the tones made an odd impression upon Roy, the more so as they also brought a sense of something familiar. He pulled himself up slowly. One of the middies had drawn close; a pretty boy, perhaps two years Roy’s junior, with a rosy face, and any amount of pluck in it.

Roy gazed hard at him, in growing bewilderment.

“You’d better eat while you can. None too good fare, eh?”—with the same droll assumption of manliness. “As for these”—and he lifted his little brown manacled hands—“why, it only shows we’re Englishmen. Ain’t you proud of that? I am!” Then a pause, and a stare. “O I say! My eyes!”

“I say!” echoed Roy.

“If you ain’t as like as two peas——”

“And you’ve a look——”

“It’s Roy Baron, as I’m alive!”

“And I declare it’s Will Peirce!”

The two tongues went fast for three minutes. As little boys they had played together, romped together, worked mischief together, teased Molly together, and together had usually made up to her afterwards by spending their joint pennies on splendid bull’s-eyes, wherewith to comfort her wounded feelings. For nearly five years the two had not met.

“We weren’t beaten in fair fight, don’t you think it,” Will asserted with his chirrupy cheerfulness. “Got caught in a trap. Damaged in a gale off Cape Finisterre, and then when ’twas as much as we could do to keep afloat, two seventy-gun French frigates bore down upon us. If she’d have answered her helm, we’d have got the best of it, in spite of all; but though we had a hard fight, ’twas no go for us. They raked us fore and aft, and we got riddled through and through, so we were bound to give in at last. I say, you set to work and eat something. We’ve a long way to go.”

Roy followed the wise counsel of experienced boyhood, and did eat, feeling better for it. Also, Will’s familiar and plucky face brought a sense of something like comfort.

“We’ll keep together as long as we can,” Will said.

Then on again they marched, the middies and Roy simply handcuffed; the Royal Navy sailors and the merchantmen sailors chained together, two and two. The boys kept up a brave heart, at least in outward seeming, however weary and footsore they became; and Roy held out as resolutely as anyone. He seemed to himself indefinitely older than Will; though in some respects Will was more a man of the two, having fought in two or three engagements, and had one wound, besides coming in for a nice sum of prize-money some months earlier.

Now and again Roy would recur in thought to Ivor’s long march from Valenciennes to Verdun, all the way on foot, though weakened by illness, and then Denham’s pale face at the moment of their parting would come up; was it only that same morning? Already it began to look like months ago. Roy felt years older than when he had stood on the ramparts, watching a crowd at the gate. Was that indeed only two days earlier?

Later in the day, when another halt was made, a third company seemed to be waiting to join them. A company of—were they prisoners? Impossible. Roy gazed in perplexity. For these were French faces, sullen and downcast, with French manners, and French style of dress. Yet they too were coupled together, like the English sailors, two and two, by connecting chains. They too were under an escort of gendarmes.

“Are they convicts?” Roy exclaimed, and the merchantman-master, Captain Boyce, replied—

“Bless you, sir, no. Those are conscripts for the Emperor’s grand army, dragged from their homes, belike, without a will-he nor a nill-he, and driven to war like sheep to the shambles.”

“Poor wretches,” Will remarked, with his experienced air. “I’ve seen a lot of them before, on our way across France.”

“Sure enough, sir, and so have I—times and again. Looking as sheepish too and as down in the mouth as ever a man need look. It don’t make much wonder neither, seeing they’re dragged away from their homes and their sweethearts, and never a chance of getting off. O they’ll make smart soldiers enough, I’ll be bound, and good food for shot too, with a few months of drilling, and be as ready to rave as any Frenchman of them all for ‘le petit Caporal,’ as they’re pleased to call the {343} Emperor. And the mothers and sweethearts may bear the sorrow as they can, and the land may go uncultivated, and what does Boney care, so long as he has his way?”

“But—conscripts for Napoleon! French soldiers—chained!” [1] uttered Roy.

“Well, you see, sir, it’s this way. They’ve got to be taken from their homes to the dépôt; and scarce a man among ’em wouldn’t desert on the road, if he’d a chance of doing so. When they’ve been in the army a few weeks or months, disciplined and turned into proper soldiers, they’ll learn a pride in their new position, and things’ll be different; but at the first ’tis hard upon the poor chaps. Why, look you, I’ve heard of a young fellow being taken straight off, just as he was on the point of being married, and the marriage put off, nobody knew how long. As like as not, in six months he’d be in a soldier’s grave.”

Roy thought of Lucille.

“’Tis not our English way with our soldiers,” he said, in reference to the sight before them.

“No, sir. But”—and a queer smile gleamed on the weatherbeaten face—“but I’m not one for to go for to say that even old England is never in the wrong. You’ve maybe heard o’ such matters as the work of the press-gangs, that force men to go to sea against their will; carry ’em off captive, in fact. Many a brave tar, in His Majesty’s Service at this moment, who’d give his life for his country, and never a moment’s hesitation, was kidnapped at the first and dragged away, unwilling enough, I can tell you.” [2]

“More shame for them, if they didn’t want to fight for the liberties of England!” retorted little Will, with the dignity of a man three times his size.

The chained and dejected conscripts followed in rear of the prisoners, as the march was resumed.

Day after day it went on. A hundred leagues were not to be accomplished on foot quickly, by a large number of men and boys, of varying powers, many of them used to shipboard life, and entirely unused to long tramps. There were tender feet and weary limbs among them before long, and things grew worse each day. Food was poor, and at night when they halted they were put to sleep in the common prison of the place, no matter what manner of prison it might be. Roy would have found it hard to rest, in such accommodation as was provided, but that he was usually far too weary to keep awake.

He was carefully guarding the money with which he had been abundantly supplied by his father; not allowing it to be known that he possessed more than a few loose coins, sufficient for immediate needs. Impulsive Roy would hardly have been so reticent, but for injunctions at the last from Ivor. Like Ivor, he was naturally open-handed and generous, and he could not but share freely what he had in hand with the middies, since they proved to be ill supplied with cash.

At length the long march came to an end. Bitche was reached—a grim and solemn fortress, sheltering already hundreds of English prisoners, waiting to engulf these new arrivals in addition.

Roy and the middies together were first taken to the “Petite Tête,” so-called, where each one underwent a severe searching, lest he should have concealed about him either weapons of defence, or instruments which might be used for purposes of escape. Roy’s bag of money and notes was detected in this search, and he knew that thenceforward the gendarmes would look upon him as lawful prey.

No immediate attempt was, however, made upon him. He and the middies were led through gloomy passages to one of the great subterranean dungeons, descending some sixty steps, into a place which has been described as not unlike a huge wine-vault. Originally it had been dug out of the solid saltpetre rock, and was some thirty feet below the surface of the ground.

In this vault, dimly-lighted, heavy and dank in atmosphere, with water here and there dripping from the roof or running down the walls, was gathered a motley crowd of some three hundred prisoners. English soldiers, English sailors, English middies, détenus from Verdun and elsewhere, were mingled with swindlers, pickpockets, and highwaymen; and even English gentlemen and officers of higher rank sometimes found themselves consigned here, though, unless they gave particular offence, they were more commonly installed in smaller rooms above ground.

With the measured descent down and down those stone steps, Roy’s heart sank lower and lower. Was this what he had come to? And for how long?

An outburst of uproarious cheering hailed the new arrivals, as the heavy doors were unlocked and they were ushered in. Three shouts were given; then each was hoisted on the shoulders of three or four men, and was paraded round the dungeon. After this rough welcome, came a severe blanket-tossing, which both Roy and the middies were wise enough to take in good part. Any who wished to fight were then cordially invited to do so; and lastly those who possessed money were called upon to treat others to drink, provided by the gendarmes.

Such initiatory ceremonies being ended, comparative quiet descended on the scene. It was past eight o’clock when they first arrived, and night was near.

Roy Baron’s first night in a French dungeon!

Each prisoner was provided with a worn blanket, cast off by a French soldier; and wrapped in these the crowd of over three hundred men and boys laid themselves down to rest. Some slumbered silently; some tossed to and fro; some snored loudly; some talked or shouted in their sleep. Roy lay amid the throng, a ragged blanket round him also. At first he had rejected it with scorn; but these subterranean regions were cold and damp, and, shivering, he had at length drawn it round him, as he lay with arms crossed, and face pressed into them. The handcuffs had been removed.

He was not thinking of the bruises which he had received, when the rough blanket-tossers had allowed him to drop upon the stone floor. Bruises to a hardy boy are a small matter. But the desolation of the lad that awful night went beyond bounds, and desperate blank despair took possession of him.

For hours he hardly stirred. He could not sleep. He could only lie in a trance of misery. He saw no gleam of hope, no chance of escape from this terrible place. Yet, to stay on here, week after week, month after month, perhaps even as some had done year after year! Could he bear it? Through all previous troubles Roy had borne up bravely; but at last his spirit gave way beneath the strain.

Molly’s face came up before his mind—not Molly the sedate and ladylike maiden of sixteen, but Molly the little eager girl whom he remembered. O to see her again! Roy pressed his face closer into the folded arms, writhing silently.

Then his mother’s face—he hardly dared to think of that. What would not she suffer? unknowing, indeed, what her boy had to endure; but fearing and conjecturing the worst, so far as she had knowledge to picture that worst. Would any picturings of hers approach the reality?

A wild craving for Denham had him next in its grasp. If Denham had but been arrested too—had but come with him! But that unworthy wish lasted not ten seconds. Upon it came a nobler rush of gladness that Denham was not here. The worn face came up before Roy, as he had seen it but a few days sooner; and below his breath he sobbed in an ecstasy of thankfulness, that at least Denham would be in comparative comfort, that at least he had not to be in this dungeon.

“Think how your mother will be praying for you.”

Was that Denham speaking? Roy seemed to hear the words, not only with his mind, but with his bodily ears.

He sat up and looked round upon the slumbering throng—looked with smarting eyes into the gloom. He gazed into the blackness overhead, where a stone roof shut him pitilessly in.

Was his mother praying for him then?—and his father?—and Denham? Would God hear their prayers?

Denham’s voice again, deep and quiet, seemed to breathe around him, “Remember! God is overall!” How long ago was it that he had said those words? Not lately. Was it—when he was ordered off to Valenciennes?

God over all? Ay, even here, even in this dungeon!

Roy dropped down again, face foremost; and through heaving sobs, not one of which was allowed to make itself heard, he joined his prayers to those of his mother.

( To be continued. )

{344}

SUCCESS AND LONG LIFE TO THE “G. O. P.”

SUCCESS AND LONG LIFE TO THE “G. O. P.”

{345}

OUR 1000th NUMBER.

he printer has put a fourth figure to the number on the front page of this issue, and the Editor makes his bow to his faithful readers—of whom there must now be many millions—and congratulates them on having done their part, the most important of all, in bringing this magazine to so enviable a point in its history.

To all girls who now read its pages, and to all who have read it in the past, he sends hearty greetings and offers his sincere thanks for their loyal support. Everyone works best when his labours are appreciated, and the Editor feels that he ought, at least, to have done well, for he has pursued his task accompanied by a constant chorus of friendliness and encouragement.

The first idea of The Girl’s Own Paper came as a happy thought to the present Editor about twenty years ago, at a time when he was closely connected with the management of two other magazines long well known to the public.

It appeared to him that there was a real want of a paper which girls could truly call their own : a paper which would be to the whole sisterhood a sensible, interesting and good-humoured companion, counsellor and friend, advocating their best interests, taking part in everything affecting them, giving them the best advice, conveying to them the best information, supplying them with the most readable fiction, and trying to exercise over them a refining and elevating influence.

To meet this want he proposed the starting of The Girl’s Own Paper to the present proprietors. By them the suggestion was well received—indeed, they themselves had about the same time conceived the notion of a magazine for girls—but many doubts and difficulties were expressed as to the carrying of it out, which was natural, seeing the venture meant the sinking of a considerable amount of capital. At last, however, the decision to start the paper was arrived at and careful preparations were made for launching the first number on Saturday the 3rd of January, 1880.

During the nearly twenty years which have elapsed since then the Editor has been aided in every possible way by the society who own the paper. They have enabled him to conduct it on the most liberal principles of expenditure, and the business management has been such as to make easy what at times might have proved burdensome. Also to the Editor-in-Chief of the Society’s magazines, Dr. Macaulay, the hearty thanks of the Editor are due for liberty of action and a great deal of kindly encouragement.

The first number appeared on the Saturday we have just named. Success shone upon us from the very first, and The Girl’s Own Paper at once and by general consent took a foremost place amongst the magazines of the day.

Professional critics in the Press were generous, and said many a friendly word in our praise. The late George Augustus Sala elevated The Girl’s Own Paper to the position of “first favourite,” and in an encouraging notice expressed a hope that “all the girls” of Great Britain would subscribe, for he thought it would be greatly to their advantage.

Much-valued approval and friendly letters of advice and help also came to us in these early days from Mr. John Ruskin, who, writing to a girl friend, said that he had ordered the paper to be sent to him regularly, and added, “Surely you young ladies—girls, I ought to say—will think you have a fair sixpenny worth.”

But better and more important than even the praise of the critics was the appreciation of the girls themselves. Everywhere throughout the country, far away in the colonies, and up and down all over the world, we found we were being read, valued, and talked about by those for whose benefit the paper had been produced. Girls were unanimous in recognising the merits of this new friend and in letting it be seen that The Girl’s Own Paper was to be henceforth a welcome and, indeed, indispensable visitor in all their homes. It was a great and gratifying success.

The favour with which the paper was received has been continued up to the present time, and the Editor is in hopes that, by pursuing the course that has done so well hitherto, he will be enabled to retain it for many a day to come.

No matter what a girl’s tastes or needs may be, on looking into The Girl’s Own Paper , she will sooner or later find what she is in want of. We are not going here to compile a list of the thousand and one subjects that have been treated of in our pages. It is enough to say that there is not a single topic of interest to girlhood to which our paper has not given, or is not going to give, attention. Whether a girl merely wants to read what will make the hours fly fast, or, what is more important, wants to know what will add to her value and usefulness, let her turn to The Girl’s Own Paper . There never has been in this country, or indeed in any other, a storehouse of material by means of which girls can make the most of their lives, at all to be compared with it.

A valuable feature of our paper has been the Answers to Correspondents, which have appeared with such regularity, and been read with such pleasure, ever since its commencement. The magnitude of this department, and its ceaseless flow of incoming letters, would surprise anyone admitted behind the scenes for the first time. In these answers, innumerable items of information have been given, countless criticisms have been ventured on, and an attempt has been made to solve a great many of the problems and difficulties that enter into the thoughts and lives of our readers.

Letters have also been received daily, during these nineteen years and more, by the Editor, which have not been answered publicly in our correspondence columns, and these communications he has now much satisfaction in mentioning. They have come from girls in all parts of the world, and without exception have borne testimony to the usefulness of The Girl’s Own Paper . Not a few have told how it has had a good and wholesome influence on the minds of the writers, acknowledging in no measured terms that it has enabled them to lead wiser and better lives. And many a solitary girl has written how she has found it the best possible company, coming to her—and punctually too—with all the inspiring influence of a cheerful friend.

Another feature not to be forgotten in the progress of The Girl’s Own Paper is to be found in the many competitions, by means of which we have from time to time tested the ingenuity, taste, accomplishments, skill, and perseverance of our readers. These have occasionally roused a remarkable degree of enthusiasm. In one of the most successful, we well remember, the papers came in such numbers, that the Post Office had to send a special van with them, and one sackful took four men to carry it upstairs.

A large amount of money has, from first to last, been distributed amongst the winning competitors, and a great many certificates of merit have been granted to those who, whilst failing to get a prize, obtained a certain percentage of marks. These certificates have been much valued and not a few have been found serviceable as testimonials to painstaking and ability, when girls have had to make their way in the world.

And not only have our readers received benefit themselves. Influenced, as the Editor knows them to have been, in the direction of true charity by the writings of some of our contributors, they have tried in their turn to be of service to others, and through the medium of The Girl’s Own Paper {346} have done much useful work for the community.

They have, for example—at the suggestion of the Countess of Aberdeen, [3] who has ever taken great interest in the magazine, notwithstanding her high public and official positions—established a working girl’s home in London; also, they have re-established the Princess Louise Home for Girls, subscribing with touching readiness and liberality to each of these schemes in actual cash over a thousand pounds. They have besides made periodical grants of warm clothing for the poor, sent dolls in great numbers to brighten the dull hours of sick children in hospitals and in many other ways shown a good sisterly interest in those less happily circumstanced than themselves.

The Editor has been assisted in his labours by a band of very willing workers—authors, musical composers, and artists—whose names are familiar to all our readers. Many of these have been associated with him from the commencement of The Girl’s Own Paper up to the present time—faithful, industrious, enthusiastic helpers, eager to give of their best and thoroughly in sympathy with the young.

Some of our authors had already made their mark before they appeared in our pages; but others were unknown, and it is a great pleasure to the Editor to think that he has been the means of bringing into public notice not a few who are now universally acknowledged as writers of ability.

But whilst surrounded by a tried staff, the Editor has made it a rule to welcome contributions—indeed, to invite them—from every quarter. If the topic be suitable, the writer well informed, and the manner interesting, no manuscript ever goes away rejected from the door of the Editorial Office. Amongst our occasional contributors may be seen the names of a queen, several princesses, and leading members of the nobility, and a great many more who have distinguished themselves in various lines of activity connected with the life and work of women and girls.

The Editor is well aware that his readers would like to see the portraits of some of the tried and true friends who have given such devoted service. He therefore adds them here, and they form, he thinks, a fitting accompaniment to this notice of what has led up—in quite a marvellous manner, and by God’s blessing—to the publication of the present Thousandth Number of The Girl’s Own Paper .

IN THE TWILIGHT SIDE BY SIDE.

By RUTH LAMB.

PART V.

ANOTHER OPEN EVENING.

or some months past, my dear girl friends, I have been equally gratified and troubled by the sight of a large pile of your letters on my table—gratified, because they are full of sweet confidences, requests for advice and help, grateful allusions to benefits which have resulted from our talks in the twilight, and affectionate expressions towards myself. As a whole, your letters have been a source of great joy to me; but, on the other hand, it has grieved me to think that some of you have hoped and waited in vain for replies which never came.

Believe me, I would have written to each and all of you had it been possible. Conscience does not reproach me for having wilfully neglected you; but I have had a good many heartaches on your account.

Who does not know the trial of looking and waiting in vain for a friend’s letter?

I cannot now address you singly; but an open evening will again bring us more into touch with each other, as a former one did a few months ago.

It is alike delightful and wonderful to note the results of that night’s talk, during which we had glimpses of each other’s thoughts, needs, and longings. Subsequent letters have shown me how the words of one girl-writer have stirred the hearts of many to prayer on her behalf, and in some cases they have asked, “How can I be of real use to another member of our gathering?”

Some have been brought into closer relationship with each other as correspondents, and I trust the result will be beneficial to all of them.

Several of my correspondents have asked that evenings should be devoted to subjects of special interest to themselves and many others, but which do not come within the scope of our object in meeting. Let me remind you, dear friends, who, from the most worthy motives, have suggested the consideration of such subjects, how varied are the classes, ages, nationalities, and even the religious views of those who meet with me in the twilight. It will be obvious to you that the usefulness of our meetings would be imperilled, were we to introduce any subject likely to arouse an antagonistic feeling even in the minds of a few.

Several of our recent talks have been devoted to smoothing away the difficulties which many dear girls meet with in their first efforts at self-dedication. They are answers to inquiries and requests for help which have come from many quarters. I do earnestly hope and pray that, by God’s blessing, they will be found useful and helpful to many others besides my dear correspondents.

I think that many amongst you who ask questions would do well to refer back to some of our earlier talks, which all who now meet with me may not have read. They began in September, 1896, and have been continued monthly ever since.

It is delightful to find how many of my girls do refer back to the old talks for help and comfort; and, to you all, it must be very cheering to know that God has blessed the words of some to the good of others. Here is an instance. One dear correspondent had been telling me a great deal about the many worries and anxieties of daily life, and of the relief it was to open her heart to someone who was, she felt sure, “interested in us girls.”

With a mother ill in bed, and who must not be told anything about the worries incidental to the large family, the servants, and home which needed constant oversight, my young correspondent was feeling overweighted, and wrote—

“Oh, how mistaken people are who think one has nothing to do but take it easy and enjoy oneself! If they only knew! Still, I am wicked to grumble so! These little ‘thorns in the flesh’ are nothing compared with what so many have to bear. This morning I was ready to break down and have a real hearty cry, a thing I do not often indulge in. I had no opportunity just then. I took up at random a back number of the ‘G. O. P.’ and opened it at the ‘Twilight Talk.’ It seemed just meant for me. There was an extract from the letter of a girl who seemed to have my feelings exactly, and her words did help me so. I hope you will never give up writing to us whilst you are able to do so. I pray for you and for all our ‘Twilight Circle,’ and that we may all, both you and me, gain more and more blessing from our monthly meetings.”... “I do so want to make a fresh start and try to overcome my temptations. It is so nice to know that you are praying for us—for me. May the dear Lord bless you exceeding abundantly with the blessing that maketh rich and addeth no sorrow to it, is the prayer of ‘One of your most loving girls.’”

You will all, I am sure, understand, that in giving abstracts from such letters, I am anxious for every member of our “Twilight Circle” to share a great pleasure with me. That our talks should have been so largely blessed, and that the interest taken in them is continually deepening and extending, is a matter which concerns each of us. We must all benefit by being permitted to read each other’s hearts and knowing that we are not alone in our experiences, whether of joy or sorrow.

It is wonderful how two or three words often stir us to sympathy and incline us to confidence. Here is an instance from the letter of one who had lately known a great sorrow.

“Last month I was feeling so miserable when my paper arrived; and somehow I felt better after reading that kind remark you {347} made about someone who told you she was a ‘motherless bairn.’ I have lost my mother too, and have not yet got used to being without her. You will understand how dreary everything seems sometimes; but when I read the ‘Twilight Talks,’ it makes me feel that there is still something left to live for. My life seems very poor and mean when judged by your standard, and it is very hard to reach, and sometimes seems a hopeless task.”

I pause here to say that the standard I strive to place before you, beloved ones, and myself, being God’s standard, as shown to us in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, makes all our lives seem poor and mean—none more so than my own. Thanks be to God! He has taught me by His Spirit to look from my own weakness to His strength, from my sinfulness to Him, in whom I believe, and “Who bare my sins in His own body on the tree”; from my poor efforts after holiness, which are too often only a record of failures, to the perfect righteousness of Christ, which is the precious heritage of all who trust in His sacrifice alone for salvation.

We must not give up striving, or lose courage by looking too much at ourselves. We must look up to Christ, and, though we have sorely lagged behind in our attempts to follow Him, and met with many disappointments by the way, we must still keep on. We must endeavour to imitate the Christ-life, but trusting the while in the sweet assurance that “He became sin (or a sin-offering) for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Looking at self, we despair. Turning from self to Christ, we find that He has fulfilled the whole law, and that, believing in His finished work, we are “justified by faith and have peace with God.” Yet, even when we do realise what Christ has done, how dissatisfied we are with our own poor efforts to show that we love and want to be like Him! Everything in Him is so grandly perfect, and so many littlenesses creep into our best efforts that we are ashamed to look at them.

A dear correspondent gives us a picture which many of us will own to be a reflection of our own feelings.

“I am one of His weak ones, yet longing to live the life that shall glorify Him most. The thing that grieves me so is that I have so little love in my heart towards Him. It is not strong as it ought to be; but Jesus is so precious to me that I want above all things to lead others to Him, that they may know what a Saviour He is!”

Happy girl! To be able to see so much in Christ, so little in self! It is the dissatisfied disciples who cannot be contented to follow their Master “afar off.” They must be ever praying and striving after a closer union with and greater likeness to their Lord. If one of you should write and say, “I am quite satisfied with myself, I am doing the best I can, and I am sure nobody can find fault with me,” I should be very, very sorry for her.

The student who has mastered the rudiments of a science does not sit down contented with the little he knows. He looks to the highest level of knowledge which has been attained by those who have gone before him, and says to himself, “If hard work, earnest, painstaking study and perseverance will do it, I will go a step beyond.”

Many years ago I stood by the death-bed of one who had long passed the fourscore years whose strength is described in God’s word as “labour and sorrow.” She did not talk of what she had done for Christ; but in a few words expressed her sense of what He had done for her.

“All in Christ—nothing in me.”

A volume could not have expressed more than did these half-dozen words; but the light in those aged eyes, and the expression on the face were pledges of the sincerity of the dying speaker.

May you go on and on until, losing sight of self and its poverty of service and of love, you can say, “I have fought the good fight, looking to the Captain of my salvation for courage, and strength, and grace; and now the battle is drawing to a close I can only say, Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” “All in Christ—nothing in me.”

A correspondent who signs herself “One of your grateful, loving girls,” sends a most interesting letter, of which I give an extract.

“I ought to write and tell you how much I have been helped by your talks with us in the ‘G. O. P.’ It is nice to read about other girls’ lives, and I hope we shall be able to help each other. I was at a meeting one afternoon, and, before singing a certain hymn, we were told not to join if we did not really understand it. It was one only a Christian should sing. I felt able to say the words. I am very thankful to God for many blessings and for strength to overcome temptation; above all, for the love that He has put into my heart. Will you please join with me in the prayer that I may grow rich in grace?”

Yes, dear girl; and I trust that every member of our “Twilight Circle” will join in the petition that, not you only, but all of us may “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” With such growth ever widening and spreading throughout the great human family, what a happy world would this become!

So many correspondents allude to their beloved mothers whom “God has called home.” It is a joy that our talks have been especially helpful to several of them. It is sweet to be claimed as “deputy mother,” and to read such words as these—“I always turn to the ‘Twilight Talk’ first, and read it out so that another as well as myself can enjoy it. We girls all make a confidant of you, our real, true friend.” “I address you not merely as a friend, but as a dear, kind mother.”

“I love you just as if I had known you all my life,” writes another; and then she gives me a sketch of the school life she had enjoyed so much, and of the trial it had been for her to turn her back upon it. The leaving school was unavoidable, and I honoured the writer for her brave efforts “to pretend not to feel it too much” for the sake of the parents who were as sorry as herself. “But that is all over now, and I long to do my very best in whatever place God may put me. I have made many mistakes, failures, and slips, but I do feel Christ more precious than ever before. Our ‘talks’ do help me. I hope you will never give them up before you are positively unable to write. Tired of them! No, indeed! I have a Christian home, for which I cannot thank God enough, and I have a Sunday School class of children between seven and nine. Oh, I do want to teach them to love my Lord, and I tremble lest my life should contradict my words! It is so nice to think you pray for us all. I like to think the ‘all’ includes me.”

“Thank you so much for bringing all us girls together. The dear old ‘G. O. P.’ deserves our gratitude for many things, but never so much as for this.” During our former “open evening,” I quoted from a letter signed “ Une de vos filles ,” and now it makes me happy and will do you good to share part of a second from the same writer. She is quite a stranger to me, in one sense, for I do not know her personally—I wish I did—and am equally ignorant as to her home and surroundings. She has had a serious illness since she wrote to—shall I not say “us”?—before, and now her second letter will do us good again, though it is too long to be quoted in its entirety. Alluding to my quotation from her former letter, she writes, “I wonder if you can imagine my mingled feelings when your words caught my eye. There was gratitude to God, love to you, astonishment, gladness, and yet shame. It is quite true that I am happy and thankful for all God’s discipline, but I am often impatient, cross, and rebellious. Though the impatience may not reach the length of words, it ought not to be in the heart. It grieves me to find how much evil there is yet to be subdued. Still, I could not help feeling glad when I read what you said, for it made me happy to know that my letter had given you pleasure; and when you called it ‘a little bit of work done for Christ,’ that gave me more joy—it was so unexpected to find it used as a message to others.”

Here I must miss words I would fain give for all to read did space allow, and take another passage. “I liked very much what you said about not being in a hurry to speak about Christ to others, but to live as a Christian and wait an opportunity to speak for Him. When in doubt as to the wisdom of speaking, I’ve asked Him to give me three things, the words, the opportunity, and the courage, and He always does, or makes me content to wait longer. It needs all three from Him, and if the first two are given, (and don’t you believe we can feel when they are?) the third is sure to come too. Sometimes the words are ready weeks and months, and then, if I’m watching, the opportunity comes. It is grand to know that Nehemiah’s God is as ready to hear and help now. There is time for the needed courage and wisdom to be sent even between the question and the answer. You don’t mind my writing again, do you? When the heart is full it must overflow, and mine was so full of love and thanks, yet of that feeling of unworthiness, that I had to tell you. You seemed a dear and well-known friend before, now you are more so than ever. By-and-by, when we remember all the way which the Lord our God has led us, it will be nice to look back to our words, one to another, as to something that helped us heavenward and made the ‘way’ a little easier, and to know that it was part of His leading all the time.”

Are not you, the dear friends with whom I am sharing my precious letters, glad of the privilege of looking over my shoulder or of listening whilst I read them? Do we not owe much gratitude to those of our circle who allow us the privilege of learning from their experience, especially when it gives us new and sweet proofs of God’s faithfulness and love in leading His children?

As I finished this letter from “ Une de mes filles ,” I felt such a longing to bring her into communication with some of my other correspondents who seem to be groping blindly and helplessly after God. They want to know Him, serve Him, love Him, yet are wandering in all directions save the right one, and are cherishing doubts, brooding over isolated passages in God’s Word, and entertaining hard thoughts of Him Who “is love,” because of occasional texts which they cannot fully understand.

I want very much to write to some of these correspondents, who seem to me all the dearer because of their troubled minds and the eager questionings which prove that they are in earnest in their search after truth. But I cannot answer them here and now. I have so many pressing duties which cannot be put aside, and which make additional correspondence most difficult. Dear troubled ones, you are not forgotten. I ask always that a better help than mine may be given you, and I want you to look round amongst your friends and think whether there may not be quite near at hand, some kindly earnest Christian who will delight in being a comfort and help to you. In one of our old talks on “confidences,” I gave you some examples of those who went far afield to find what was really {348} close at hand. In any case, I hope to write to several of you whose real names and addresses I have, or through the Correspondence page, with the Editor’s permission.

I must give one or two brief extracts which prove how greatly many of the members of our “Twilight circle” value such religious communion. “A periodical is so vastly improved when the spiritual side of one’s nature is looked after and fed.” “It is most encouraging and cheering to know that God’s name is upheld in the magazine read by so many girls as well as those more advanced in life. I get such blessing out of our little ‘Talks in the Twilight.’ So many would not buy what they call a ‘religious book,’ and these talks give them the opportunity of seeing a few words from the ‘Book of books’ when they otherwise would not.”

This sweet message came on Christmas morning. “Another year has passed and we have still been meeting in spirit; and, in the enjoyment of our ‘Twilight Talks,’ I am sure we must all feel very thankful that we have been permitted to see another year. I am certain most of us, if not all, have derived still further good from the loving, spiritual instruction. E—— is, I am pleased to say, quite a different girl, and, with God’s help, is continuing to overcome her besetting sins. She still enjoys the talks, and the first thing each month is to look what subject has been chosen, so interested is she.” You will all rejoice with me in knowing that this dear girl’s life has been marvellously influenced for good by our meetings, and her mother adds, “I, as one amongst many, thank you for the benefit that has been wrought in our home. I too have learned many useful things on the duty of a mother to her children. The work is influencing the older as well as the younger classes, so there is no limit to the good effected, under God’s blessing.” I have only touched my pile of letters, and there are such delightful ones unquoted from—piles of them. What can I do but just add how truly they are appreciated, and thank all the writers for them, and God for having stirred them to open their hearts so fully so me?

Who, after reading what I have quoted here and there, will say that religious teaching is deemed superfluous by, or is other than welcome to, the dear girls and friends of all ages who meet with me in the twilight?

I hope to take “Sunday” and “Rest” at one of our meetings, in compliance with many requests.

To all dear correspondents I send loving thanks, sympathy, and the assurance that I long to be of use to them. Also the prayer, “May God bless and help each and all according to their needs.”

( To be continued. )

GIRLS AS I HAVE KNOWN THEM.

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

PART V.

THE GIRL WHO GOES IN FOR ART.

The last girl of the girl-who-goes-in-for-art type that I have known is one Norma.

She is owner of a studio having few pictures in it, and those few indicating that she holds what was Balzac’s view of le beau ( c’est le laid ). It used to be a point of courtesy to term ugly persons clever; it has become a point of courtesy to term ugly pictures so. They offend this girl direfully who do not so term her ugly pictures.

Quite as typical as she is the girl who shares her studio.

Picture to yourself a curiously invertebrate-looking person of some prettiness of that distinctive type to which the name pre-Raphaelite is a little vaguely applied, a girl with lips habitually parted and her tongue much shown, this giving her a foolish look, as the same thing gave Coleridge a foolish look. Just as Coleridge had, however, a fine brain, so has this girl. Among a thousand and one affectations under which she hides her very real cleverness, a leading one is that which distinguishes her speech. She favours adjectives with the suffix some . “Lovesome” is in high vogue with her. This word found favour with Chaucer, so it may pass. “Dovesome” is less pleasing, though it is handy as a rhyme. Other two adjectives in “some” favoured by the girl who shares Norma’s studio are “oilsome” and “weepsome.” She apologises for extending an “oilsome” hand; she describes a kindly act as “weepsome.”

Altogether this girl’s use of descriptive words is very remarkable. She more rarely has recourse to the French language than her ancestresses had. The words recherché and distingué are never heard from her; but, so far from its being true that she taboos French altogether, she prefers banal to “trite,” and bourgeois to “vulgar.” This thing is the more regrettable that she pronounces French less well than her predecessors did.

The vein of censure of the girl who goes in for art is, it is only fair to say, on the whole mild. Her abomination is the cheap and the shoddy, but she rarely uses these words because, she says, they pain her mouth. For old-fashioned she uses preferably “suburban” (pronounced s’burban ), or “early-Victorian,” or “rococo.” These words are not synonymous, but she uses them as synonyms. Finally, her use of the word “elementary” is interesting. A symmetrical arrangement of wall-pictures is objected to by her as “elementary.” Symmetry is a thing very abominable to her.

This girl’s name is Margaret, and she is called in her circle “the Meg.” The girl who goes in for art is rarely called by her name. This thing was so ten years ago, when some of us knew a girl whose initials were W. P., and whose nickname was Willow Pattern.

This girl was lovely and was loved. Her lover was woefully poor, but that troubled Willow Pattern not at all. He had, she said, “a rich chin.” They married, and they are to this day as happy as happy can be. Nota bene: They are still poor, the world says; for the world is so blind that it has never noticed that Willow Pattern’s husband has a rich chin.

They manage to eke out a living by picture-painting. If they would paint portraits they would be somewhat less poor, but they will not do that. A British matron tells how she once in this matter fared with Willow Pattern.

“I want you,” said the British matron, “to paint my portrait.”

Said Willow Pattern, “Sorry I can’t do that; but I will make a picture of you if you like; I shall put a swan in it, and call it ‘Woman and Swan.’ Do you mind?”

“Well, yes, rather,” admitted the British matron. “I wanted to be done as just me; but never mind, you shall have the job all the same.”

Said Willow Pattern (gasping), “I beg your pardon.”

Said the British matron, “Now get out your paints, child, and do me.”

So far there has been nothing said of Lilla. Lilla, by the irony which often rules in names, is a sallow, shady-lipped girl. Her hair is dressed in one thin plait worn round the head, and I always see her as I last saw her—sitting before a cup of cold tea, with the milk like a mackerel sky on it. She was talking to another girl. I did not hear their talk, being myself in conversation with the fourth person present, but I noticed the singular beauty of Lilla’s voice, and here and there such fragments of quaint inversion as, “Hither came,” “I like it much,” “Think you?”

Next of kin, mentally, to the girl who goes in for art is the girl who goes in for art-criticism. This girl sits much with her hands folded and reads reviews not only of books, but of pictures and concerts. There is such a girl in London of to-day who never knows how much or how little she has enjoyed a concert until after perusal of the subsequent morning’s paper. This girl is aged sixteen.

Going in for Art criticism

There is such another girl in London upon whom a perfect raid is made by persons humorous when the Academy exhibition of pictures opens. Most people, not professional artists, according to this girl, go about picture-exhibitions idiotically admiring everything. Nothing will induce her to believe that this spirit of admiration is perhaps not so much the result of idiotcy as it is the result of a clear consciousness on the parts of those feeling it that they lack all painting ability and so may fairly regard, with mingled wonder and delight, the work of persons who, to state the case for them at the lowest, do not lack all painting ability.

Sentimental nonsense that, according to the girl who goes in for art-criticism, and who points out that here the projection of a shadow is obviously wrong, there the execution is flabby; here the design is feeble; there the treatment of the lights, while striking, is technically questionable. If all that came from a girl at first hand, one would lose all hope of her, but every word of it has been {349} read where most of us can read it, and a certain naïveté attaches to the pompous retailing of it, which naïveté is as a saving grace; howbeit there are persons who will not recognise this fact. It is said of a great painter living that he “foams at the mouth” when a certain young girl is named, because she once told him for his encouragement that a picture of his was in her deeming “beautifully felt;” and there is a pianist of note who vows that he will remember till his death that a young English girl informed him that he had “a beautiful finger.” The jargon of art on the lips of young girls apparently fails to please.

Felt badly

There is another vein of language which the girl with artistic tendencies sometimes works, and which equally misses, in some cases, the desired effect.

“What is your sister like?” asked a boy of another boy recently.

“Oh, she’s one of those girls who jabber about sunsets,” was the answer. “Want to speak to her?”

“Not me!”

The despiser of sunset

Wit is not a shining quality of this type of girl, but once in a while she contrives to be quits with the other person.

“In my days,” said a severe old person some little time ago, “a girl could only be one of three things: a teacher, a shop-girl, or a servant-maid. To-day you can be doctor, gardener, whatnot. You have only to make your choice. My opinion being that you have not the slightest talent for art, Gladys, let me know what you would like to be.”

Gladys (piqued): “Of the three things you have named, ‘whatnot’ displeases me least.”

The severe old person smiled.

Two innocents abroad, one being likewise artless

This sketch shall be brought to a close with a story of two innocents abroad, one of them having been the girl who goes in for art.

They were evidently trippers—wedding-trippers. This is precisely what happened. They were standing before a world-famed picture in a world-famed gallery. I, standing albeit at some distance from them, seemed to myself to be in fullest evidence; but perhaps I was not. There were no other persons in the room. The girl said—

“You should not say of a portrait, dear, that it looks as if you could walk round it. It sounds all right, but it’s the wrong thing to say.”

To which he, smiling—

“Who told you so?”

“Reynolds.”

To which he, no longer smiling—

“Who’s Reynolds?”

“Never heard of Sir Josh——”

“Oh, yes. I didn’t know you meant him. Of course, I’ve heard of him. What made him say that?”

“I’m not sure; but it may have been that he thought if you saw a real man you wouldn’t say, ‘He looks as if you could walk round him,’ and of course you wouldn’t.”

He, smiling anew—

“No, perhaps not.”

“Well, then”—she was now in fine pedagogical vein—“looking at a man or woman in a picture, you should feel just what you would feel looking at a real man or woman. That’s what I understand by it, dear.”

“You’re awfully clever, darling, and so was Sir Joshua, no doubt; but it’s not human nature to feel towards a man or woman in a picture just what you would feel towards a real man or woman.”

As he said this, the exponent of human nature walked round the girl by his side, then caught her in his arms and kissed her. When this demonstration was over, she said—

“It would have been horrid, wouldn’t it, dear, if anything had come between us and our marriage? You needn’t say ‘yes,’ because I know you mean it. Besides there’s somebody over there, and perhaps she’s taking notes.”

Perhaps she was; she was in a public building.

It is one characteristic by which you shall know the girl who goes in for art, that she and those with whom she by preference associates behave in public very much as they behave in private. This makes some frown, and makes some—smile.

( To be continued. )

THE RULES OF SOCIETY.

By LADY WILLIAM LENNOX.

PART III.

I left off last time in rather an abrupt fashion: but possibly the unfinished condition of my article may—on the principle of serial stories, which always exhibit a certain unexpectedness and incompleteness in their instalments—have given my readers an appetite, so that, like Oliver Twist, they are “ready for more.” I will therefore now proceed to explain what was meant by the “other thing” spoken of at the end of my paper.

It had reference to what is often felt to be a difficulty with regard to country house visiting, and consists in not knowing how long to stay. When, as sometimes happens, the duration of the visit is settled and plainly mentioned beforehand, it is a real comfort; for if you are invited for a week, or from such a day to such a day, the dates being given, there is no room for doubt: you know exactly what is expected of you and can make plans to suit. But when the invitation is vague as to its ending, though explicit as to its beginning, and you are asked to “come on the 8th and stay with us; we shall have a few cheery people,” it is hard to say for certain whether the traditional three days, “press day, dress day, and rest day,” as the line runs—though for my part I fail to see where the “rest” day comes in—are intended to cover the time of your visit or whether a week is meant. At all events it is always better to be too short than too long as regards time when others are concerned besides yourself. A prolix, long-winded individual is invariably fled from when he begins to speak, and anybody who gets a reputation for outstaying his or her welcome is not likely to be asked much anywhere. It would be terrible to be known as “that woman who can never be got rid of when she once comes.” Far better is it to arrange for a short visit, and then, should your hostess really wish you to pay a longer one, she can say so and try to persuade you to alter your plans on her behalf. But, unless it is quite clear that your company is still desired, it is wise to keep to your original intention, because sometimes politeness, carried perhaps rather beyond what is necessary, may be misunderstood, as really occurred on one occasion when some people who had paid an unreasonably long visit were leaving the house at last, to the relief of their entertainers. An unlucky impulse prompted the hostess to say, “Good-bye, must you really go?” Whereupon, to her dismay, the departing guests turned with a smile and said, “Oh no, we are not really obliged to go just yet,” and they actually stayed. Here again we may take counsel of the wisest of Books which says, “Remove thy foot from thy neighbour’s house lest he grow weary and hate thee.”

While on this subject it may be well to remark that the same rule applies to all visits, even what are called “morning” visits—calls made because they must be made more than with the idea of any pleasure to be evolved therefrom. The temptation to remain too long in such cases is, of course, not great, but it does not follow necessarily that the visitor goes just when she ought. Shyness, a sort of difficulty in finding the right moment in which to get up and say good-bye, perhaps sometimes a feeling that you have seemed stupid and dull, and that you must try and sparkle somewhat before you go, to take away the bad impression given of your abilities; all sorts of little under-currents common to human nature seem at times to hamper people and make them do gauche things, among them being that of sitting on when they ought to leave.

Even if you are with a friend, not an ordinary acquaintance, and have lunched with her, it is better to make a move to depart soon after; for although you may have nothing particular to do that day, she may have, and in London especially there is such a pressure of things which must be got through somehow that few of us can afford to let our afternoon slip away, and with it the chance of seeing such a person, going to such a shop, writing important letters, etc., etc.

Now I will return to the country house, to make a few observations, this time not to the visitors, but to the visited; and, as I have all through my articles tried to make it clear that I do not address myself to people who live in luxury, I wish to repeat that fact, and to say that I have not “in my mind’s eye” a magnificent castle with everything to match, but a house on a modest scale and establishment ditto.

You, inhabiting a nice, comfortable abode of the kind, have bidden some guests to come and stay; perhaps for an “At Home” in the neighbourhood, perhaps with no special object in view; but the country is pretty, they can walk or “bike,” and there is the pony-carriage and possibly a dog-cart, useful for men in the shooting-season.

Well, first I hope you have not asked too many, for, except in the case of very young {350} girls who have scarcely been out anywhere, and to whom a gathering means Elysium, never mind what inconveniences in the shape of an over full house—sofas to sleep upon and hardly room to dress in—are attached to it, nobody likes discomfort, and cramming ten people in where there is only space for eight, or less, does not conduce to comfort. Besides, too many guests means too few servants for the unwonted crowd, and consequently work has to be hurried through and, in artistic parlance, “scamped.”

Then you have dust not only lurking in corners but coming boldly forth to view on carpets and furniture, glass and china dull and knives ditto, flowers drooping, half-dead for want of water; in fact a complete absence of those details which spell first cleanliness and then charm in a house, and, taking them as a whole, make the difference between enjoyment of daily life and the mere endurance of it for the sake of some brilliant hours in prospect.

It is the business of a hostess to see that her staff of servants is equal to the demands made upon it, and then to exact thoroughness in the work done; outside which there remain many small matters for her personal attention, such as putting writing materials in the bedrooms, cards on which are printed the hours for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the arrival and departure of the post; and if in addition to this a time-table of trains to and from London is annexed, it will be found of great value in sparing somebody the headache which so often accompanies a prolonged study of Bradshaw. A few books also, suited to the tastes of whoever is to occupy the room, should always be left on a shelf or table. They look comfortable and are generally appreciated.

The mistress of a house must of course show a pleasant countenance of welcome to her visitors, and should be quick to notice little signs of fatigue in the elders, contriving to spare them too much talking when they ought to be resting, without at all suggesting that repose was needful because they are not quite as young as they were, a thing which nobody likes to believe patent to an ordinary observer. With the younger members of the party she must be as bright and “full of life” as her physical and mental constitution will allow; ready to make plans for amusement, and as far as circumstances admit, arrange them to suit the different dispositions of her guests; not forcing the naturally inactive ones to join in outdoor games, scramble through woods, or take part in picnics when a chilly wind is blowing, and black clouds render precautionary umbrellas and waterproofs necessary items in the outfit; nor, on the other hand, obliging the athletic, to whom movement is indispensable and good bracing air a regular “pick-me-up,” to sit in the house because the weather is bad, when they are really longing to don thick boots and defy the elements with the weapons of youth and health.

But while trying your best to provide some sort of amusement for your guests, never forget to “leave well alone,” and your visitors also. If there is one thing more objectionable than another to many people, it is being “hiked about,” and told to go here and there, or do this and that, when they do not want either to go to or do the place or thing suggested. Talleyrand once said to a man who asked counsel of him respecting a project he had very much at heart, “ Surtout pas trop de zèle ,” and that advice it is well to bear in mind. We all know the proverb, “One may have too much of a good thing,” and “zeal,” excellent in itself, is apt if over-much indulged to become a nuisance to the object if not the subject thereof.

The hostess who, with the best intentions, insists on driving her friends even to things they like doing, who says, “Now I know what will suit you—the old ruins. We will go there to-day, and to-morrow is the Gymkana. We must all go there. Headache, did you say? Oh, I thought you never had headaches, but anyhow a nice little drive just to the ruins can’t hurt. In fact the air will do you good. Now, you, I know you would rather stay in, so take that comfortable chair, and there’s your book, I put it ready for you, and there’s the Morning Post , or would you like the Times better?” and so on ad infinitum , is a person to be dreaded. “Kind woman,” say her friends behind her back, “but, oh, if she would only leave us alone!”

The essence of good manners, indeed, is to make things as pleasant as possible by letting people follow their own bent and inclination; giving them the chance of joining in something which may be agreeable, but dropping the subject at once if it does not seem to be attractive. Closely connected with this is manner itself, about which it may be said perhaps, “People cannot help their manner.”

That is true to a certain extent but not entirely, for a good manner may be cultivated and a bad one discouraged just as flowers may be watered and attended to and weeds rooted out. When I speak of a good manner, I do not mean that specially soft demeanour which reminds one somewhat of a cat and is often accompanied by a little delicately hinted flattery of the person spoken to, although such manner is seldom thrown away, human nature being very prone to approve of flattery under the guise of appreciation. But I do mean gentleness as contrasted with anything like roughness or brusquerie . The Latin expression “ Suaviter in modo ” conveys the idea better than any words I know, and, in women particularly, short sharp ways of speaking, over-strong, almost violent, expressions of opinion, and what may be called unoiled words of contradiction, are disagreeable in themselves and dead against every rule and custom of society. If we possess a hand of steel, let us hide it in a velvet glove. The strength will be in no wise impaired thereby, while our neighbours will be less sensible of the hardness.

I must now say a word with regard to a curious mistake made sometimes even by people who certainly ought to know better. The mistake is in leaving out part of a person’s name whether in speaking or writing. If, for example, a man is called “Lord Frederick Smith,” or a woman “Lady Mary or Lady Edward Jones,” the Christian name must always be heard: not omitted in favour of the surname only. Indeed very often the former need only be mentioned, but the latter alone must never be. “Lord Smith” or “Lady Jones,” in the cases adduced above would be quite incorrect, but, strange to say, the error is not seldom committed.

Finally I will turn to the subject of most women’s pleasure and difficulty, dress. That is to say, dress when staying in country houses, for with respect to London there is no occasion to offer any observations, every woman being a law unto herself, limited only by her own taste and purse. But I know that sometimes, if a visit is imminent, the question “What clothes shall I take?” presents itself to the mind in the light rather of a puzzle far from easy to unravel, especially if ways and means are not remarkable for abundance. Naturally every girl and woman likes to look her best when staying away with the chance of meeting strangers and making a good or bad impression, and in the case of women who have reached the summer or autumn of life, there is one comparatively simple mode of lessening the toilette problem, which is to wear black. Black in good condition, be it understood, because shabby black has about it suggestions of poverty and supreme effort, which are neither becoming nor exhilarating. But silk, satin, velvet, any material really handsome, and lightened by lace and jet, can go anywhere unashamed, while for morning gowns cashmere, foulard, and that haven of refuge, the ubiquitous serge, always look well and do not date themselves too obviously. As for hats and bonnets, everybody can please themselves, remembering, however, that one hat should be fit to stand rain, as nothing has a worse effect than bedraggled ostrich feathers, or artificial flowers and gauze or chiffon crushed flat by a downpour. A short skirt is also an essential, and perhaps, if the purse is as short as the gown, an economy may be arrived at by having two skirts of different length to wear with the same coat. Neat boots of course “go without saying,” and plenty of gloves, a strong pair or two for every day and a store of pretty ones for occasions when they will be wanted. Tweeds and serges, cottons and foulards to suit the season—and the age of the wearer—are the best materials for morning frocks whether in black or colour. Silks and satins are quite out of it in the country except for evening. Tea-gowns versus regular dinner dresses is a question to which an answer vague as those of the Delphic Oracle can only be given, for the excellent reason that the custom in one house is no guide to it in another in the matter. At some places when the party is small and quiet, tea-gowns are quite in order even at dinner, but in others those comfortable garments are relegated to their proper sphere, appearing only at five o’clock tea, the wearers blossoming forth at a later hour in the smartest and most up-to-date of toilettes. Tea-jackets answer the purpose of tea-gowns, but one or other should be packed, although it may chance after all to stay in the wardrobe, never being required either at tea or dinner.

Some pretty frocks which would do alike for party or dinner must be taken, and a few odds and ends of ribbon, bits of lace and sprays of artificial flowers, in case real ones are not to be had from the gardener, come in useful especially if an impromptu fancy dress dinner is arranged, and “the shop” in the village, with its stock-in-trade varying from candles and ironmongery to very thin cottony ribbons of abnormal hues, bunches of scarlet geranium, and poppies with woolly buds, is the only place where anything can be got.

In deciding what to take and what to leave behind, space necessarily must be considered, and it is astonishing the quantity of things one person will bring out of a box, almost like a conjuror and his inexhaustible hat, while another woman can hardly make the same sized receptacle hold half that number of articles. The difference comes partly from natural genius and partly from habit. In any case it is better to take two or three trunks of moderate dimensions than one mountain, which taxes the strength of even railway-porters, and makes servants look askance when they see a sort of elephant in the hall, waiting to be transported somehow upstairs. More than all, have your luggage tidy, locks secure, straps ditto. Bags and portmanteaus have a way of getting out of order, as regards the spring. I have seen specimens of both, strapped certainly, but not really locked, so that an aperture was visible all along the top, which should have been closed, and I have felt sorry for the owners.

These details, although they seem hardly in touch with my subject, are yet not entirely unconnected with it, inasmuch as one rule is to encourage things pleasant, and avoid, or ignore, things disagreeable. The wheels of daily life run over rough as well as smooth ground, and the inevitable jars and concussions would be even more apparent than they are, were it not for the oil provided by the Rules of Society.

{351}

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

MEDICAL.

STUDY AND STUDIO.

{352}

MISCELLANEOUS.

“MY FAVOURITE CONTRIBUTORS” COMPETITION.

Each reader of this paper is asked to select Ten Contributors from the Portrait Gallery, which we present with our Thousandth Number, and to write us an interesting letter telling us, as though from friend to friend, which writings of her favourite contributors please her most.

Begin the letter, which may be short or long, and which may be written on any kind and size of paper preferred by the writer, with the words—

The ten letters which satisfy the Editor most will be awarded a prize of One Guinea each, so there will be ten of these prizes. There will also be ten prizes of Half-a-Guinea each (making twenty prizes in all), and a list of Honourable Mention.

The last day for receiving the letters will be May Day, 1899, and no letters can be returned to the writers.

OUR SUPPLEMENT STORY COMPETITION.

“WHEN MY SHIP COMES HOME.”

A STORY IN MINIATURE.

First Prize (£2 2s.).

Letitia E. May, Tremayne, Alton, Hants.

Second Prize (£1 1s.).

Miss A. G. Pike, 21, Beatrice Avenue, Plymouth.

Third Prize (10s. 6d.).

Bessie Hine, 508, West Green Road, South Tottenham.

Honourable Mention.

“Dalkeith,” Southsea; Helen A. Rickards, Monmouth; Lucy Richardson, York; Relda Hofman, Paris; Ada A. Gage, Norwich; “Felicity,” Harwich, Essex; E. Jackson, Bow, E.; Lottie Hardy, Redcliffe Road, South Kensington; Margaret Rudd, Anerley; Edith Matthew, Beckenham; Elizabeth Rogers, Tramore, Co. Waterford; Florence L. Berry, Worcester; Florence Bensted, Deal; Alice E. Graves, Roscrea, Co. Tipperary; Lucy Bourne, Winchester; “Edythe,” Boscombe, Hants.

FIRST PRIZE ESSAY.

“ When My Ship Comes Home. ”

OUR NEXT STORY COMPETITION.

STORIES IN MINIATURE.

Subject: —“ The G. O. P. Supplement for March. ”

THE DEAF GIRL NEXT DOOR.

By HELEN MARION BURNSIDE ( A Deaf Writer ), Author of “Her Highland Laddie,” etc.

We offer three prizes of Two Guineas , One Guinea , and Half-a-Guinea for the three best papers on our “Story Supplement” for this month. The essays are to give a brief account of the plot and action of the story in the Competitor’s own words; in fact, each paper should be a carefully-constructed Story in Miniature , telling the reader in a few bright words what The Girl’s Own Story Supplement for the month is all about.

One page of foolscap only is to be written upon, and is to be signed by the writer, followed by her full address, and posted to The Editor, Girl’s Own Paper , in an unsealed envelope, with the words “Stories in Miniature” written on the left-hand top corner.

The last day for receiving the papers is March 20th; and no papers can in any case be returned.

Examiners: —The Author of the Story (Helen Marion Burnside), and the Editor of The Girl’s Own Paper .