Add files from ibiblio as of 2025-03-07 15:45:00HEADmain

1 files changed, 6425 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/43642-0.txt b/43642-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e437fe7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/43642-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6425 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43642 ***
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 43642-h.htm or 43642-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43642/43642-h/43642-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43642/43642-h.zip)
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
+
+      Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
+
+      Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.
+
+      The carat character (^) indicates that the following
+      letter is superscripted (example: M^r).
+
+
+
+
+
+THE QUIVER 2/1900
+
+[Illustration: (_By permission of Messrs. Henry Graves and Co., Pall
+Mall, S. W._)
+
+THE LOST PIECE OF MONEY.
+
+(_By the late Sir John E. Millais, P.R.A._)]
+
+
+
+
+PICTORIAL SERMONS.
+
+[Illustration: (_By permission of William Coltart, Esq._)
+
+JOSEPH INTRODUCING JACOB TO PHARAOH.
+
+(_By Sir Edward J. Poynter, P.R.A._)]
+
+
+With truth and beauty as the objects of his art, the painter,
+whatever be the subject he is endeavouring to depict, becomes a
+guide and helpmeet to his fellow-men. His art is "twice blessed,"
+blessing "him that gives and him that takes." The contemplation
+of a beautiful and pure work of art acts as a charm upon the
+mind oppressed with care and trouble. A landscape on canvas,
+reflecting the sunshine of the countryside, suggesting its freedom
+of atmosphere, its "fair quiet and sweet rest," when seen in the
+midst of the toil and grime of a great city, is a sedative to the
+jaded nerves of the busy worker; it reminds him of the glories of
+nature which lie outside the boundaries of the man-made wilderness
+of houses, and brings him for the moment into close commune with
+Nature herself. A glimpse of blue sea, of clear running stream, or
+some sweet pastoral scene, carries with it a breath of fresh air,
+invigorating and refreshing, to those who gaze upon its brightness
+through the murky atmosphere of the city streets.
+
+The painter, indeed, has a power which competes closely with the
+eloquence of the preacher, or the soothing rhythm of the poet; it
+raises the man who approaches his work with a receptive heart from
+his own petty self, enlarges his sympathies and his hopes, calms
+his troubles, and sends him back refreshed and invigorated to his
+struggle with the cares and troubles of his daily life.
+
+A great picture is not so much one that displays the technical skill
+of the painter as his power to appeal to the emotions of those who
+look at it. Truth is at all times simple, and he who would expound
+it, either in sermon, poem, or picture, must do so in language which
+can be readily understood of the people. This does not make his
+task any the lighter, for any straining after effects of simplicity
+betrays his own lack of truth; simplicity must be spontaneous--from
+the heart.
+
+Judging a picture, then, by this standard of simplicity and truth,
+we look first of all for these qualities; we look to see if the
+artist is sincere in his representation of the scene he presents
+to us. If we find this to be so, then we receive the work as a
+contribution to the truth we are seeking. Some painters force
+us to recognise their skill as colourists, as draughtsmen, as
+archæologists--they have insisted upon their accuracy in these
+respects, but oftentimes at the sacrifice of all spirituality; their
+pictures are representations of costume, of architecture--what
+you will--but the true spirit of art is lacking; they are merely
+skilfully painted canvases.
+
+In no direction is this more apparent than in pictures dealing
+with religious subjects. In such works we especially want to feel
+immediately we look at them, "Here is an honest effort to realise
+the true spirit of the subject: here is something which is helpful,
+inspiring, _good_." We do not want to be forced to admire the
+accessories before we realise this; that should follow in due
+course, and will, if the picture has been designed and executed
+in the right spirit. As in a spoken sermon we fail to grasp the
+teaching as we should if we see the framework upon which the
+preacher has built up the fabric of his oration, so in a pictorial
+sermon we lose the good that is in it if we are impressed first of
+all with the details of technique or composition. The appeal to the
+heart should come first--that to the head should be secondary.
+
+[Illustration: (_By permission of the Artist. Copyright reserved._)
+
+"AND THERE WAS A GREAT CRY IN EGYPT."
+
+(_By Arthur Hacker, A.R.A._)]
+
+The helpfulness and interest of Biblical pictures to young and old
+is acknowledged by all. The pictorial Bible is a never-ending source
+of delight, and its influence is extraordinary in its extent and
+power. Our ideas of Scriptural scenes and incidents have often been
+formed more by the illustrations than by the Biblical narrative
+itself, and we have often been almost pained in after-life on
+seeing the attempts of other artists to depict scenes which differ
+materially from those for which we acquired a fondness in our
+early days, although we recognise the fact then that many of these
+favourite pictures are in no wise worthy of their subjects. After
+all, pictorial Bibles are, as a rule, unsatisfactory. More's the
+pity! The range of subjects is so vast, and the artists employed
+have seldom succeeded in impressing their representations with any
+degree of the dignity attaching to them. Even the versatile genius
+of Gustavo Doré could not respond successfully to the gigantic work,
+although of the few artists who have grappled with it, he creates
+the greatest amount of interest.
+
+[Illustration: (_From the Fresco in the House of Lords._)
+
+MOSES' DESCENT FROM SINAI.
+
+(_By J. R. Herbert, R.A._)]
+
+An interesting volume has recently been published in which are
+gathered together pictures, by modern artists of varied nationality,
+which illustrate the Bible story from Genesis to Revelation, and
+which affords an excellent opportunity of studying the manner
+in which Biblical subjects have impressed artists of different
+countries and temperaments.[1] Each has chosen to illustrate
+the portion of Scripture which appealed to his own particular
+inclination, and the result is a collection of pictures which
+cannot fail to interest all who examine it. There are reproductions
+of the vast conceptions of John Martin, which so impressed his
+contemporaries--"Belshazzar's Feast," "The Fall of Babylon," and
+"The Fall of Nineveh"--with their hundreds of figures struggling,
+writhing, fighting, and dying amid the gorgeous palaces and the
+buildings of those wonderful cities of old. The curiously eccentric
+genius of Turner is shown in his "Deluge" and "Destruction of
+Sodom"--in the one, the swirling rush of the destroying torrent
+sweeping away crowds of doomed humanity; in the other, the glare and
+smoke of the burning City of the Plain, the tottering columns of
+the buildings, and the wild hurryings of the affrighted citizens.
+Now the sensuous dancings and frivolities of "The World before
+the Flood," by William Etty, R.A.: and now the grim pictures of
+the Biblical tragedies from the brushes of the masters of the
+French School. Here the calm, peaceful creations of Burne-Jones
+and Rossetti--decoratively beautiful--and then the prettily human
+pictures of Dyce and Herbert. The modern German artists who
+delight in representing Christ living among and appealing to the
+people of our day--the school in which Herr Fritz von Uhde stands
+pre-eminent--are represented by "Christ's Call to the Sick and
+Weary," by Herr A. Dietrich.
+
+  [1] "Sacred Art: The Bible Story Pictured by Eminent Modern
+  Painters." Edited by A. G. Temple, F.S.A. (Cassell & Co., Ltd.)
+
+From this series of pictures we have selected some typical works
+with which to illustrate this article, and these will serve to show
+the variety and interest of the whole.
+
+The President of the Royal Academy, Sir Edward J. Poynter, delights
+in rendering classic scenes and stories on his canvases, and of late
+years has turned his attention almost entirely to such; but twenty
+or so years ago he painted several religious pictures, and was one
+of the artists chosen by Messrs. Dalziel to illustrate their great
+edition of the Bible. Egypt seems especially to have fascinated
+him, for, in addition to the picture of "Joseph Introducing Jacob
+to Pharaoh," he painted another large canvas dealing with the
+captivity, in which crowds of Israelites are dragging a great,
+clumsy trolley on which is placed an enormous stone lion for the
+decoration of a temple. In this picture, as in the one illustrated
+on page 387, the artist has exhibited his love for Egyptian
+architecture, with its massive pillars covered with mysterious
+symbols. But in the latter work Sir Edward Poynter has made the
+human element predominant; and the simple, pathetic figure of the
+patriarch, leaning heavily on his staff and on the shoulder of his
+long-lost son, stands out in contrast with the languorous splendour
+of the Pharaoh.
+
+[Illustration: CHRIST IN THE HOUSE OF HIS PARENTS.
+
+(_By the late Sir John E. Millais, P.R.A._)]
+
+Vastly impressive and weird is Mr. Hacker's "And there was a great
+cry in Egypt." This artist has on more than one occasion exhibited
+works of a religious nature at the Royal Academy; but none better
+than the one before us and "The Annunciation," purchased for the
+Chantrey Collection, and now in the National Gallery of British Art.
+The picture reproduced on page 388 illustrates the passage in Exodus
+(xii. 30): "And there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not
+a house where there was not one dead." It is in its suggestiveness
+that the picture tells: we see none of the horrors of the last
+plague; they are only suggested in the title. The silent, sorrowing
+figure of the Angel of Death, sweeping through the city with flaming
+sword in hand and trailing robe of black--symbol of the train of
+sorrow he leaves behind him--is noble and dignified. Carried along
+on swift wings through the deserted streets of the stricken city,
+the destroyer touches in each household the doomed "first-born," and
+only that weird, heart-breaking cry rising on the night air tells of
+the sorrow and misery that mark his track.
+
+The next illustration (page 389) deals with the incident of Moses'
+second descent from Sinai, bearing the re-written tables of the law,
+and is the work of J. R. Herbert, R.A. It forms one of the series of
+frescoes in the House of Lords.
+
+"Ruth and Naomi" (page 393) is one of the best of the Scriptural
+subjects treated by the late P. H. Calderon, R.A., and hangs in the
+Walker Art Gallery at Liverpool. The passage illustrated is that in
+which Ruth makes her impassioned appeal: "Intreat me not to leave
+thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou
+goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people
+shall be my people, and thy God my God"; and the artist has imparted
+to the beautiful figure of Ruth all the intensity and passion to
+which the words give utterance.
+
+[Illustration:  (_By permission of Miss Armitage._)
+
+FAITH.
+
+(_By the late E. Armitage, R.A._)]
+
+We now pass on to the New Testament--the section most favoured by
+artists, for the attraction of its central Figure is as overpowering
+for the painter of to-day as it has been to those of the intervening
+ages. The picture on page 390 of "Christ in the House of His
+Parents," by the late Sir John Millais, is one of the earliest and
+most noted of the painter's works. When exhibited at the Royal
+Academy in 1850 (Millais was then but twenty years of age), it had
+for its inscription, "And one shall say unto him, What are these
+wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was
+wounded in the house of my friends" (Zechariah xiii. 6). The picture
+aroused a veritable storm of hostile criticism, scorn and contumely
+being poured on painting and painter alike. Charles Dickens, in
+his _Household Words_, pronounced it as "mean, odious, revolting,
+and repulsive," and other critics found fault with it in equally
+strong language. It was then that the title of "The Carpenter's
+Shop" was scornfully bestowed upon it, and by which it has since
+been generally known: it has, however, long been recognised as one
+of the most wonderful contributions to modern British art, quite
+apart from any consideration of the age of the artist when he
+painted it. The perfect draughtsmanship, the wonderful colouring,
+the marvellous skill displayed in the whole composition, were all
+overlooked by the contemporary critics; all they considered was
+the--to them--execrable taste of the artist in representing Christ
+in an ordinary carpenter's shop! The beautiful allegories contained
+in the work were all ignored, and abuse for the conception alone
+given place.
+
+[Illustration: "ECCE HOMO!"
+
+(_By Professor Ciseri._)]
+
+And yet, when it is examined, what is there to find fault with in
+this respect? Absolutely nothing. The artist set himself to paint
+from nature; the work appeals directly to the observant eye by its
+simple force; even the symbols are not intricate when carefully
+considered. The Child, whilst playing with the pincers in His
+father's workshop, has injured His hand on a rusty nail protruding
+from the wood on the bench. Joseph draws back the fingers to examine
+the wound (the symbolism of which is obvious enough), and Mary,
+with grief and motherly anxiety portrayed on every line of her
+face, seeks to soothe the Boy, and with a piece of linen prepares
+to bind up the hand. St. John is coming with a bowl of water with
+which to bathe the injury, and St. Anne leans forward to remove the
+tool which contributed to the hurt. On the ladder against the wall
+rests a dove--the emblem of peace--and through the open doorway can
+be seen a flock of sheep huddled close to a fence, emblematical of
+the faithful, the Church of Christ. Farther out in the meadow is a
+well--the well of Truth.
+
+[Illustration: (_Reproduced by permission from the Original Painting
+in the possession of the Liverpool Corporation._)
+
+RUTH AND NAOMI.
+
+(_By P. H. Calderon, R.A._)]
+
+The picture was painted on commission for Mr. Farrar, the well-known
+dealer, for the sum of £250--a large sum in those days for a work
+by a young man.
+
+This picture will form the subject of one of the fine art plates
+offered to readers of THE QUIVER, on conditions which are
+stated elsewhere in this number. Lord Leighton's well-known painting
+"The Star in the East," and the masterpieces of four other eminent
+artists, will also be included; the whole forming a set of sacred
+pictures, suitable for framing, of permanent value and interest for
+every Christian home as well as every Sunday school and mission hall.
+
+The other picture by Millais, which is reproduced as the
+frontispiece to this number, was based upon a drawing which the
+artist made for Messrs. Routledge, in 1853, for a series of "The
+Parables of our Lord." The painting, however, was not made until
+1862, when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy. It was afterwards
+totally destroyed in a gas explosion at Baron Marochetti's house.
+
+The picture "Faith," by the late E. Armitage, R.A. (see page 391),
+is an excellent illustration of the passage, "For she said within
+herself, If I may but touch His garment, I shall be whole."
+
+The tragedy of the betrayal, and the perfidy of Judas, have been
+the subjects of innumerable pictures; and that of "Judas," by
+Henry Tidey, which we reproduce, is typical of many. The betrayer
+is represented here when leaving the house in which is being held
+the sacred feast on the night of the betrayal. The pose of the man
+reveals the shame which he is feeling; hesitating yet as to whether
+his fell purpose shall be accomplished.
+
+[Illustration: (_In the possession of Mrs. Noble._)
+
+JUDAS GOING OUT.
+
+(_By Henry Tidey._)]
+
+The illustration on page 392 shows us the memorable scene when
+Pilate exclaims to the multitude surrounding the palace, "Behold
+the Man!" The work of a modern Italian artist, this picture is an
+admirable rendering of the tragic event, the subdued patience of the
+central Figure contrasting strongly with that of the subservient
+prefect.
+
+  ARTHUR FISH.
+
+
+
+
+[NEW SERIAL STORY.
+
+[Illustration: FOR THE SAKE OF HER CHILD]
+
+By Scott Graham, Author of "The Link between Them," Etc.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Dependent upon Charity.
+
+
+It was a radiant June morning, and the fashionable
+watering-place--Beachbourne--was looking its best in the brilliant
+sunshine. Smart carriages dashed past, well-dressed cyclists
+careered gaily along, and the High Street shops were thronged with
+fashionable customers.
+
+A tall, refined-looking girl, whose exquisitely fitting garb lent
+additional elegance to her graceful figure, came along the pavement,
+holding by the hand a pretty, fair-haired child of six, likewise
+beautifully dressed. At a confectioner's window the child suddenly
+stopped. "Oh, mummy, do buy me one of those dear little chocolate
+pigs! I haven't had any sweets for ever so long!"
+
+"Don't tease, Doris. I have no money to buy sweets."
+
+The child opened great eyes of wonder.
+
+"Why, mummy, you've got shillings, sovewins, great heaps of them,
+in your purse! I saw them!" she remonstrated. And, indeed, Mrs.
+Burnside's dainty, silver-mounted purse was literally bulging with
+coin.
+
+"They all belong to auntie, and she wants them to pay her bills."
+And she turned resolutely from the enticing window, whereupon Doris,
+who was tired with the walk and the heat, burst into loud crying.
+
+As her mortified mother strove to check her, a young man in a
+professional frock-coat and tall hat, who was passing, turned to
+see the cause of the uproar. Mrs. Burnside's fair face flushed. "My
+little girl is very naughty this morning, Dr. Inglis," she said,
+answering the inquiry in his grey eyes. They were but slightly
+acquainted, occasionally meeting in society.
+
+"I want--a choc'late pig," wailed Doris. "Mummy won't buy me
+one--unkind mummy!"
+
+"Hush, Doris," rebuked the young doctor. "A chocolate pig! If that's
+all the trouble----" and he fingered the few coins in his vest
+pocket. "May she have one, Mrs. Burnside?"
+
+So Doris got her wish; and, once inside the confectioner's, she
+fancied so many things that very little remained to Dr. Inglis out
+of a shilling; and he needed all his shillings badly. But he loved
+children, and already May Burnside's blue eyes had begun to haunt
+him, She held out her beautifully gloved hand with a grateful smile;
+and he noticed how thoroughbred she looked as she went with the now
+happy Doris down the sunny street.
+
+There was a shadow on the young man's face as he sped home to his
+scanty luncheon. He was too poor to take a house, so he rented
+three rooms in a sedate-looking villa in a side street. Doctors
+simply swarmed at Beachbourne, and sometimes Harold Inglis doubted
+the wisdom of trying to work up a connection there. The eldest
+son of an impoverished country squire, he had to depend upon his
+own exertions; and, after a brilliant college career, came to
+Beachbourne, hoping to work up a practice, as he was too poor to buy
+one. Could he have taken a fine house and kept a carriage, he might
+have succeeded; for he was a gentleman to the backbone, and had a
+pleasant face and manner. But he remained almost unknown, and, after
+a year of heart-breaking disappointments, found himself barely able
+to live.
+
+Before sitting down to the bread and cheese awaiting him in the bare
+little sitting-room, he thriftily changed his frock-coat for an old
+boating blazer. Dress was a terribly heavy item in his expenditure;
+the well-cut clothes, the glossy hat, and the snowy linen
+prescribed by medical etiquette being only procured at the cost of
+semi-starvation. To the hungry labourer or vagrant many people will
+give a meal; but, to my mind, the gentleman who has to go hungry
+that he may be well-dressed is far more deserving of pity. And many
+a professional man _has_ to go hungry in these sad days when "all
+the markets overflow."
+
+Meanwhile May and Doris Burnside were bound for Victoria Square,
+the most fashionable locality in Beachbourne. Mrs. Burnside resided
+with her aunt, Miss Waller, a sprightly spinster of fifty, who
+lived at the very top of her handsome income, and was a leader of
+local fashion. A smart footman opened the door, and the beautiful
+drawing-room they entered was a great contrast to Dr. Inglis's bare
+sitting-room.
+
+[Illustration: "I want a choc'late pig," wailed Doris.--_p. 395._]
+
+Miss Waller, a good-looking woman with white hair, and very richly
+dressed, turned round from a fine old Chippendale writing-table.
+"Oh! there you are." Then, as Doris began some childish babble about
+the chocolate pig, she added impatiently, "Ring for Mary to take
+that child upstairs. I wish you wouldn't bring her in here!"
+
+Miss Waller had no love for children; and Doris was too well
+trained to defy her great-aunt. Still hugging her precious sweets,
+she was whisked away; whilst the spinster, producing a gilt-edged
+account-book, methodically entered the sums paid by her niece that
+morning out of a twenty-pound note. Every halfpenny was accounted
+for, and when May closed her purse just one solitary sixpence
+remained in it which she could really call her own. Sometimes she
+had not even that.
+
+"I've ordered the carriage for three," announced Miss Waller. "We
+must call on Lady Lee, and the Amberys, and it's Mrs. Edgell's 'at
+home' day. Put on your grey dress and your new hat."
+
+"Yes, aunt," meekly responded May.
+
+"And to-morrow you must unpick my green dinner-dress. I intend to
+have it dyed."
+
+"Yes, aunt," repeated Mrs. Burnside, as she went to the door. "Yes,
+aunt," was what she was obliged to say all day long; to have said
+"No, aunt," would have been a complete reversal of all the Victoria
+Square traditions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To do good by stealth is unfashionable nowadays, and when Miss
+Waller, to her great disgust, found herself obliged to offer a
+home to her widowed niece and her child, she took care that all
+Beachbourne should know and extol her generosity.
+
+"How delightful for Mrs. Burnside to have such a luxurious home!"
+remarked many people who saw the aunt and niece that afternoon,
+gorgeously arrayed; for it was known that, but for Miss Waller, May
+would have been obliged to earn a living. Many a tired governess or
+poor shop-assistant looked enviously at the pretty girl dashing by
+in the smart carriage--the pretty girl who was dressed in silk and
+chiffon, but had only sixpence in her pocket!
+
+The daughter of a struggling country doctor, May had fallen in
+love at eighteen with a handsome but dissipated assistant of her
+father's, who persuaded her into a clandestine marriage. She knew
+Arthur Burnside was far from steady, but it seemed noble and heroic
+to marry him that she might undertake his reformation. Poor foolish
+child! she failed to realise that if a man is too weak to stand
+alone, without some woman to prop him up continually, the chances
+are that he will bring ruin upon both. May shuddered to recall those
+four miserable years of ill-treatment, disgrace, and privation,
+which ended in the death of her husband, and left her absolutely
+penniless. Her father was dead, his other children were scattered,
+and, but for Miss Waller, she and Doris might have starved.
+
+Yet, despite the outward prosperity of her new life, she found the
+bread of dependence so bitter that, but for Doris, she would have
+tried to earn her living. She was not highly educated, and could
+only have hoped for a subordinate post; but it was so galling
+never to have a garment to wear or a coin to spend, save through
+her aunt's bounty, that she often thought she would be happier
+as a nurse or parlourmaid. She mixed as an equal with rich and
+fashionable people, and had to talk as if want of money were
+absolutely unknown, though she could not even afford to buy her
+child a few sweets. She dared not ask her aunt for pocket-money, for
+she well knew that, though Miss Waller supplied her with fashionable
+clothes, it was only because she could not bear to be disgraced by
+shabby relations, and she secretly grudged every penny spent on
+her niece. Yet she dared not quarrel with her aunt, who was her
+only hope for a good education for her child. May was resolved
+that Doris should be so accomplished that, if needful, she could
+earn her bread. "Oh, if only I had not been so idle at school! If
+I had practised, and talked to Fräulein more!" poor May thought to
+herself, with unavailing regret, as the country roads flitted by.
+
+But she had little leisure for these sad thoughts. She had to brace
+herself to play her part in three crowded drawing-rooms, as if she
+had not a care in the world. Miss Waller was well pleased with the
+admiration her graceful niece always excited in society; and, thanks
+to May, the spinster received many invitations which might not
+otherwise have arrived. Miss Waller had a horror of being classed as
+a frump; instead, she prided herself on being exceedingly modern and
+up-to-date.
+
+"Just fancy that plain little Daisy Edgell being engaged to a
+Liverpool man with heaps of money!" she remarked as they rolled
+homewards. "We met him at the Hubbards' last year, if you remember."
+
+"I thought him very ugly and commonplace."
+
+"Perhaps--but so rich! I wish _you_ could be as lucky, May. What a
+pity there are so few really eligible men at Beachbourne!"
+
+"If there were ever so many, aunt, I couldn't bear to marry again."
+
+"And, pray, why not? You're only twenty-five; surely you are not
+going to mourn all your days for that precious husband of yours?"
+cried the spinster sharply.
+
+"It is just because my first marriage was so unhappy that I never
+wish to marry again. As to marrying for money--I couldn't do it!"
+
+"What nonsense! Isn't it done every day? It's all very fine to
+talk, May, but you know my income is only for my life, and I've
+hardly saved anything, so that when I die you'll be left without a
+home; and then what's to become of you and Doris? You _must_ marry
+again--there's nothing else for it."
+
+It was not the first time May had listened to such counsels; and she
+was well aware that, should her aunt die prematurely, she herself
+would again be homeless. Miss Waller was not the woman to deny
+herself in order to save money for her niece. She must have the fine
+house and carriage, the handsome dress, and the dinner-parties which
+her soul loved; and she found May very useful in arranging flowers,
+writing letters, and making not a few articles of personal adornment
+for her aunt with her clever fingers.
+
+Their nearest way home lay through the quiet street in which Harold
+Inglis lived--or, rather, starved--and, as he chanced to be at the
+surgery window mixing a powder, he saw the carriage driving by. The
+sinking sun was burnishing May's golden-brown hair; and her profile,
+beneath her gauzy hat, looked very fair and sweet. He sighed, as he
+went back to his powder, for the contrast between her lot and his
+own seemed a little too glaring. He did not know that all the time
+she had only sixpence in her purse, while he could actually boast of
+half-a-crown!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Two Heavy Hearts.
+
+
+Doris was never allowed to partake of meals with Miss Waller,
+who disliked having to regulate her conversation according to
+inquisitive childish ears. The little girl lived in the upper
+regions with Mary, who divided the duties of lady's maid and nurse.
+After breakfast one morning, May, having done what was required by
+Miss Waller, went upstairs to give Doris the lessons which, so far,
+formed her sole instruction. She found the child flushed and heated
+after a combat with Mary.
+
+"She's that cross, I can't do anything with her," grumbled the
+maid, who dutifully imitated her mistress in hating children. "She
+wouldn't eat her nice egg at breakfast, and she's pulled all her
+dolly's hair off--see."
+
+"I'm afraid she's not well," said the mother gravely, as the child
+buried her face in May's skirt, sobbing fretfully. Her little hands
+were burning, her cheeks flushed, and red spots showed on the
+peach-like skin. "Ask Miss Waller if Jane may go for the doctor,"
+May continued, dreading lest she had taken measles.
+
+Miss Waller gave permission to summon the family physician, Dr.
+Ellis, who was the most fashionable practitioner in Beachbourne, and
+drove his carriage and pair; but Jane returned to say that both the
+doctor and his partner were out.
+
+"Then go and fetch the nearest doctor at once!" commanded Miss
+Waller. "I must know whether it's infectious or not, so that I may
+take precautions. How vexing it will be," she complained to her
+niece, "if Doris is laid up for weeks, and the house placed in
+quarantine, just as all the gaieties are beginning! There's the
+Mowbrays' dinner next week, and Lady Lee's picnic, and the Clares'
+musical party--oh, dear!"
+
+Not a word of sympathy for the poor child! May clenched her hands
+passionately in her struggle to restrain an angry reply. It was in
+moments like this that her shackles seemed absolutely intolerable.
+
+Presently Jane returned, followed by Harold Inglis, the first
+disengaged doctor she could find. May was glad not to behold an
+absolute stranger, and stood by anxiously until he had examined
+the little patient, whose malady he pronounced to be chicken-pox.
+He wrote a prescription, gave a few simple directions, and then
+followed May downstairs to reassure Miss Waller, who was eager "to
+know the worst," as she put it.
+
+She was very gracious at being relieved from anxiety, and remarked
+blandly, "It was very kind of you to come so promptly, Dr. Inglis.
+Our usual medical attendant is Dr. Ellis, but he was out. As it's
+such a trifling matter, don't trouble to see Doris again. If you
+will be good enough to send in your account for this visit, I will
+settle it at once."
+
+And she bowed him out, as if determined to quench any hope he
+might entertain of being privileged to attend in Victoria Square.
+Although, of course, medical etiquette forbade his interfering with
+Dr. Ellis's patients, he felt somewhat disappointed as he went
+away. He was so weary of waiting in his dingy sitting-room for the
+patients who never came!
+
+May ventured a word to her aunt when they were alone. "I wish we
+could help Dr. Inglis to find a few patients, aunt! He seems so nice
+and kind."
+
+"There are far too many doctors in Beachbourne!" pronounced the
+spinster. "I shall certainly not leave Dr. Ellis--he gives such
+delightful dinner-parties!"
+
+Harold plodded dejectedly home, to learn, as usual, that nobody had
+called during his absence; and, after thriftily changing his coat,
+he entered his little surgery, to find a packet on the table which
+had come by post. It was the manuscript of an article on throat
+affections, which he had sent to a medical paper in the hope of
+earning a little money. It had entailed great labour and research,
+only to be rejected with the curt intimation that the editor had no
+opening for such a subject.
+
+"What _can_ I do?" he distractedly asked himself. "I've called on
+everybody I can scrape acquaintance with; I've joined the local
+clubs; I'm a Volunteer and a Freemason--what more can I do to bring
+myself into notice?"
+
+"A note for you, sir," said the maid-of-all-work, appearing at the
+door.
+
+He snatched it eagerly, hoping to find a summons; but, alas! it was
+only a bill from a jobbing-tailor whom he had employed to renovate
+various garments _sub rosa_. He had no money to pay it; although it
+went sorely against the grain to keep the poor man from his due.
+He paced in distress up and down the narrow room, wishing he dare
+start out for a long walk, to distract his thoughts. But he dreaded
+to leave, lest in his absence some desirable patient might send for
+him. And so, hanging about listlessly, unable to settle to anything,
+the dismal morning passed, like too many others; and Ann brought in
+his meal of bread and cheese, from which he rose nearly as hungry
+as he sat down. He looked at himself in the spotty pier-glass. His
+cheeks were falling in, and there were hollows beneath his eyes, due
+entirely to insufficient nourishment.
+
+A card stuck in the frame reminded him that Mrs. Ormsby-Paulet was
+"at home" that afternoon. "It's a tennis party--shall I go?" he
+debated. It seemed a mockery to mingle in a scene of gaiety with
+such a leaden weight at his heart; but a prosaic consideration
+decided him. "There'll be a good tea, at least, and if I make myself
+very agreeable, perhaps they'll ask me to stay to dinner. Besides, I
+may get to know some people who'll employ me."
+
+He dressed himself carefully, and sallied forth; informing the
+servant of his destination, in case anybody should send for him.
+Despite his thin cheeks, there was not a better-looking man at "The
+Dene" that afternoon; for he looked a gentleman to the backbone, and
+as such, his hostess--who was very short of men--smiled upon him
+graciously.
+
+"So glad you were able to come," she cooed. "Miss Waller," to the
+spinster, who had just arrived, "may I introduce my friend, Dr.
+Inglis?"
+
+"I have already made his acquaintance," was the suave answer; and
+then Harold, to his surprise, was greeted by Mrs. Burnside, looking
+very fair and sweet in a cool white linen gown. He had not expected
+to meet her; he naturally supposed her place to be by the bedside of
+her sick child. In truth, she was only present at her aunt's urgent
+entreaty.
+
+"I'm afraid she must be rather heartless," thought the young doctor,
+feeling oddly disappointed. He had not hitherto attributed want of
+feeling to the owner of those pathetic blue eyes. Nevertheless, as
+sets were being made up, he asked her to be his partner, she being
+famed in Beachbourne as a tennis-player.
+
+She complied; but the set was not a success. He could not have
+believed that Mrs. Burnside could play so badly; they were beaten by
+six games to two.
+
+"I am so sorry," she said humbly, as they quitted the court. "I know
+it was all my fault; but I really couldn't play--I was thinking of
+Doris all the time."
+
+Her lips quivered, so that he could no longer imagine her heartless.
+"Your little girl will be well in a few days--there is really no
+cause for anxiety," he answered gently, angry with himself for
+having misjudged her.
+
+"That is what Aunt Caroline says, and she insisted on my coming,"
+plaintively returned May; but just then Miss Waller appeared,
+resplendent in mauve satin, with a stout, black-haired, middle-aged,
+and shrewd-looking man, very carefully dressed, in tow.
+
+"I came to look for you, dear," she began very sweetly to her niece,
+merely giving a cold bow to Harold. "I want to introduce Mr. Lang to
+you. He knows our friends the Wingates in town."
+
+With that, the excellent spinster turned away; and May, finding no
+resource save to accept the basket-chair in the shade proffered by
+the stranger--as Harold had prudently effaced himself--prepared for
+a _tête-à-tête_ with a man she had never seen before in her life.
+
+[Illustration: "It was very kind of you to come so promptly, Dr.
+Inglis."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+"Manners Maketh Man."
+
+
+"Do you mind my smoking?" began Mr. Lang, after a moment's keen
+scrutiny of the graceful figure beside him. Hardly waiting for
+permission, he produced a gold case and lighted a cigarette. "Been
+playing tennis, haven't you?" he continued in an off-hand way.
+"Stupid game, not half so good as golf--you should try golf."
+
+"I have tried it, and I don't like it."
+
+"Beginners seldom do. It's a fine game, for all that. You live with
+your aunt, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, in Victoria Square."
+
+"Do you like Beachbourne?"
+
+She hesitated a moment before replying, "Yes."
+
+"I suppose it's like all these provincial towns--heaps of gossip
+and scandal, eh? But you should be in London now, Mrs. Burnside.
+There hasn't been as gay a season for years. I shouldn't be here
+now, I can tell you, but I got a touch of fever last time I was at
+Johannesburg, and, as I can't quite shake it off, my doctor ordered
+me complete rest for a fortnight. So I came down here to stay with
+the Stevensons. I met them last year at Homburg, and ever since
+they've been pestering me with invitations to Beachbourne."
+
+[Illustration: The set was not a success.--_p. 399._]
+
+"Oh, have you been out in Africa?" returned May, thinking it best to
+ignore his flattering reference to his entertainers.
+
+"Spent nearly twenty years there. I can remember when there wasn't
+a gold mine on the Randt. And, though I've come back to England
+for good now, I generally run over about twice a year. It's just
+a nice little trip to the Cape, and they really do you very well
+on the mail steamers," he condescendingly added, as he lighted
+another cigarette. "By-the-bye, this case is made of African gold--a
+nugget I found myself in the claim which was the beginning of the
+Springkloof Mine. You've heard of the Springkloof, of course?"
+
+She shook her head, and he looked at her with evident pity for her
+ignorance. "I didn't think there was anybody nowadays who hadn't
+heard of the Springkloof!"
+
+"I'm afraid you'll think us rather behind the times at Beachbourne,"
+she said, as she rose, hoping to shake off her new acquaintance;
+but he rose, too, and kept by her side as she strolled through the
+beautiful grounds, speaking first to one friend and then to another.
+
+"Not many pretty girls here, I must say," he observed disparagingly,
+as they approached the house, in quest of the tea-room.
+
+"Are you an admirer of beauty?" asked May, with a rather sarcastic
+glance at his tubby figure.
+
+"Quite so. I love the best of everything there is. As soon as I
+can find a girl pretty enough, I intend to marry," he replied
+with perfect gravity. "It's rather lonely all by myself in Palace
+Gardens. Do you like the Palace Gardens houses, Mrs. Burnside?"
+
+"I've never been in one, and I don't even know where they are. I
+know very little about London, and very few people there--just the
+Wingates, and one or two others."
+
+"Are the Wingates any relation?"
+
+"Oh, no, only old friends of my aunt's. I hardly know them."
+
+"Well, it's not much loss. I don't mean any disrespect to your
+aunt, but old Mother Wingate isn't a woman I should ever wish to
+confide in, myself. She's always trying to catch me for one of her
+plain daughters--dear Maggie or dear Amy! By the way, what's your
+Christian name, Mrs. Burnside?"
+
+"May."
+
+"And, by Jove, it suits you! So often girls' names don't. You find
+Lily as black as a crow, and Rose as sallow as she can be, and
+Queenie a little, insignificant dowdy with a turned-up nose!"
+
+He talked in this carping strain while he consumed a fair amount
+of refreshments, none of which, however, were good enough for his
+critical taste. He evidently thought a great deal about eating and
+drinking, for he incidentally mentioned that he gave his _chef_ two
+hundred a year.
+
+"What a waste!" was on the tip of May's tongue, as she thought
+how useful even a tenth of that sum would be to herself. The tea
+was cosily set out on a number of little tables in the spacious,
+old-fashioned dining-room. Gay groups were seated at each, and not
+far off was Harold Inglis, talking cheerfully with two of his host's
+daughters. May glanced from him to her companion, noticing how
+common and plebeian Mr. Lang looked when contrasted with him.
+
+As she quitted the table Harold, who had apparently been lying in
+wait, crossed over to speak to her. "Would you like to play again,
+Mrs. Burnside? I can easily make up a set, if you wish."
+
+But at this moment appeared Miss Waller, apparently from nowhere, to
+throw cold water on the proposal. "I think you had better not run
+about any more this hot afternoon, love. You really must not tempt
+her, Dr. Inglis."
+
+"There's croquet," suggested Harold; "shall we play at that?"
+
+And, though in general she detested croquet, May assented quite
+eagerly, only anxious to shake off Mr. Lang. Miss Waller could not
+well interfere again, and Mr. Lang did not play croquet, but he
+and the spinster sat on a garden seat close by till the game was
+finished, rendering it difficult for Harold to say a word which
+the watchful pair did not overhear. Divining from her erratic play
+that May's mind was still running upon her sick child, he seized
+the opportunity, when they were both searching for a ball which had
+rolled into the shrubbery, to say kindly: "Don't fret about Doris.
+I assure you there's no need. The malady must run its course, and
+she'll be all right afterwards. Only you must be careful she doesn't
+get a chill."
+
+"I wish she could have you to attend her, instead of Dr. Ellis. She
+detests him because he once deceived her about a powder she had to
+take. But my aunt likes him----"
+
+"I believe he is a very clever man," hurriedly interposed Harold,
+mindful of professional etiquette. "Doris will be quite safe with
+him; indeed, she hardly needs a doctor."
+
+"My aunt is always at home on Tuesdays--I hope you will come to see
+us," responded May, grateful for his manifest sympathy. She knew he
+had few friends in Beachbourne, and resolved to do what she could to
+introduce him.
+
+His face lighted up unmistakably. "Thank you so much, Mrs. Burnside!
+I shall be delighted to come, and I'll not forget Tuesday."
+
+Miss Waller was in a most complacent frame of mind as they drove
+home through the beautiful June evening. "What a fortunate thing I
+forbade you to be so foolish as to stay at home to nurse Doris!" she
+began. "Mr. Lang is a man worth knowing; he made an enormous fortune
+in South Africa--a million at least--and Mrs. Stevenson says his
+house in Palace Gardens is simply lovely. I'll ask him to dinner, to
+meet some nice people."
+
+May's delicate face flushed. "He's not a gentleman!" she said.
+
+"I daresay he was not of much extraction originally, but what does
+that matter nowadays? Money levels all distinctions; and I can see
+Mrs. Stevenson would be only too glad to catch him for Edith."
+
+"I thought his manner insufferably rude!"
+
+"My dear, that's because he's so run after in London; it always
+spoils a man to have dozens of girls angling for him. But he was
+undoubtedly struck by you; and I don't think you were very wise
+to go and play croquet with that Dr. Inglis as you did. He has
+agreeable manners, but he has not a penny-piece; and I don't believe
+he'll ever get a practice here."
+
+"I'm sorry for him, aunt, and--and I thought it only civil to ask
+him to call----"
+
+Miss Waller's brow contracted. "I think you might have consulted me
+first. At best he is only a detrimental, and there are far too many
+here already; but you always _were_ quixotic, May!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Lulu.
+
+
+Whit Sunday--which was late that year--was simply glorious, the heat
+being tempered by a delicious sea breeze. A vivacious, dark-eyed
+girl, who accompanied Harold Inglis along the parade after morning
+service, stopped again and again to gloat over the sapphire sea,
+tumbling in, foam-crested. "How jolly for you, Harold, living in
+this delicious place!" she exclaimed. "You ought to look better than
+you do; you are much thinner than you were."
+
+He evaded the subject, not wishing to sadden his favourite sister,
+Lulu, with his shifts and privations. She had come down to
+Beachbourne to spend Whitsuntide with her brother, glad to escape
+from the stuffy London office in which she had to work hard for a
+living.
+
+"Oh, Harold! who are these smart people coming along?"
+
+They had already passed many well-dressed groups of residents,
+but none presenting so imposing an appearance collectively as did
+stately Miss Waller, in heliotrope, May Burnside, in an exquisite
+costume of pale grey silk and chiffon, Doris, a vision of childish
+prettiness in white muslin, and two or three equally well-dressed
+men, conspicuous amongst whom was Mr. Lang. Harold's colour rose as
+he lifted his hat, whilst Lulu eagerly exclaimed, "Oh! who is that
+pretty girl in grey? She looks quite fit for the Park!"
+
+He explained, secretly glad that his sister should admire his
+divinity; but it was fortunate he could not hear what Miss Waller
+was meanwhile saying to her niece: "Who is that common-looking girl
+with Dr. Inglis? She is most atrociously dressed."
+
+It must be confessed that poor Lulu, who had little money for dress,
+fell far below the Victoria Square standard. "Looks like a little
+dressmaker," sneered one of the men.
+
+"A dressmaker would have better clothes," observed Miss Waller.
+Her eyes dwelt complacently on her niece's graceful figure, as
+she spoke, and she was pleased to see how close Mr. Lang--who had
+overtaken them in coming out of church--kept to May's elbow, despite
+the black looks of Doris, who disliked him. The child was now quite
+well again, some days having elapsed since the garden party.
+
+"What are you going to do this afternoon. Mrs. Burnside? Will you
+come for a drive?" presently asked Mr Lang.
+
+But May did not approve of Sunday driving. "I promised to take Doris
+to the flower service, thank you."
+
+"Why, you've been to church once already, Doris! You'd much better
+persuade your mother to bring you for a drive with me," cajoled he;
+but the child burst out, "No, I don't like you, and I don't want to
+drive with you!" so resolutely that he could not press it.
+
+Miss Waller frowned angrily. "Really, May, the way you spoil Doris
+is beyond all reason. She is the rudest little girl I ever saw!"
+And, to soothe the plutocrat's wounded feelings, she insisted upon
+his coming home to luncheon with her. He was now a constant visitor
+in Victoria Square, for, having terminated his stay with the
+Stevensons, he had taken rooms at the principal hotel.
+
+Whilst May, in her costly gown, sat chafing beneath Mr. Lang's
+glances of insolent admiration, at her aunt's luxuriously appointed
+table, Harold and Lulu Inglis were very merry and happy over the
+plainest fare in his bare sitting-room. They had not met for a
+long time, and a cheap Whitsuntide excursion was the reason of her
+presence now. As soon as they had finished, they started for the
+shore. Sitting on a big stone, beneath the shade of the cliffs, they
+had a delightful chat, until Lulu suddenly exclaimed: "Oh, Harold!
+Here's that pretty girl in grey we saw this morning!"
+
+Doris, who loved the sea, had coaxed her mother to come down on
+the shore after the service, and, seeing his companion, May bowed
+to Harold, and would have passed on, but he detained her. "May I
+introduce my sister, Miss Lucy Inglis, Mrs. Burnside?"
+
+There was something so frank and friendly about Lulu that very
+soon, as Doris announced she was tired and wanted to rest, they
+were all seated upon the big stone, upon which Miss Inglis insisted
+on spreading her jacket, to protect May's dainty dress. Whilst his
+sister expatiated on the delights of Beachbourne, and wondered why
+her raptures evoked so little response from the young widow, Harold
+sat pondering whether he dare invite Mrs. Burnside to come to tea in
+his bare and shabby rooms.
+
+To his delight, she instantly accepted the invitation; eager, in
+truth, to escape from the hated society of Mr. Lang. Harold then
+turned to Doris, gaily asking whether she would come too.
+
+"Yes, I will," she answered with childish bluntness. "I like you,
+but I don't like Dr. Ellis--nasty man!--and I hate Mr. Lang."
+
+"You shouldn't hate anybody, Doris," reproved May.
+
+"But Mr. Lang calls me Little Crosspatch, and it's very rude of him
+to call me names, mummy."
+
+"Bravo, Doris!" cried Lulu mischievously, as they turned to go.
+"Stick up for your rights--you'll be a 'New Woman' when you grow up."
+
+"I hope so," said May, in a low voice, to the amazement of Miss
+Inglis, who exclaimed, with a glance at the costly equipment of the
+speaker: "I should never have expected _you_ to utter such a wish,
+Mrs. Burnside!"
+
+May smiled with quiet bitterness. "I have no wish to see Doris speak
+on a platform, or go in for a man's profession; but I do feel, more
+and more, that it is better for women to be independent, whether
+they marry or not."
+
+"Why, that's just what I always say!" cried Lulu delightedly. "All
+women can't marry nowadays--there are not enough men to go round.
+Besides, what is more contemptible than to see girls sitting idle,
+with their hands folded, waiting for somebody to come along and
+marry them? No, every girl ought to be able to earn her own living,
+and then she's safe, whatever happens!"
+
+Needless to say, such maxims would have been entirely abhorrent to
+Miss Waller, who regarded working-girls with detestation, as May
+well knew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+"A Beautiful Anomaly."
+
+
+Arrived at his rooms, Harold did the honours; not without fears lest
+May should miss the luxuries of her home. But she enjoyed the change
+of surroundings with all the zest of a schoolgirl, and Doris, being
+made much of, was as good as gold. Harold himself had not spent
+such a delightful hour since he came to Beachbourne, but his hour
+of bliss was all too short; for soon a summons came from a patient,
+and, though it was only a greengrocer in the next street, patients
+were too precious to be slighted. So he departed, begging Mrs.
+Burnside to remain with Lulu until his return.
+
+Left alone, the two girls settled down for a cosy chat; Doris being
+quite absorbed in an illustrated book Harold had produced picturing
+the wonders of the microscope.
+
+"Dear old Harold!" began his sister. "Don't think me silly, Mrs.
+Burnside, but I'm proud of him, knowing how hard he worked for his
+degree. Will he ever get a good practice here, do you think?"
+
+"I hope so; but it takes time," answered May, rather embarrassed.
+"Have you many brothers and sisters?"
+
+"There are six of us altogether--a formidable number, isn't it? But,
+I'm glad to say, we're all doing something, and don't cost dear old
+dad a penny. I remind Esther of that--she's my eldest sister--when
+she grumbles, and wishes we were back at Mallowfield Hall."
+
+"That was your father's place, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, our ancestors lived there centuries ago. This is the house."
+And she produced a photograph of an imposing mansion standing in
+a spacious park, a residence which even Miss Waller would have
+acknowledged to be a magnificent property.
+
+"What a lovely place! And you had to leave it?"
+
+[Illustration: "He's not a gentleman," she said.--_p. 401._]
+
+"Yes, my grandfather was dreadfully extravagant, and since father
+came into power the agricultural depression was the finishing
+stroke. It was cruelly hard to leave the dear old place, but the
+mortgagees foreclosed, and we all had to turn out. Dad and mother
+went to live in Cornwall, where she owns a tiny cottage. Harold
+passed as a doctor, Jack's at Johannesburg, and Ted's in Australia.
+Then Connie, my youngest sister, is companion to an old lady, and
+Esther and I share a cupboard of a flat with an old schoolfellow,
+Mabel Bryan, whose partner I am in a typewriting office. Esther,
+who's awfully clever, as well as handsome, and knows several
+languages, is corresponding clerk to a firm of shippers. She gets a
+hundred a year, and I manage to make about a pound a week; but I'm
+not clever, and have to do the best I can. We work awfully hard, but
+I really think we are happier than if we had nothing to do."
+
+"I'm sure you are," sighed May, as her eye fell upon her own dearly
+purchased finery. "I must say, I think it very plucky of you to take
+it as you do."
+
+Lulu opened her eyes, for she was not accustomed to pity. "I'm
+proud to be a working-woman, and even if I were rich like you, Mrs.
+Burnside, I couldn't bear to sit with my hands folded."
+
+"Rich like me!" May echoed drearily. "I'm not rich; I owe everything
+I possess to my aunt."
+
+"But she's rich, so it must be the same thing," persisted Lulu.
+
+Just then Harold came hurrying in. "I was as quick as I could be,
+Mrs. Burnside," he began, manifestly pleased to find May still
+there. With an alarmed glance at the clock, she arose to go, and
+said cordially--
+
+"I should be so pleased, Dr. Inglis, if you would bring your sister
+to see me on Tuesday afternoon."
+
+"Many thanks, Mrs. Burnside, but I must return by the excursion
+train on Tuesday morning," returned Lulu; and May dared not urge the
+point. To invite the Inglises to any meal but afternoon tea was out
+of her power, for Miss Waller disapproved of promiscuous guests at
+luncheon and dinner. So, bidding a cordial farewell to Lulu, May set
+forth with Doris to Victoria Square, escorted by happy Harold.
+
+"I call her a beautiful anomaly!" Lulu observed later on to her
+brother, when he asked what she thought of Mrs. Burnside. "At first,
+seeing how she was dressed, I concluded she was only a fashionable
+butterfly, caring for nothing but amusement. But from her talk I
+could see I had been unjust, and that there's nothing she would like
+better than being useful and independent. Poor thing! Her face is
+one of the saddest I ever saw."
+
+"I believe she has a very uncomfortable time of it with Miss Waller,
+who is a Tartar, from all accounts."
+
+"Then why does she stay with her?"
+
+"What else can she do, with that child?"
+
+An unpleasant quarter of an hour awaited May within her aunt's
+door, which she entered with a sinking heart. Doris was instantly
+bundled off to bed, after which Miss Waller--in thin, high tones,
+very different from her suave society accents--moralised on May's
+enormities in absenting herself without notice, whilst Mr. Lang
+vainly awaited her return. He had just gone, evidently vexed at her
+non-appearance.
+
+"Mr. Lang has no jurisdiction over me!" May was irritated into
+retorting at last, whereupon her aunt's frown became portentous.
+
+"Mr. Lang is my friend, and, as such, I insist that you treat him
+with respect! Pray, who are you, to set your will against mine? I
+paid for the very dress you have on, and every article you possess,
+and but for me you and Doris would be in the workhouse!"
+
+May would not trust herself to reply, but went away to her own room,
+there to shed some very bitter tears. As she eyed her tall figure in
+the glass, arrayed in the beautiful garments for which she had to
+pay so dearly, she heartily envied the three happy girls in their
+flat, as described by Lulu. How fortunate they were, to be able to
+do as they pleased, and indebted to no living soul for anything!
+"Oh, to be free!--to be free!" she panted, realising her slavery as
+she had never realised it before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+Bijou's Mistress.
+
+
+When bright-faced Lulu had returned home, brief though her visit had
+been, Harold missed her inexpressibly. To vary the monotony of his
+dreary rooms, he paid his promised call in Victoria Square, to find
+himself promptly relegated to the background by Miss Waller, who
+perfectly understood how to snub people without being unladylike.
+May, who made tea, hardly uttered a word; and the lion of the
+occasion was Mr. Lang, who expatiated on the riches of South Africa
+and his own importance on the Randt.
+
+"You're nowhere unless you've got money nowadays," he confidently
+asserted.
+
+"Oh, but"--expostulated a meek little clergyman's wife, looking
+rather shocked, "surely culture goes for something--and
+descent--and----"
+
+"Culture, descent, my dear madam! We haven't time to bother about
+such things at Johannesburg! They'd be no use to a man there!"
+
+"I'm sorry to hear it," Harold was provoked into saying. "My brother
+Jack is out there, and I shouldn't like him to come back less of a
+gentleman than he went!"
+
+"What's he doing?" disdainfully drawled the plutocrat.
+
+"He is in the office of the Victorina Mine."
+
+"Ah! a good property that--not equal to the Springkloof, though. I
+know the Victorina manager; perhaps next time I go out, I may look
+your brother up."
+
+"How kind of you, Mr. Lang!" gushed Miss Waller; but Harold never
+said a word.
+
+"Well now, Miss Waller," said Mr. Lang, "it's time I was returning
+to London, and don't you think you ought to give Mrs. Burnside a
+little taste of dissipation before the season closes?"
+
+"I should have taken her to London before, but dear May always says
+she doesn't like town," answered the spinster, who always posed as
+a most affectionate aunt in public. "I must leave you to try _your_
+persuasions." As she spoke, she darted a glance at her niece which
+plainly said, "Refuse to go, if you dare!"
+
+"London is so hot now--and Doris----" faltered the girl in manifest
+dismay. The clergyman's wife took her departure, but Harold sat
+doggedly on, determined to hear the result.
+
+"Doris could be left behind perfectly well," rejoined Mr. Lang, who
+disliked the child as much as she disliked him.
+
+"We shall be very pleased to see a little of London under your
+auspices, Mr. Lang," interrupted Miss Waller, in a sub-acid tone. "I
+know of some nice rooms near Hyde Park, which will be quieter than a
+hotel, and I'll write about them to-night."
+
+May said no more; but Harold perceived an expression of absolute
+despair flit over her features for a moment, and his heart swelled
+with pity for her.
+
+He paced his lonely sitting-room many times that evening, lamenting
+his own impotence. A few patients, poor people to whom he was at
+home for an hour, mornings and evenings, came to consult him for a
+fee of one shilling, medicine included; but even these were few in
+number. He had the very deepest sympathy with the poor; but to be
+wasting his time here when, in a few days, Mrs. Burnside would be
+staying close to that man in Palace Gardens!
+
+[Illustration: "Harold! Here's that pretty girl in grey."--_p. 402._]
+
+There was a ring at the bell, and the landlady entered, announcing,
+with a smile, "Miss Geare and Miss Pepper." A little, round-faced,
+white-haired lady, with curiously wandering light-blue eyes, then
+tripped into the room, carrying something carefully in her arms;
+followed by a forbidding, tall, dark-haired female, to whom Harold
+took an instant and hearty dislike.
+
+"Oh, doctor!" began the little lady, in a breathless, excited way,
+with hardly any stops, "I saw your plate on the door, and I've come
+to see if you can cure my darling little Bijon; a great cruel cabman
+has just driven over him, and I'm afraid his poor leg's broken. Will
+you look?"
+
+Harold could hardly restrain a smile. "I am not a veterinary
+surgeon, madam."
+
+[Illustration: Harold perceived an expression of despair flit over
+her features.--_p. 405._]
+
+"I told you it was no use coming here," growled Miss Pepper, the
+companion, in a voice as unamiable as her face.
+
+"Oh, but poor Bijou is in such pain!"
+
+With that Miss Geare burst into passionate tears and again entreated
+Harold's aid. To end the tiresome scene, he examined the dog,
+unprofessional though it might be, and, finding one of its legs
+was broken, improvised splints and set it carefully. Miss Geare's
+gratitude was excessive.
+
+"And you _will_ come and see Bijou, won't you?" implored the old
+lady. "He must have attention until he gets well, and I live at
+Lyndhurst Lodge, Murray Road."
+
+Harold demurred, as being unprofessional.
+
+"Then come to attend _me_," eagerly responded Miss Geare. "I'm often
+rather ailing; and you can give Bijou a look at the same time."
+
+She looked at him so pleadingly that he could not find it in his
+heart to say no. She brightened up at his consent, and asked for
+a cab, in which to take home her injured darling, and then laid a
+sovereign and a shilling on the table.
+
+"I don't think I am entitled to charge for attending the dog," said
+Harold, crimsoning. "Certainly, this is far too much."
+
+"Watson, the veterinary surgeon, _never_ would have charged a
+guinea," indignantly added Miss Pepper; but Miss Geare was resolute,
+and when she had departed, it was certainly pleasant to see the gold
+piece on the table, sovereigns being sadly scarce with him, poor
+fellow!
+
+He instituted inquiries, and learnt that Miss Geare belonged to a
+good family, and was well-off, but somewhat "queer." In early youth
+she was engaged to an officer, who was killed at Delhi, and had
+become gradually more and more eccentric, until now she only lived
+for her dogs and cats. Miss Pepper, it was added, tyrannised over
+her shamefully, as though she were the mistress and Miss Geare the
+companion.
+
+The old lady was warm-hearted, though rather fickle, and, having
+taken a fancy to Harold, contrived to secure him several fresh
+and welcome patients. Miss Geare herself was far from strong, and
+afforded a legitimate exercise for Harold's skill, which salved his
+conscience in the matter of Bijou. But Miss Pepper remained, from
+first to last, distinctly hostile.
+
+  [END OF CHAPTER SIX.]
+
+
+
+
+CHILDISH MEMORIES OF LEWIS CARROLL.
+
+By One of his Alices.
+
+
+So many children will grieve over the sad event--the death that
+deprived them of one of the best and kindest friends that children
+ever came across--the children who have followed "Alice" through
+all the wonderful adventures of "Wonderland" will be saddened by
+the thought that the hand which held the pen that gave them such
+amusement is now still for ever; and the children now grown up who
+knew Lewis Carroll personally will look back into the years agone
+and remember his delightful stories, and his never-ceasing kindness
+towards them in their youthful days.
+
+[Illustration: LEWIS CARROLL.
+
+(_At the age of 8._)]
+
+To my mind Oxford will never be quite the same again, now that so
+many of the dear old friends of one's childhood have "gone over to
+the great majority." My poor old father, though always wishing to go
+for little excursions back to the old University town where so many
+years of his life had been spent, came back to his country rectory
+in the Cotswold Hills bemoaning the loss of the "many who had gone
+before," and how the familiar forms of his old college friends were,
+alas! no more to be seen.
+
+Often, in the twilight, when the flickering firelight danced on the
+old wainscoted wall, have we--father and I--chatted over the old
+Oxford days and friends, and the merry times we all had together
+in Long-Wall Street. I was a nervous, thin, remarkably ugly child,
+and, for some years, I might say, I was quite alone in the nursery,
+my small, fat baby-brother being much more appreciated than myself.
+I was left almost entirely to the kind and gentle mercy of Mary
+Pearson, my own particular attendant, and though father, of course,
+had commenced his friendship with Mr. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) long
+before, I only remember him first when I was about seven, and from
+that time until we went to live in Gloucestershire, he was one of my
+most delightful friends.
+
+[Illustration: (_From a Photo by Lewis Carroll._)
+
+THE AUTHOR AND HER FATHER (THE REV. E. A. LITTON).]
+
+I shall never forget when, sitting on a rustic seat with Mr.
+Dodgson under a dear old tree in the Botanical Gardens, I heard
+for the first time the delightful and ever-entertaining story of
+Hans Andersen's "Ugly Duckling." I was devoted to books, and could
+read quite well for so small a child, but I cannot explain the
+delightful way in which Mr. Dodgson read and told his stories: as
+he read, the characters were real flesh and blood--living figures.
+This particular story made a great impression on me, and, being
+very sensitive about my ugly little self, it greatly interested me.
+I remember his impressing upon me that it was better to be good,
+truthful, and to try not to think of self, than to be a pretty,
+selfish child, spoilt and disagreeable, and he, from that story,
+gave me the name of "Ducky," which name clung to me for many years;
+in fact, from that day Mary Pearson always called me "Miss Ducky."
+
+[Illustration: (_From a Photo by Lewis Carroll._)
+
+THE ORIGINAL OF "ALICE IN WONDERLAND."]
+
+Many a time has Mr. Dodgson said, "Never mind, little Ducky; perhaps
+some day you will turn out a swan."
+
+I always attribute my love for animals to the teaching of Mr.
+Dodgson: his stories of animal life, his knowledge of their lives
+and histories, his enthusiasm about birds and butterflies, passed
+many a tiresome hour away. The monkeys in the Botanical Gardens were
+our special pets, and, oh! the nuts and biscuits we used to give
+them! He entered into the spirit of the fun as much as "Ducky" did.
+
+Then there were the mornings spent in the Christ Church and Merton
+meadows: Mary and I took our daily walks abroad there. Years have
+passed since then, and I have travelled in many climes, but I always
+think that the recollections of the days of one's childhood never
+fade. One's views of life, persons, and things were so fresh, so
+different from the judgment of things in later years.
+
+Those meadows were, to me, full of the loveliest
+field-flowers--daisies, the beautiful "snake-flower"--so rare, I
+understand now--the golden buttercups, the masses of dandelions with
+the added, never-failing fun of blowing the downy seeds away.
+
+Nurse Mary always took thread and a needle in her pocket; these
+were for the making of daisy-chains, and, oh! the wreaths we strung
+as we sat in the soft grass, with the dear old Broad Walk quite
+close, and when we raised our eyes the lovely vision of Merton
+College, with its covered walls of Virginian creeper! It all comes
+back to me so vividly, though it is now far away in the past years.
+And how delighted we were to see the well-known figure in his cap
+and gown coming, so swiftly, with his kind smile ready to welcome
+the "Ugly Duckling" sitting in the grass! I knew, as he sat beside
+me, that a fairy-tale book was hidden in his pocket, or that I
+should hear something nice--perhaps a new game or a puzzle--and he
+would gravely accept a tiny daisy bouquet for his coat with as much
+courtesy as if it had been the finest hot-house _boutonnière_. I was
+very proud when, between us, we had made a chain of cuckoo-flowers
+and daisy heads long enough to twine round my hat.
+
+These meadows and the walk along the wall were remarkable then for
+the quantity of snails of all kinds that, on fine days and damp
+days, came out to take the air, and to me they were objects of great
+dislike and horror. Mr. Dodgson so gently and patiently showed me
+how silly I was, how harmless the poor snails were, and told me so
+much about the shells they carried on their backs, and showed me how
+wonderfully they were made, that I soon got over the fright and made
+quite a collection of discarded shells; which collection finally
+took up its abode in a little crimson-paper trunk that Mr. Dodgson
+found at old Mrs. Green's toyshop and bought for me.
+
+About this time also father had added to my nursery literature
+"Ministering Children," "Sandford and Merton," and "Rosamund; or,
+The Purple Jar." All these were shown in great glee to my kind
+friend, who (as I knew he would) read to me from them.
+
+Two or three times I went fishing with him from the bank, near the
+Old Mill opposite Addison's Walk (Oxford), and he entered quite into
+my happiness when a small fish came wriggling up on the end of my
+crooked pin and line, just ready for the dinner of the little white
+kitten, "Lily," he had given me.
+
+In those days Addison's Walk had, in season, its banks covered with
+pretty periwinkles--white and blue--and there were strict laws not
+to pick them. I, childlike, could not resist the temptation, and
+one day, Mary being seated at work near by, "Ducky," left to play
+alone, gathered a bunch of the coveted beauties, hid them under her
+little spencer (a small coat of those days), and trotted by Mary's
+side, half-frightened, to the lodge of the gruff old porter, who
+sat reading his paper, glancing always at the passers through his
+doorway. Nothing escaped his notice. Mary went through and then I,
+half-trembling, with the periwinkles closely clasped to my side.
+The street gained, I was safe, but (alas! there is always a "but"),
+Mr. Dodgson, going to see a friend in the college, came up to me,
+saying, "Why so flushed, little Alice? And what is that hanging
+below your jacket?"
+
+The flowers had not gained anything by their hot pressure under my
+jacket, and it was a very much ashamed, sad little girl who stood
+convicted of flower-theft!
+
+"Ducky, come with me"; and, taking my unwilling hand, he led me back
+to the grim old custodian of the cloisters, to whom I had to deliver
+up the now faded periwinkles, and promise future goodness and "never
+to do so any more." Then Mary took me in hand, and the quiet little
+"weep" I indulged in while going home was much enhanced by the sound
+of Mary's voice telling me: "Miss Ducky, you are an awful naughty
+child; you have quite disgusted Mr. Dodgson, and you shall go to
+your bed without supper." This threat she carried out.
+
+On Sunday afternoons father used to take me for a walk to St.
+John's College gardens, or, perhaps, New College gardens, and as
+they--father and Mr. Dodgson--were great friends, he often joined
+us. And how I enjoyed all the bright sunshine and the shade of the
+mulberry-trees! And then father, tired from his morning services,
+snatched a "forty-winks." I revelled in stories of small men and
+maidens, stories so entertaining that I thought I could never read
+"line upon line" any more; and then there were the stories of the
+other little Alice who bore the same initials as myself, and who
+was so pretty and behaved so well; who sat before the wonderful
+photographing machine and came out a pretty little beggar girl! I am
+afraid I was rather envious of this child and a tiny bit jealous,
+but I took the greatest interest in what she did and said. And I
+remember all this perfectly.
+
+Before me, as I write, is a likeness of Mr. Dodgson; in fact, two
+photographs. These are just as I remember him. It was his sweet
+smile and face that endeared him so much to his youthful friends,
+his never-failing interest in their childlike joys and sorrows.
+Mr. Dodgson was a very quiet, reserved man, and cared little for
+society, such as large parties and receptions; but to come and go
+as he liked in the homes of those with whom he was intimate, these
+visits were some of the pleasures he allowed himself. He also made
+very welcome the visits of his child-friends, and it was a great
+treat to go to see him in his rooms in Christ Church College.
+
+My dear father (the Rev. E. A. Litton, a very well known man in
+the old Oxford days of sixty years ago) was much attached to Mr.
+Dodgson, and they used to meet frequently to discuss points that
+interested them both. I was always allowed, if I bore a good record
+in the nursery, to join father when he went to Christ Church, and I
+knew that, sooner or later during the visit, something good would
+be for me. The delicious slices of cake and bread-and-butter, the
+glass of creamy milk; the soft pile of cushions on the sofa if I
+felt tired, and the glittering little glass balls of his wonderful
+game of "Solitaire," for me to play with; the lovely picture-books
+which I was so careful not to tear or hurt in any way; and then to
+be allowed to look at the portraits of other little friends who knew
+and visited him as I did!
+
+[Illustration: _THE FIRST EARRING._
+
+(_From a Drawing by Lewis Carroll._)]
+
+Mr. Dodgson was a great admirer of photography and he inspired
+father with a like enthusiasm, and I am the happy possessor of a
+photograph (reproduced on page 407) that our dear friend took at
+Christ Church of father and me. Such a good likeness of father
+and me, such a lanky, long-legged, shy child, with very short
+petticoats, low shoes, and a huge flap hat! More than forty years
+has this been taken--the two dear friends gone for ever and only the
+photograph remaining as souvenir of the dear old past--it is almost
+as fresh as the day it was taken!
+
+Other likenesses were taken, but, though I have hunted about, I
+cannot find them. Also, to my great sorrow, I have lost several
+long, illustrated letters written to me with the hope of shaming
+me out of several bad habits and faults. One in particular was the
+sucking of my thumb, and this Mr. Dodgson always teased me about
+very much. One day I received a long letter with funny little
+pictures of a small family of birds who would suck their thumbs
+(claws). They looked so comical in a row, on a branch, with their
+claws in their beaks, and the father- and mother-birds below with
+a pot of bitter aloes, a birch-rod, and long muslin bags to tie up
+the claws in. The next picture showed the little birds weeping,
+with their claws in bags, the father and mother enjoying a good
+repast, and the naughty little birds "had none"! And so on all the
+way through this most interesting pictorial letter, till the little
+birds had no claws left. All sucked away! The story was quite as
+interesting as the pictures, and I think it did me good, as Mary
+Pearson always read this letter to me whenever I sucked my thumb
+more than usual, and protested my thumbs were disappearing as the
+birds' claws did, and I was terribly frightened; for Mr. Dodgson
+used to say Mary was quite right, and I should be spoken of as "the
+little girl without thumbs."
+
+My hair was a great trouble to me as a child, for it would tangle
+and Mary was not over and above patient as I twisted and turned
+when she wished to dress it. So one day I received a long, blue
+envelope addressed to myself (letters are always so delightful to
+children--they raise them almost to the ranks of the "grown-ups"),
+and there was a story-letter, all full of drawings, from Mr Dodgson.
+The first picture was of a little girl--hat off and tumbled hair
+very much _en évidence_--asleep on a rustic bench under a big
+tree by the side of a river (supposed to be the dear old seat in
+the Botanical Gardens), and two birds holding an evidently most
+important conversation above in the branches, their heads on one
+side, eyeing the sleeping child. The next picture, the two birds,
+flying with twigs and straw, preparing to build a nest; the child
+still sleeping and the birds chirping and twittering with the
+delight of building their nest in the tangled hair of the child.
+Next came the awakening. The work complete, the mother-bird on
+her nest, the father-bird flying round the frightened child. And
+then, lastly, hundreds of birds--the air thick with them; the child
+fleeing; small boys with tin trumpets raised to their lips, and
+Nurse Mary, with a basket of brushes and combs, bringing up the
+rear! All this, with the well-drawn-out story, cured me of this
+fault, and Mary, in after-life, told me she "had no more trouble;
+just to open the letter and show the unhappy child in the picture,
+and I was 'passive as a lamb.'" Sometimes father would say, patting
+my head, "Any more nests to-day, Ducky? Birds would not have a
+chance now with this smooth little head."
+
+[Illustration: LEWIS CARROLL.
+
+(_The Rev. C. L. Dodgson._)]
+
+I have grieved greatly that these picture-stories are no more, and,
+from several letters which I have seen from other little girls--now
+grown up and far away in different parts of the world, their letters
+of a like kind have also gone astray and been lost amidst the
+movings, changings, and chances of life.
+
+In after years my father often told me another story of Mr. Dodgson,
+which I, being so young, had forgotten. In the very early part of
+the time in which I knew him, he one day called in Long-Wall Street
+to fetch father to go with him to "The Union" to look into some
+particular subject together. Mr. Dodgson was anxious I should go as
+well, as, perhaps, we might all take a walk, and as I promised to be
+most obedient and good, I was told to go and get my hat. I trotted
+along, and, "The Union" reached, was put in a comfortable chair to
+wait till they were ready to go on the proposed walk. It was hot,
+and I was tired, and the crackling of papers turning over and the
+hum of voices lulled me to sleep. I slept on, oblivious of all, and,
+I suppose, the two friends, talking intently, forgot my existence
+and, in earnest conversation, left "The Union"--and me, sleeping
+quietly, quite alone.
+
+Mr. Dodgson left father in Long-Wall Street, and then went to his
+rooms in Christ Church. Suddenly, so the story goes, he thought, "We
+went out three; we came back two; where is three?"
+
+And then it flashed across him that there had been no "three" left
+in Long-Wall Street--only his friend--and so "three" must have been
+left somewhere on the road. Though it was just the hour of dinner,
+this good friend trudged back to "The Union," intent upon finding
+the lost lamb, and there I was still asleep, coiled up, as he
+expressed it, "like a dormouse." I was taken home tired and a little
+cross; it was past my supper-time; I was hungry, and quite ready for
+the white sheets and pillows that lead to dreamland. But, always
+thoughtful for others, Mr. Dodgson strayed into the ever-famous and
+delightful shop of Boffins in "The High," and a sugared Bath-bun and
+a glass of jelly revived my drooping spirits and raised my courage
+to meet Mary. I was soon given into her care, and my adventures, as
+told by Mr. Dodgson, made me quite a heroine, and I felt myself a
+person of some importance with a history.
+
+I had a daily governess, a dear old soul, who used to come every
+morning to instruct my youthful mind. I disliked particularly the
+large-lettered copies in my writing-book, and, as I confided this
+to Mr. Dodgson, he came and set me some copies himself. I remember
+two were, "Patience and water-gruel cure gout." (I wondered what
+"gout" could be.) "Little girls should be seen and not heard." (This
+I thought unkind.) These were written many times over, and I had to
+present the pages at the end of the week to him without one blot or
+smudge.
+
+[Illustration: ALICE AND HUMPTY DUMPTY.
+
+(_From a Photograph._)]
+
+Magdalen College always, to my childish mind, was a most lovely and
+beautiful place, and my favourite walking ground in hot weather
+because of the splendid trees. I also had a great admiration for the
+many and brilliant-flowered balconies of some of the Fellows of the
+College, which looked into High Street just before the Bridge of
+Magdalen commenced. One particularly was the show window of the set,
+flaming with the most varied colours--vivid geraniums, lobelias,
+mignonette, and two tiny mirrors, cleverly inserted amongst the
+flowers, so that the person inside could see who was passing, either
+way, up or down the street, without being seen himself.
+
+I was quite at home in these rooms, as they also belonged to a
+friend of my father, a Mr. Saul; he was a Fellow of Magdalen,
+and I always admired him so much, and thought he could never be
+unhappy living in such charming rooms. I can see him now, with his
+cheery laugh and white hair, and his very portly figure, and, oh!
+the musical instruments that were here, there, and everywhere! Mr.
+Dodgson and father and myself all went one afternoon to pay him a
+visit. At that time Mr. Saul was very much interested in the study
+of the big drum, and, with books before him and a much heated face,
+he was in full practice when we arrived. Nothing would do but
+that all the party must join in the concert. Father undertook the
+'cello, Mr. Dodgson took a comb and paper, and, amidst much fun and
+laughter, the walls echoed with the finished roll, or shake, of the
+big drum--a roll that was Mr. Saul's delight. All this went on till
+some other Oxford Dons (mutual friends) came in to see "if everybody
+had gone suddenly cracked." I meanwhile, perched amongst the flowers
+and mirrors, joined in the fun by singing and clapping my hands with
+delight at the drum, comb, and 'cello. When all had quieted down, a
+large musical-box was wound up for my edification; such a treat it
+was for me to listen to the beautiful airs!
+
+[Illustration: THE AGE OF INNOCENCE.
+
+(_From a Drawing by Lewis Carroll._)]
+
+Music is, and always has been, the chief delight of my life, and
+father always greatly encouraged this taste in me. Many a time, in
+our walks amongst the Cotswolds in the long years after, father
+would say, "Ducky, do you remember poor old Saul and his big drum?
+And the fun we all had together, and how Dr. Bully thought we had
+all gone in for Littlemore Asylum? Oh, the dear old days, child! The
+dear old days!" And then we would walk on quite silently, father
+wrapped in the past, till we reached the ivy-covered rectory and the
+lights, and the daily routine of life was taken up once more.
+
+One more story of my childhood, and then I shall have to write
+"Finis" to what to me is so delightful--the shutting of one's eyes
+in the twilight and the wandering back into the past with the many
+near and dear friends--some now scattered far and wide, others gone
+into the "weird unknown." Gone, but ever present in the loving
+memories of friends.
+
+Not very far away from Wadham College (in my remembrance) was a road
+leading to "The Parks"; this was also a very nice walk, and the
+hedges, when I was a small girl, were full of "ragged robin," wild
+roses, and other field flowers. Yellow butterflies and, sometimes,
+"peacock" butterflies, could also be found there. So, to the mind
+of eight years old, it was a "happy hunting ground" for "eyes that
+could see and look for things," and my pockets were generally filled
+with great treasures on returning--which treasures, alas! Mary
+Pearson always dubbed "Miss Ducky's aggravating rubbish."
+
+Now father had a great friend living near Park Crescent, and one of
+the bonds of sympathy (and a great one it was) between father, Mr.
+Dodgson, and the little old gentleman, was mathematics. This friend,
+whose name I have forgotten, lived in one of a row of houses at the
+top of Park Crescent, and many were the times we all three took
+this particular walk together to see the old scholar. My delight
+was resting in the pleasant little parlour of the housekeeper,
+into whose charge I was always given. She had very beady black
+eyes, a bunch of keys at her waist, and a most wonderful cap with
+bouquets of flowers intermixed with lace at each of her ears, and
+funny little grey curls and combs (like those of the present day)
+to fasten them back. I always was most polite to her and put on my
+very best manners. To me she was a most potential personage, and her
+coltsfoot wine and old-fashioned rock cakes, with which she always
+regaled me with no sparing hand, were so delicious! Nowhere else
+did these particular dainties seem to me so good. Perhaps hunger
+(which is always the best sauce) had something to do with it; but I
+know I munched the cakes and gazed intently at the swaying grasses
+and flowers on her head, as she told me that she made all the cakes
+herself, and also could sometimes make, when little girls were
+"extra good," "almond toffee" of the most appetising description.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+56. THE WALKING STICK OF DESTINY.
+
+Ch. 6.
+
+Hush! The Baron slumbers! Two men with stealthy steps are removing
+his strong-box.[2] It is very heavy and their knees tremble, partly
+with the weight, partly with fear. He snores and they both start;
+the box rattles, not a moment is to be lost; they hasten from the
+room. It was very, very hard to get the box out of the window but
+they did it at last; though not without making noise enough to
+waken ten ordinary sleepers: the Baron, luckily for them, was an
+_extra_ordinary sleeper.
+
+  [2] Of it's contents, as afterwards appears were very small. vide
+  page 27, note (1).
+
+At a safe distance from the castle, they sat down the box, and
+proceeded to force off the lid. Four mortal hours[3] did M^r Millon
+Smith and his mysterious companion labor thereat; at sun rise it
+flew off with a noise louder than the
+
+  [3] Probably they began at about one o'clock.
+
+A PAGE FROM THE "UMBRELLA BOOK."
+
+(_Written and Drawn by Lewis Carroll._)]
+
+I was always ready to go this walk with father, and I well remember
+one occasion on which we went. It must have been about July, for
+it was very hot, and the roses and other flowers were all out. Mr.
+Dodgson and father enjoyed a chat, while I--with a mind full of rock
+cakes, the bright sunshine and all the pretty things of nature in
+the hedges, and (oh! happy thought!) perhaps the wonderful toffee at
+the walk's end--danced along till the little garden gate was reached
+and we all passed through. I always shared my goodies with other
+people when I could, and I had promised to save some rock cakes
+for father and Mr. Dodgson, for upstairs they were always much too
+intent on conversation to think about "refreshments of life," and
+these things of which I am writing happened before "afternoon teas"
+of four o'clock were ever thought of.
+
+The toffee was there--rather sticky, owing to the hot weather, but
+the almonds looked white and cool; and the green plate of cakes and
+the jug with a dog's face for a spout--all were there just ready
+for the flushed, tired, little girl. I quite remember the cap that
+day, for it had bunches of pink May with "Quaker" grass, and the old
+lady told me it was her best summer cap and had cost six shillings
+at Oliver's in Corn Market Street. I thought she must be a very rich
+woman indeed, and told Mr. Dodgson so that afternoon, when we were
+once more together. I remember his laugh as he said, "The female
+mind is full of vanity." I wondered what a "female mind" meant, and
+father said little girls asked too many questions (he often told me
+this part of the story afterwards, when I was grown up), and that I
+should not know what it was, even if I were told. Mr. Dodgson said,
+"Alice, all things come to those who wait; some time, if God spares
+you to grow up, you you will learn many things."
+
+[Illustration: LEWIS CARROLL IN HIS STUDY AT CHRIST CHURCH.]
+
+But the pleasant hour spent with the old housekeeper came to an
+end, and the bell was rung, which meant that I had to gather myself
+together and go home. Two small parcels of toffee and cakes were
+given into my willing, open, little hands; a towel was hastily
+found to wipe away my general stickiness; and then I went away from
+this dear little home into "The Parks" with Mr. Dodgson and father,
+homewards.
+
+It was hot, and I was tired: I am sorry to say that father said I
+was "very cross." My little blue shoes, fastened with straps and
+tiny pearl buttons, would come undone, and all the brightness and
+flowery hedges had lost their charm for the now overdone "Ducky."
+
+Mr. Dodgson lagged behind, and I saw him looking intently in the
+hedges and all about, as if he were searching for something. This
+aroused my curiosity. At length, stooping down, he gathered up
+something in his handkerchief. I could not see what he had found,
+but I felt very much interested. Holding the tied-up handkerchief
+above my head, he said, "This is for my other little Alice; she is a
+brave girl, and does not cry like a baby at being a wee bit tired.
+Oh! such a curious, lovely little flower is tied up here!"
+
+At this he waved the handkerchief above my head, and I, so anxious
+to see what was in it, skipped after him, forgetting the tears and
+the tired legs. "Tell me what it is," was my breathless request.
+
+No answer. Mr. Dodgson danced on, and I followed, father laughing
+at the two of us. When we were near dear old Wadham College (not a
+great distance from Long-Wall Street), Mr. Dodgson said to me, with
+much solemnity, "Alice, did you ever hear of a 'Bella perennis,'
+most wonderfully and beautifully made?"
+
+I was awestruck, and whispered, "Never. Is that it?"
+
+He nodded, and we went on again till the steps of our house came in
+view. By this time I was quiet and wondering, and hoping I should be
+allowed to see inside the handkerchief, and look at this wonderful,
+mysterious creation.
+
+Inside our hall was an old oaken bench, and there Mr. Dodgson sat
+down; I in front of him, in my favourite attitude, with my long,
+skinny arms clasped behind my back. I dare not speak as the knots
+were very, very slowly untied, and--oh! only a tiny, withered,
+half-dead, little daisy appeared to my astonished view! "Where is
+the beautiful 'Bella something?'" I cried, with a half-sob rising in
+my throat; I was so bitterly disappointed.
+
+"This is the 'Bella perennis,' child. See how beautifully and
+carefully it is made: one of God's fairest small field-flowers."
+
+I took it in my hand, and, giving Mr. Dodgson a big hug, I passed
+through the baize door, leaving my dear, kind friend with father.
+
+I never forgot that walk! It made a very deep impression on my
+childish mind, not easily effaced in the long after-years. If people
+only knew what the sympathy of a "real, grown-up friend" is to a
+shy child, what courage it gives to the trembling little heart! How
+few children would be set down as shy and stupid, and be thoroughly
+misunderstood (as some are now), if only there were more like Mr.
+Dodgson, who, though one of the cleverest of men, could yet stoop to
+win the love and confidence and enter into the joys and sorrows of
+his numerous child friends!
+
+Perhaps I have wearied many who may read this, and it is time I
+should close these past chapters of my "childish memories," shut up
+the book, and lay down the pen; but it has been an inexpressible
+pleasure to recall, as far as I can, all Mr. Dodgson's kindness to
+me and father. Alas! alas! that life should change--on and on--all
+the dear, old, familiar places and faces disappear. "Old Tom" still
+chimes his daily hours; but the dear footsteps will never more be
+heard turning in at the door of the old staircase leading to his
+rooms in Christ Church College. Those cheerful rooms, where so many
+delightful hours were spent, will know him no more. All is gone now:
+only the memory, and the deep respect and love his child friends
+bore him, remain.
+
+Father died on August 27th, 1897, and Mr. Dodgson on January 14th,
+1898; and we, who are left behind, can only hope we may meet them
+once more in the realms that never change.
+
+                                EDITH ALICE MAITLAND.
+
+[Illustration: THE CHESTNUTS, GUILDFORD.
+
+(_Where Lewis Carroll died on January 14th, 1898._)]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: GREAT ANNIVERSARIES
+_IN MARCH_.]
+
+By the Rev. A. R. Buckland, M.A., Morning Preacher at the Foundling
+Hospital.
+
+[Illustration: THE REV. JOHN WESLEY.
+
+(_From the Portrait by G. Romney._)]
+
+
+The March calendar is rich in great names; let us take a selection
+in pairs, beginning with illustrious divines.
+
+There died at Longleat on March 19th, 1710, Thomas Ken, some-time
+Bishop of Bath and Wells. The English-speaking world is not likely
+altogether to forget him, so long at least as his Morning and
+Evening Hymns are sung. He is one of the uncanonised saints of the
+English Church, as well as one of the prelates whose names enter
+into English history. For Ken was amongst the seven bishops sent
+to the Tower by James II., and one of the Non-jurors deprived
+under William of Orange. The goodness of the man in an age of sore
+temptation has been felt by every generation since his death. On
+March 2nd, 1791, John Wesley died. His life is one of the most
+astonishing in the religious history of the English people. In its
+contrasts (such, for example, as between his life as a College Don
+at Oxford and during his mission to Georgia), in its multitudinous
+labours, in its immediate influence upon religion in England, and in
+the far-reaching results of his work both in America and in Great
+Britain, it is without parallel. He is a figure in the religious
+history not so much of our own land as of the whole world, wherever
+the Anglo-Saxon race has set its foot.
+
+[Illustration: SIR ISAAC NEWTON.]
+
+From divines let us pass to men of science. Sir Isaac Newton, one
+of the most illustrious natural philosophers, and one of those for
+whom room must always be found in even the briefest list of the
+greatest Englishmen, died on March 20th, 1727. There is no more
+distinguished name amongst the sons of Cambridge University. It was
+by the choice of the University that he came into touch with the
+political life of the nation, for in 1688 he was sent by it to the
+Convention Parliament. Newton's name will never seem amiss in such
+company as that of Ken and Wesley, for he was a profound believer
+in the Christian faith and a diligent student of the Bible. Newton
+was Master of the Mint; and this office was also held by Sir John
+Herschel, who was born on March 7th, 1792. His fame is not dimmed in
+comparison with that of his father, Sir William Herschel. Although
+the son's career was not so striking as that of the "Hanoverian
+fiddler," his scientific acquirements were of singular breadth.
+At Cambridge, as a very young man, he agreed with two other
+undergraduates that they would "do their best to leave the world
+wiser than they found it." The compact seemed presumptuous, but in
+the case of Herschel it was well kept.
+
+[Illustration: DAVID LIVINGSTONE.
+
+(_From the Painting in the possession of the London Missionary
+Society._)]
+
+Two illustrious philanthropists belong to this month. Thomas
+Clarkson--still another Cambridge man--was born on March 26th, 1760.
+Whilst at the University he won the Vice-Chancellor's prize for a
+dissertation on the question, "Is it lawful to make slaves of men
+against their will?" Working at this essay, he became so impressed
+with the duty of fighting the slave-trade that he resolved to give
+himself up to the work. He lived to see his ends attained as regards
+Great Britain. There is a natural link between Clarkson's work for
+the African, and the life-work of David Livingstone (born March
+19th, 1813). Livingstone was very far from being merely an explorer,
+or an explorer with missionary instincts; he knew that to kill the
+slave-trade in Africa the country must be opened up, and he gave his
+life to another side of the same work which Clarkson had toiled for.
+
+[Illustration:  ABRAHAM LINCOLN.         JEFFERSON DAVIS.
+
+(_Two Notable Americans._)]
+
+March is a great month in the independent history of the United
+States, and in the official lives of its Presidents. It has its sad
+memories, too, though memories that no longer appeal to passion. It
+was in March, 1861, that Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln found
+the North and the South just on the brink of open war. It was in
+March also, in the year 1852, that Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin"
+was first published. That is one of the few literary anniversaries
+that will always be connected with political history.
+
+[Illustration: MRS. BEECHER STOWE.
+
+(_At the time she wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin."_)]
+
+India offers us two memorable names. John Lawrence, Henry's
+younger brother, was born on March 24th, 1811. One of the wisest
+of Indian administrators, he would have been great had the Mutiny
+never occurred. As it is, other achievements are forgotten in the
+promptitude and skill which marked his conduct then. He is buried in
+Westminster Abbey, and near him lies Sir James Outram, "the Bayard
+of India," who died on March 11th, 1863.
+
+[Illustration: BUST OF LORD LAWRENCE IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
+
+So much for men; now for organisations. On March 8th, 1698-99, was
+founded the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. On March
+13th, 1701, the Lower House of Canterbury Convocation appointed
+the committee to "inquire into ways and means for promoting the
+Christian religion in our foreign plantations," which led to
+the founding of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.
+The British and Foreign Bible Society was founded on March 7th,
+1804. On March 4th, 1824, at a meeting held at the London Tavern,
+under the presidency of Archbishop Manners-Sutton, "The Royal
+National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Ship-wreck"
+was launched. Its present title, the Royal National Lifeboat
+Institution, was adopted in 1854.
+
+[Illustration: (_Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd._)
+
+BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY'S PREMISES.]
+
+
+
+
+CHRISTABEL'S REBELLION.
+
+AN EPISODE.
+
+By E. S. Curry, Author of "The Twins," Etc.
+
+
+Nora was putting on her hat in her own room; Christopher, her little
+son, was being dressed in the nursery to accompany her; Christabel,
+his twin sister, was in her own pertinacious way arguing with her
+mother. The Twins, known as Punch and Judy, had reached the age of
+two. Each had a will, and a method of making it known--though in
+this respect Judy caused most perplexity to her young parents. She
+was now asserting it.
+
+"Me go too, mummie," in a decided tone, for the sixth time.
+
+"No, Judy--not this time. Your turn next," Nora said cheerfully.
+
+She did not like separating the twins, but one was as much as she
+could reasonably take to an afternoon tea party. They must learn
+some time to be divided, she thought sadly, after reflecting on the
+woes of the world.
+
+"Me s'all go, mummie," in beautifully clear accents, with a charming
+smile.
+
+"Shall you, dear? Yes, next time," Nora said, bending over the vivid
+little face, just the height of her dressing-table.
+
+"If we're not back when father comes in," she went on, suggesting
+solace, "will you take care of him, Judy, and love him?"
+
+"Yuv father," murmurously assented the baby, busy with a knot in her
+pink pinafore.
+
+"And don't take off your pinafore, Judy," said her mother.
+
+"Goin' out to tea," responded Judy. "Off!" releasing one little
+white serge shoulder from the enclosing cotton.
+
+Nora moved about her room for a few more minutes before she went
+to the nursery to pick up her little son. Judy, trotting after,
+was kissed at the top of the staircase, and, with a sombre fire in
+her brilliant eyes, watched the descent of Christopher. His air of
+triumph as he stamped his booted feet on every stair was no doubt
+aggravating.
+
+It was a cold March day, and, as she noted his gaitered legs, Judy
+glanced down at her own bare toes. At the sight of his hat, firmly
+set upon the soft fair curls, Judy lifted her chubby hands to her
+own bare head--bare but for its clustering brown waves with their
+tips of gold. A deep sense of unfair treatment, of unjust neglect,
+flitted across the baby's mind. A great determination filled it.
+
+Nurse went through the open nursery door in a busy manner. It was
+Jane's afternoon out, and there was a good deal to tidy up. In two
+minutes Judy, after a fashion of her own, was at the bottom of the
+wide staircase, a lonely little figure, standing for a moment on
+the rug before the log fire. Finding the hall door shut and the
+drawing-room door open, the baby stepped into the conservatory, and
+was soon trotting down the drive. Her shoulders were set sturdily
+to a great effort. No one seeing her could possibly mistake their
+expression. She was going out to tea.
+
+Outside the gates, left open for the exit of a carriage, Judy
+paused. Just before her, four roads crossed. Three she knew
+well--one led to the village, the other two were the routes of daily
+outings. The fourth was forbidden to the nurses because of a big
+public-house a quarter of a mile away--a rendezvous of trippers from
+London. Along this road the little figure turned.
+
+A bicyclist rang his bell and startled her, whizzing close by her,
+as she did not move from the middle of the road. A man in a cart
+evaded her, pausing to look down with interest at the bare-headed
+little traveller.
+
+"My! she's a little 'un to be about alone," he thought, turning in
+his seat to look after the purposeful little figure. He scratched
+his head and thought of his own baby, about the same size, and for a
+moment was tempted to turn his cart and go after her.
+
+"She hadn't ought to have been let go out by herself," he thought,
+indignant with some neglectful guardian. "A little gipsy child,
+p'raps--never taught not to run in the middle of the road."
+
+Unwitting of the kindly thought that followed her, Judy ran on--now
+and then pausing for a second to glance about her, her bare feet
+and uncovered head seeming to reck nothing of the cold spring
+wind. A timber waggon, drawn by three huge horses, and guided by a
+carter cracking his whip, made her flit in momentary tremor, with
+hunched shoulders, to the side of the road, from which security she,
+however, surveyed their passage with sparkling eyes. Holding out her
+arms in ecstatic approval, she urged shrilly. "Gee-gee--go,  go";
+and the carter glanced at her bright face, under its touzled waves
+of hair, admiringly.
+
+"She's a spirit of her own," he thought, bestowing a momentary
+wonder on her lone condition as he passed.
+
+The dust from the grinding wheels settled, and Judy pursued her way.
+Who can tell what thoughts were directing her progress, or whether
+she ever wondered where the tea she was in search of was to come
+from? She went on.
+
+Presently a wayside inn, withdrawn a little from the road, with its
+sign-post shaking and creaking in the wind before it, came into
+view. Judy stopped and put her finger in her mouth, considering.
+This was a house. Here was tea.
+
+In a doorway stood a man, round and red-faced. He had no coat, and
+his waistcoat had seen better days, whilst a battered felt hat was
+on his head. He was gazing into space, with little sharp eyes set
+under overhanging, beetling brows.
+
+Judy drew nearer. Something in his appearance fascinated her.
+Possibly its untidy dishevelment touched a fellow-feeling and
+appealed to her reckless mood. At that moment nothing was doing, and
+the potman was smoking a dirty pipe when Judy drew near and surveyed
+him. For a moment or so the two looked at each other in silence.
+Judy spoke first.
+
+"Tea!" she demanded imperiously.
+
+"Tea!" he repeated, amazed. And then he stooped and touched the
+velvet of her cheek softly with his hand, and lifted the waves of
+her overshadowing hair. "Who are you?" he asked.
+
+"Tea," answered Judy, and a little appeal had crept into her tone
+and into the beautiful dark eyes. The potman's resemblance to her
+friend the gardener was not so great, on nearer acquaintance, as she
+had at first thought.
+
+"You want your tea, missy? Is that it?"
+
+And, receiving a little nod and a charming smile, he lifted himself
+and scratched his head.
+
+"There ain't no tea--but there's some milk" (his face suddenly
+brightening), "and one of them big buns. It's a bit stale--but if
+she's hungry."
+
+He disappeared, and Judy, after a second's pause of indecision,
+elected not to follow him. The interior into which he had vanished
+was not inviting. There was a little porch to the closed front
+door, with wooden seats on either side, and these now caught Judy's
+vision. Trotting thither, she essayed to climb.
+
+[Illustration: "My! she's a little 'un to be about alone."]
+
+"Up," she demanded, when the potman returned, carrying a mug of milk
+and a very large scone.
+
+Safely seated, with the mug beside her, and the scone held
+carefully in both hands, she remarked in cheerful accents--"Out to
+tea," looking at him for corroboration.
+
+"Out to tea? Yes, missy--where do you come from?" he answered.
+"What's yer mother thinking of to let yer out alone?" he asked.
+
+Judy opened her mouth and fastened her little white teeth into the
+big stale bun, condescending no answer to inconvenient questions.
+The potman sat down opposite her and proceeded in his attempts.
+
+"What's yer name, missy?" he asked again. "Ain't yer got one?" as
+Judy, disregarding him, seemed bent on demolishing the bun. She
+nibbled all round it, holding it with both hands, serenely callous
+to her companion's beguilements.
+
+"Doody," at last she vouchsafed, in a pause for rest, looking
+interestedly at the pattern she had vandyked.
+
+"That's a funny name. Ain't you got another?" he inquired.
+
+A reminiscent smile broke over the vivid face.
+
+"Daddy's Kistabel," she murmured softly, removing her eyes from his
+face and considering another bite.
+
+"An' yer daddy might do worse nor kiss you, I reckon," admiringly;
+"but it's a rummy one, too."
+
+The flash of the dark eyes opposite was irresistible. It awoke good
+thoughts in the potman's mind.
+
+"You've runned away, I reckon?" he observed, bending forward.
+
+Judy looked all over the ugly face thus presented to her immediate
+vision. Its corrugated surface fascinated her. Stretching one hand
+out, she softly touched the knobbly nose and laughed aloud, hunching
+her shoulders in glee.
+
+Her own flower-like face was an equal attraction to the potman.
+
+"Lilies an' roses ain't in it with her," he murmured admiringly.
+"An' eyes as big as plums and as dark as--stout."
+
+"Where do yer live?" he next essayed.
+
+"D'ink," said Judy, occupied with the problem of what was to be
+done with the bun whilst she drank from the mug beside her. "'Old!"
+she commanded, holding out the bun, as she realised that her own
+dangling legs made a very unstable, insufficient knee.
+
+"Bless yer, missy, look at my 'ands!" the potman answered.
+
+Judy looked, bending her dainty face with keen interest above the
+members, encrusted with dirt and neglect, held out before her.
+
+"Dirty!" she exclaimed delightedly, lifting sympathetic eyes to the
+equally dirty face, and she laughed again in keen enjoyment. Dirt
+always commanded Judy's suffrages.
+
+"'Old!" she commanded again, undaunted by the sight presented to
+her; and with sweet and dainty curvings of her soft fingers she
+pressed the nibbled scone upon the greasy palms. Then the potman
+handed her the mug and Judy drank.
+
+"Out to tea?" she said again, a little doubtfully, as, her draught
+finished, she recovered her scone.
+
+But the rosy mouth paused half-open, and Judy's eyes fixed
+themselves observantly on an advancing figure.
+
+"Man," she said, directing the potman's gaze to the road. It was a
+policeman passing by, and the potman stood up alertly.
+
+"Here," he called, "here's a little gel." And the two men stood
+solemnly regarding Judy. "I 'xpect she's lost," he suggested slowly.
+
+The policeman's eyes fixed themselves on the dainty embroidery of
+Judy's little petticoat, visible under her lifted skirt--a contrast
+to the bare and dusty ankles it enclosed. The dragged-aside cotton
+pinafore, from which one arm was freed, revealed the elaborate
+smocking with which nurse was wont to ornament the simple frock.
+Lastly, Judy's face came in for careful scrutiny.
+
+"How did you pick her up?" he asked.
+
+"She come."
+
+"Which direction?"
+
+"Along the road, trotting along all by herself."
+
+"Then I'll take her back. Seems to me she is uncommon like one of
+a pair I sometimes see--beauties, both of them; though how the
+mischief----Come with me, missy," he wheedled, stooping and holding
+out his arms.
+
+"Out to tea," said Judy.
+
+"Yes, so you are. You been out to tea, ain't you?" he sympathised.
+And Judy, satisfied, holding out her arms, allowed herself to be
+annexed.
+
+But she was not carried off without a little scene.
+
+In the policeman's arms a sudden recollection of her "manners"
+flashed across her mind.
+
+"Bye, bye," she said, holding out one hand in a dignified fashion to
+the potman. With the other she still retained the bun.
+
+"Bye, bye, missy," he responded, much gratified.
+
+"Bye, bye," Judy repeated; and then, her vivid face all dimpling
+into smiles, she flung herself forward and clasped her arms round
+his neck. What to Judy were dirt and knobbliness? Both were
+fascinating, both were associated with the delight of having her
+own way. With a fervid embrace and a wet kiss Judy bestowed her
+gratitude.
+
+There was weeping and wringing of hands and the rush of petticoats
+up and down and in and out, and flying figures darting about, when
+the policeman, with Judy in charge, arrived at the gates of Mount
+Royal. Judy's father had just come from the train, and was trying to
+find out from his agitated household what was the matter, when the
+tall, dark figure with the little pink one in his arms appeared.
+
+"Oh, Judy!" reproached nurse, pallid to her lips, snatching her
+charge from the policeman's arms and agitatedly examining all her
+limbs. "Such a disgrace!" she exclaimed, looking angrily at the
+policeman.
+
+"I thought I knew her, miss," he said politely, grinning. Nurse had
+haughtily snubbed him once or twice in her walks.
+
+[Illustration: "Bye, bye," she said.]
+
+"Out to tea," Judy said triumphantly, as she was caught up into her
+father's embrace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Christopher, breaking away from nurse's attentions, on his return
+home, stamped loudly round the nursery floor to attract the envious
+attention of Judy.
+
+Judy's attire had been remodelled throughout, as a prelude to the
+hour in the drawing-room before bed-time; and she was now sitting on
+the window seat in a mood of subdued and passive triumph. "Go agen,"
+she had murmured softly two or three times to herself, too much
+occupied with the sweets of memory to heed, as she otherwise would
+have done, Punch's aggravations.
+
+Stamping round being deprived of its attraction, Punch paused and
+approached his sister.
+
+"Poor Doody," he said pityingly.
+
+Judy's eyes flashed in the manner which always made Punch conscious
+of wonder that he had felt called upon to speak. He hastened to
+appease her.
+
+"Punch's boots a-comin' off," he said.
+
+"Doody don't want no boots," she said shrilly; "never don't want no
+boots, Doody don't."
+
+"No," agreed Punch, in the tone of one who humours. "Ain't been out
+to tea," he suggested.
+
+"Has!" screamed Judy. "Doody has!"
+
+The blue eyes looked searchingly into the dark ones, and, with a
+qualm of disappointment, Punch felt the force of truth.
+
+"Cake?" he asked presently, after silently observing her.
+
+Judy shook her head violently, the violence intended to hide the
+mortification of having to confess the absence of the delicacy.
+
+"Punch did," he said. "Cake, an' tea, an'----"
+
+"Bun?" burst in Judy; and then it was Punch's turn to look
+disappointed. Buns had not been provided at his entertainment.
+
+"Doody did," went on Judy; "an' milk, an'----"
+
+"Punch had tea," interrupted Christopher.
+
+"An' man," went on Judy, with immense emphasis.
+
+Christopher looked at her solemnly, as he dived into the recesses of
+his memory; not a man had graced his tea-party!
+
+"Man?" persisted Judy, searching his eyes with her blazing orbs.
+
+There was a silence.
+
+"Punch are goin' to muvver," the boy then announced cheerfully,
+freeing his legs from Judy's petticoats with a vigorous kick.
+
+"Man!" shrieked Judy after his retreating figure, too much taken by
+surprise to lift herself so suddenly. Then she, too, got up, shook
+herself, and with a dash was through the nursery door.
+
+"Out to tea agen," she sang out, trotting fast along the corridor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But alas! for Judy. All the doors and gates were fast, and for a
+week they were kept carefully closed.
+
+[Illustration: "Man!" shrieked Judy.]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: COUNTING NOT THE COST
+
+(_Photo: H. S. Mendelssohn, Pembridge Crescent, W._)]
+
+By the Rev. C. Silvester Horne, M.A.
+
+     "When His disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To
+     what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been
+     sold for much, and given to the poor."--ST. MATTHEW
+     xxvi. 8, 9.
+
+
+Blessed is the love that counteth not the cost of sacrifice! Thus
+I read the meaning of the Master's recognition of this act of
+homage--the form in which a devout and eager spirit of reverence
+found expression and articulation. This woman, by surrendering
+herself to the impulse of adoration and affection, laid herself
+open to the criticisms of the self-constituted champions of common
+sense, utility, and philanthropy. We shall see, as we look at her
+story, how, in the regard of Heaven, what I might venture to call a
+genuine and spontaneous extravagance ranks higher than a legal and
+mechanical economy.
+
+There is a truth we have not anything like exhausted yet in the
+great words of Christ, "He who saves [or hoards] his life shall lose
+it." Parsimony, if we knew it, impoverishes as well as extravagance.
+If the prodigal had turned miser, he would have remained just as
+far from the father's house. We do not accuse the disciples for a
+moment of selfishness or greed. If they misconstrued Mary's motive,
+let us beware lest we misconstrue theirs. Say they were honest and
+genuine, but that they lacked insight and that emancipation from the
+commercial spirit which saves men from estimating all precious and
+lovely things at their market value.
+
+We need the lesson. No century has needed it more. While love
+in self-forgetfulness and holy passion is spending itself in
+the tenderest offices that an overflowing heart has suggested,
+the disciples are engaged in problems of valuation, working out
+calculations in arithmetic--so much ointment at so much per pound.
+But that would have been condemned by many who would yet ask
+themselves seriously whether their main contention was not right.
+Their blunt and rude interruption showed lack of feeling; it was
+vulgar and inexcusable. Granted. But if they had quietly sympathised
+with the good intention, and yet afterwards had clearly represented
+that here love had loved "not wisely but too well," and had done
+better if it had selected some more practical method in which to
+exhibit its reality, would they not have commanded a very general
+assent? Would not nine out of every ten have said that she could
+have laid out the money to better advantage, and that it was a
+holier thing to clothe and feed the persons of the poor than even to
+anoint the person of the Christ?
+
+Now let me say that I do not think we can understand our Saviour's
+commendation of this deed of love, and this apparent disregard of
+principles of utility and practical philanthropy, unless we take at
+once a large and a deep view of life--its purpose and the methods of
+its education. The pressure of the material necessities is constant
+and urgent, I know; but God does not mean us to believe that the
+supreme questions of life are "What shall we eat, and what shall we
+drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?"
+
+When Christ propounded His query to the multitudes on the mount,
+"Is not the life more than meat, and the body than the raiment?"
+He demanded in reality their assent to the proposition that the
+spiritual life is the supremely important. The fact of the matter
+is, God has never treated man as if he were made to eat and drink
+because to-morrow he must die. The world is not designed simply to
+promote our physical well-being, and conducted on purely utilitarian
+principles, as if it were some sort of gigantic store in which all
+men were shareholders, and the sole business of which was to produce
+certain annual profits. That mode of regarding the universe is
+popular, but false.
+
+Have you ever asked yourselves the question, "What do the spring
+flowers mean?" I have sometimes tried to fancy men gloomily riding
+to the city and sulkily pointing to the wealth of ephemeral beauty
+that has glorified the world, and demanding, "To what purpose is
+this waste?" There the flowers bloom, so fragile, so delicate, so
+short-lived; here to-day, and faded and gone to-morrow: to-day,
+a quivering point of beauty and fragrance, to-morrow touched by
+the withering finger of decay. And so "they bloom their hour and
+fade," and we say in wonder, "To what purpose was this waste?" What
+did it all mean? One sudden, genuine gush of sacred feeling; one
+burst of almost overpowering glory that shone steadfast for one
+brief hour and then faded into nothingness. Why lavish such wealth
+of colour and sweetness on fabrics so short-lived as the flowers
+of spring? Ah, why, indeed! Long years before man brake the first
+poor spikenard vessel of worship and adoring love at the feet of
+the Eternal, God poured His precious gifts of bloom and scent in
+bewildering profusion and prodigality upon the listless sons of
+earth.
+
+I have sometimes wondered whether man might not have gone on
+conceiving of the world as no more than so much food, and clothing,
+and shelter, if God had not startled him by this annual miracle of
+spring to ask the question, "To what purpose is this waste?" Just
+so soon as man found himself appealed to in the higher faculties
+and senses, did he begin to suspect himself above the brute; did
+he begin to discover beneath the form of things a gracious and
+bountiful Spirit, whose attitude to him found voice in these tender
+and winsome words of Nature's lips.
+
+Flowers "born to blush unseen and waste their sweetness on the
+desert air"--to what purpose are they? Surely, surely (as Mary's
+offering of sweet spikenard) they are God's approach to man, if only
+we would accept them as such. That is the inner meaning of this
+sudden gush of sacred feeling; that is the purpose of this "waste."
+
+We are reaching, then, this conclusion, that if love is the soul of
+life, you must expect no mere dead level of respect, but occasional
+inevitable outbursts of feeling, love's sweet surprises; times when
+the ordinary prescribed channels through which habitual affection
+flows are inadequate, and when there must be room for the sweet
+extravagances of love. The strong, deep love of a father may no
+doubt be felt in the steadfast care that provides food and clothing,
+and shelter, and all things necessary for his child. But, after all,
+home would not be home if there were not room for the rarer gifts,
+and the moments of sublime _abandon_, when all the love of the heart
+breaks forth in unconstrained demonstration of affection.
+
+Life that is love cannot be reduced to formalities; there must
+be a place in it for the spontaneous, the unpremeditated, the
+irresistible impulse. Love cannot live and thrive amid conventions
+merely. It has an etiquette of its own. It must be allowed to make
+its own proprieties. If you cannot appoint to it an object, and
+command one mortal to love another, neither can you prescribe the
+manner of its operation. You cannot control its whims, and freaks,
+and fancies. It has ten thousand devices that are all enigmas to the
+uninitiate.
+
+  "Love only knoweth whence they came, and comprehendeth love."
+
+Its sanities are stark madness to the matter-of-fact man of affairs.
+He curtly denominates nonsense what to love is inspiration.
+He stares in blank incredulity at the simple and magnificent
+prodigalities of love, and begins to wonder whether he is himself
+quite sane to-day, and to ask in sheer stupor, "To what purpose is
+this waste?"
+
+It would not do, perhaps, to make too searching a scrutiny into
+private personal histories, or it might transpire that, after all,
+behind even the most stolid of demeanours there lay experiences
+which memory treasures still, and which are the vindication to
+them of Mary's sublime extravagance. Yes, perhaps those you least
+suspect--the level-headed men who are feared for their hard thinking
+and steely, immovable stolidity, have secret drawers somewhere, with
+strangely unintelligible relics of a yesterday that was the greatest
+day of their life--and the least defensible day on any rationalistic
+view of it! On that day they lost either their head or their heart,
+or both, and love and reverence found expression; and the spikenard
+that they broke that day is the _one_ precious memory in what people
+with unconscious irony are calling a successful career. Yes, the
+one thing they are proud to have done, the one thing they sometimes
+think may stand them in stead in a world where wealth and fame will
+be as nothing, is a thing which none could justify on commercial
+principles--which stands in conflict with the great aims and efforts
+of their lives--an action that sprang inevitably from a spendthrift
+love, and of which the world in which they move might well demand,
+"To what purpose is this waste?" I venture to say that by that very
+chapter of their history the possibility is proved that, some day,
+they may discover a more amazing loveliness and a more overpowering
+love; and may offer even nobler offerings of life and treasure at
+His feet, and go forth again, not in shame, but in holy pride and
+devout thanksgiving that at last they have learned to love with a
+love that counteth not the cost of sacrifice.
+
+I have seen this exquisite story quoted as a defence of mere
+ritual. The method is obvious. The hardened lover of simplicity is
+represented as one of the disciples; and beholding the beauty of
+architecture, and the stateliness of the ceremonial, and listening
+to the superb eloquence of the liturgy and grandeur of the music, he
+asks, "To what purpose is this waste?"
+
+There is a superficial justification for such teaching. But it is
+only superficial. For if from this incident it be attempted to
+establish a precedent for permanent elaborate ritual of worship,
+it must be said this incident goes to prove its impossibility. For
+ask yourselves, What gave this deed its peculiar and unrivalled
+power and influence? There is only one answer. It lies in its
+solitariness. It was spontaneous. It was unique. It could not bear
+repetition. To repeat it were to rob it of its bloom.
+
+We repudiate, then, the idea that the form of this deed can become
+the basis of Christian worship. But we are now able to consider the
+truth that, when love realises itself thus in deeds of worship, it
+often receives assurances that it has done more than it knew. God
+interprets our poor intentions so liberally, so largely. He reads
+into our broken speech such divine meanings. It is ever so. We give
+a cup of cold water to a thirsty bairn; and lo! we have done it
+_unto Him_! We utter our coarse earthly strains of music; and, one
+day, He bids us hearken! Then there falls upon our ears ravishing
+heavenly music; and when we could fall down and worship, He tells us
+it is our own.
+
+Heaven's great melodies are perhaps no more than earth's poor
+ones, composed in pure love and praise of God, redeemed from their
+limitations and imperfections in the home of all true worship.
+So Mary struck her trembling chord, and waited fearful; broke
+her spikenard, and then marvelled at her own daring; and while,
+when love had spent itself, a colder mood began to question the
+propriety, and to strike fear to her woman's heart, Jesus spake and
+said, "In that she hath poured this ointment on Me, she hath done it
+for My burial."
+
+Would she ever have dreamed, think you, that she was doing what
+He said? Would she ever have dared to entertain the thought that
+He would bear to the grave the incense of her adoration, and that
+with the final victory of His resurrection her love and worship
+would have eternal association? Would she ever have dreamed, here
+in Simon's house, where she was esteemed so meanly and treated so
+basely--here, amid the splendour of a rich man's entertainment--that
+in the days when the world had no feasts for Him, but only a cross
+and a tomb, that then the perfume of her love, the fragrance of her
+offerings, would surround His form and sweeten His resting-place.
+Never; but so it was, for the Divine Love caught up the simple act
+of worship, and gave it eternal distinction. Yea, He who had come to
+seek the love of men deigned to associate with the time of His own
+immortal sacrifice this sacrifice of hers.
+
+It were, perhaps, to require too much of this story to make it
+convey the great truth that in Christ's sacrifice all our sacrifices
+have a place. Yet, verily, every true sacrifice hath association
+with His. Every death to self is an anointing of the Holy One to
+His burial. He gathers up the perfume of all simple deeds of lowly
+sacrifice; for this is His reward. Only from the great Love does
+our love flow. We love because He loved. His sacrifice is the basis
+of all sacrifice; and all true sacrifice of ours hath this relation
+to His own. We did not think when we did it of anything but that we
+must do it unto Him; and in grace He showed us afterwards that we
+had indeed anointed Him--we had in our own poor way honoured the
+Divine sacrifice.
+
+It would but mar the solemn influence of such a sacred reflection
+to deduce the obvious and inevitable lessons. I forbear to treat it
+thus. I can only say, let us pray and let us strive to love Him with
+the love that counteth not the cost of sacrifice.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE GREEN FOLK]
+
+A Complete Story. By Ethel F. Heddle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ISHBEL.
+
+
+One is pretty safe to address a man in Skye as Macdonald! If that
+fails, then try MacLeod, and if this produces no result, then there
+is still Nicolson to fall back on. An error in all three is next
+door to an impossibility! But Ishbel had not any of these three
+names, though she lived with her maternal grandfather, who was a
+MacLeod.
+
+Ishbel was a changeling. Anyone would tell you so in Skye--if,
+perhaps, one or two smiled in the telling. Her grandmother, Catriona
+MacLeod, said so, and Catriona had the second sight, and saw more
+than most people. She was held in Skye to see, indeed, beyond that
+veil which mercifully hides the future. Catriona had early said
+the girl was a changeling. Her daughter, poor Kirstie, died at the
+baby's birth, her father Roderick McNeill, was drowned--tragedy and
+sorrow surrounded the baby, and then the little green folk stole it,
+and Ishbel was the changeling popularly supposed to be left in its
+place.
+
+She was always an odd child, Catriona said, with ruddy tawny
+locks, and sloe-eyes, elfish and silent, doing queer, uncanny,
+unaccountable things, with moods of sadness and moods of mirth. She
+grew up in Skye, and would never leave it, though she had her chance
+to do so.
+
+Ishbel lived with Catriona till she was nineteen, and helped her
+with her spinning and knitting; she also milked the cows, and worked
+about the house. The girl's head was full of her grandmother's
+teaching; she believed in the fairies, though she rarely spoke of
+them. Her cousin Duncan often found her seated in the fairy-ring on
+the knowe, above the sheiling, picking the green grass absently, and
+gazing "frae her."
+
+Some day, she thought, she would hear the tap of fairy feet in their
+revels, hear a tiny voice which would beckon her to an entrancing
+world, very different even from lovely Skye. Very often she thought
+she had been on the brink of meeting the little green folk, and then
+someone had come and interrupted her. There was that night coming
+home over the muir from Portree--the stream, richly brown with the
+peat over which it gurgled, the air heather-scented, the mountains
+fading into the lovely purple of the night's embrace--everything
+hushed, save her own footfall. Ishbel had seemed to hear a voice
+calling her then, and had wandered up amongst the heather, her face
+eager and expectant. And there above her on the heather knoll, "the
+wee folks' knowe," seeming to float between the grey lichen-covered
+boulders--surely these were tiny white figures, beckoning to her?
+
+She almost ran, in her eagerness, but, just as she approached,
+Duncan's voice hailed her from the high road. What was she doing
+there? And was that the way home?
+
+Ishbel almost wept as she descended. For she could see nothing near
+the boulders then but waving cotton-grass amongst the bog and
+heather. It was lovely September now, and the hill-sides were a
+glory of tawny colouring, the fading heather and bracken, purple and
+brown, and orange, and gold, and dusky indescribable grey. Sunset
+came early, and tinged and stained the loch, the Cuchillans stood
+out sharply in their lovely serrated outline, against a background
+of pure gold--they were almost friendly and neighbourly, and
+approachable; it was in winter that they lowered and sulked in the
+mist, or frowned blackly from amongst the lashing swirls of rain.
+
+Ishbel had gone to fetch fodder for the cows, and the fodder was
+a great pile of pale yellow bracken, which she bound together
+and fastened on her back. Carrying this, she passed up the road,
+pausing now and then to lean her load on one of the rough dykes
+which bordered the muir. It was nearing evening, and shadows were
+creeping over the heather--the burn, amber-coloured under the
+sun, looked dark and sullen-brown now, and had begun its hoarse
+night-song, for it only sings in the dark. The deer hear and love
+this song as they creep down cautiously, light-footedly, turning
+startled graceful heads from side to side, and they pause a moment,
+poised with listening ear, before they bury thirsty soft noses into
+the cool rushing water. The deer did not mind Ishbel! But it was
+scarcely dark enough for the deer to come yet. There was still a
+chance of the passing tourist from Sligachan, coming from Coruisk,
+the far-famed. Ishbel, pausing to rest the high load of bracken
+on the dyke--the crushed yellow fern making a lovely setting to
+her tawny locks and black sloe-eyes--suddenly perceived two men
+approaching, and waited for their coming with something of the
+deer's startled look. One was Duncan MacLeod, her cousin, short,
+swarthy, black-browed, with a twinkle of cunning in his grey eyes,
+and a Highland sing-song voice; and the other? Yes, yes, she had
+seen the other at the Portree games, and he had tossed the caber
+further than even Colin MacNeil, and his name was Rory MacPhee!
+Ishbel remembered him very well, and a little smile melted over her
+red lips, and lurked in the depths of her lovely eyes as Duncan made
+him known to her. Rory had rented the small farm next to Catriona's,
+and he was coming to supper. It was time she, Ishbel, was home.
+
+Duncan did not offer to take the fodder from her, though he thought
+he was in love with Ishbel, and meant to marry her. Women were used
+to burdens in Skye. But Rory MacPhee, saying nothing, began to untie
+the rope at the girl's waist, and he swung the mass lightly over his
+own shoulders.
+
+"Och! that is not needful," Duncan said. And what he thought was
+"_Amadan!_" (stupid!)
+
+"It is too heavy for a lass."
+
+That was all; but Rory and Ishbel did not meet each other's eyes,
+and they walked home silent through the creeping dusk.
+
+By the red peat-glow in the cottage she looked lovelier than
+ever; MacPhee ate little, and his mind was in a curious turmoil.
+Catriona's remarks, and Duncan's slow efforts at conversation--for
+the Highlander is desperately cautious at making friends, and Rory
+came from as far away as above Portree, seven miles off--fell on
+strangely dull ears.
+
+What had come to him?
+
+Rory asked himself the question all next day, for, amidst even the
+sordid duties of examining the new byres and out-houses, there
+floated before his mind only one picture--a girl's slim figure in a
+short faded green skirt, leaning against a dyke, with her small head
+crushed against a background of faded fern, and the shy lovely eyes
+looking into his face.
+
+Ishbel! They said she was a changeling.
+
+Well, changeling and all, he loved her!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ISHBEL'S PROMISE.
+
+
+"It is no use at all to go against the lass. I hef said so before
+now. And there are many lasses in Skye, as good as she, and with,
+maybe, a cow or two, or a few pounds to bring with her. There is
+Sheila Macdonald--Sheila will hef as much as three hundred pounds!"
+
+"As if I would look at a squinting woman"--and Duncan threw down the
+fishing-rod he held, furiously--"I will hef none but Ishbel, and if
+she will not hef me, I will do someone an injury!"
+
+His mother went on peeling potatoes, deliberately.
+
+"Rory MacPhee is stronger and bigger than you," she remarked. "And
+he has the eye of a hawk, and his fist is like iron. You will never
+take Ishbel from him by force. But perhaps, now, there might be a
+little plan--chust a little plan."
+
+He picked up the rod. His cunning eyes grew intent. Catriona
+resumed, in her high-pitched voice, speaking without a pause in her
+occupation: "The best thing would be that they would quarrel. And
+I will tell you a way. He does not like to hear that they are all
+saying she is a changeling; and he does not like her to talk of the
+good folk. When she told him the story of the kelpie that followed
+Ross MacRae over the muir, and drowned him at last in the Rowan
+Pool, he was angry, and called it all nonsense, and said that she
+should not repeat such folly. And Ishbel did not like that. She was
+asking me about the Cave of Gold only yesterday, and when it was
+that anyone might see the fairies dancing, and if the tide would
+suit to go. So I told her it was on Midsummer's Night at twelve
+o'clock, and she is just mad to go! Chust as mad! But Rory was
+there, too, and I was listening at the door, after, and I heard him
+say that it was all just talk and folly, and that he would not have
+her go; that it was too late, and that squalls came on, and our boat
+was not good at all. She begged and prayed that he would take her,
+and he said, 'No'! Chust always, 'No'!"
+
+"Very well, then," Duncan cried impatiently, as she paused, "I
+suppose she is so mad with love that she gave it up."
+
+"She is pretty mad with the love," his mother agreed, "and so she
+gave in. 'And I am going to Portree, Ishbel,' I heard him say, 'to
+see what Mr. Campbell, the agent, is wishing to say to me, and you
+will promise not to go when I am away?--for it is not good for a
+lass like you to be out so late. And you will promise me?' And she
+promised. He said he would bring her a new brooch--like a claymore,
+that the man at Oban is making with the Iona pebbles--and they
+kissed, and he is gone."
+
+"Very well, what then?" Duncan cried irately. "I hear they are to be
+married when he comes back. What else, mother?"
+
+Catriona had dropped her potatoes into the pot, and she swung it
+over the open peats, glowing redly in the dark little cottage.
+
+"Well, if I were you, Duncan, I would get out the boat, and I would
+offer to take her to the cave. And I will be telling her more
+stories to-night, when we are spinning. The lass is a changeling,
+sure enough, and she will go. When Rory comes back, he will hear,
+and he will be mad with her, and they will quarrel. You can go over
+to Uig that day" ("Discretion being the better part of valour,"
+evidently, in Catriona's eyes). "They will quarrel, and will break
+it off, and she will come to you, in time."
+
+Duncan considered the plan slowly. Yes, it suited him excellently
+well. He wanted no noisy quarrel, no measuring of strength. He, too,
+remembered Rory's muscles at the Portree games. But this secret
+working in the dark, in MacPhee's absence, was quite to his taste.
+
+He made up his mind now that his mother was a woman of much wisdom.
+He graciously told her he approved, and she should have a little
+present on his next trip to Portree. Her stories to Ishbel of the
+cave were to be many and enticing!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+IN THE CAVE OF GOLD.
+
+
+"Duncan, Duncan, but I hef promised!" It was the next night, and
+Ishbel stood before the cottage in her dark wincey skirt and green
+cotton jacket, her face turned up to her cousin's. All last night,
+all through the day, old Catriona's stories had haunted her. The
+old woman had gone cunningly to work. She began, in a rambling way,
+once they were both seated at the spinning-wheel, by remarking
+that to-morrow would be Midsummer's Night, and the fairies would
+be holding high frolic in the Cave of Gold. She herself was old,
+and frail, and feeble, else how gladly would she have gone! She had
+the second sight--she would perhaps see what no other could! For,
+with a branch of rowan--and she had a branch of dry rowan in her
+kist, ready for her burial--or a naked dagger--Duncan's big knife
+would do--there was no danger! To see the little green folk dancing!
+And--here her voice fell, and she glanced into all the dark shadows
+of the kitchen, and up by the oak settle near the window--perhaps to
+hear the faint and far-off skirl of Angus Macdonald's pipes! They
+said that sound was heard still. At first Ishbel had risen uneasily,
+saying she would go and see if there were enough oat-cakes for
+supper--or was that anyone in the barn?
+
+But Catriona bade her be seated, sharply--the girl should not escape
+her thus--and then she asked if she (Catriona) had ever told Ishbel
+the story of Angus Macdonald and the Cave of Gold? No, Ishbel
+answered unwillingly, and sat down again, the wheel idle, the soft
+grey carded wool lying in her lap. Catriona, spinning fast--with
+the low dirl of the wheel acting as a sort of accompaniment to her
+voice--told the story. She spoke in Gaelic, of course, and it is
+difficult to put in English the creeping, insidious fear and mystery
+of the tale.
+
+How the piper, Angus Macdonald, loved a MacLeod of Dunvegen, a
+follower of the great MacLeod, and how this lady-love's father would
+have none of him, but set him some of those foolish and impossible
+tasks so dear to the story-teller of all ages and climes and
+nationalities.
+
+One task bade him enter the Cave of Gold at midnight, on Midsummer's
+Night, and play "MacLeod of Dunvegen," passing through the little
+dancing folk, and penetrating far into the mystery of the cave's
+windings, where no Skye man had ever been. Macdonald, of course,
+took up the challenge, and with his tartan ribbands waving wildly
+from the pipes, and the mouth-piece at his lips, he was seen
+standing at the shingly edge of the cave, his kilt tossing against
+his brown knees in the sudden gust of wind. The men who rowed him
+up saw this, and heard the first wild pealing notes. Thus, playing
+proudly and happily, he entered the cave with his dog at his heels.
+They waited and watched, and listened, and at last heard one awful
+cry! Then there was silence. He had passed the fairies, but--
+
+  "Never home came he!"
+
+Then, changing her tone, Catriona told of the only woman who had
+ever caught sight of the wee green folk, and how, ever after, riches
+and wealth were hers, and she had never a wish unsatisfied! It was
+the going on into the inner caves that had undone the piper! The
+lass who had seen the fairies was a certain Eilidh Macdonald, and
+she married a chief, and went to live far away in Oban, and all her
+days she was clad in green silk. Yes, all her days!
+
+"How did she go?" Ishbel cried.
+
+"In a boat, with a man. It is easy, if the man is strong, and you
+hef the rowan with you. Last of all, Eilidh died, and she wished to
+be buried beside Flora Macdonald's granite cross at Kilmuir, and
+they granted her even that! She lies near the great Flora, who saved
+the Prince. And all through seeing the wee green folk in the Cave of
+Gold!"
+
+"Grandmother, would you lend me the rowan branch if--if I were to
+go?" Ishbel whispered in the dusk. "Would you, grandmother?"
+
+Her own voice seemed to terrify her then, and Rory's face rose up
+before her; but the old woman got up without a word, and, going to
+her kist, took something, rolled in a fine kerchief, from it, with
+the smell of bog-myrtle in its folds, and she laid the brown faded
+leaves and the red, dry berries on Ishbel's lap.
+
+"There it is! But you will give it me back safe?--or else ill will
+befall us all!"
+
+"I will give it you back," Ishbel whispered.
+
+She had the rowan in her pocket as she stood with Duncan, tampering
+with her conscience and her promise now.
+
+"It was a very foolish thing to promise," he said craftily.
+"Besides, Rory was afraid of the squalls, that is all--and there
+will be no squalls at all! You can come with me, and see if there is
+anything, and if my mother's stories are true. If not, there is no
+harm done. It is a lovely cave whateffer."
+
+Ishbel yielded, as Catriona knew she would yield. Would she see
+anything? Would the wee folk be there?
+
+[Illustration: "I will hef none but Ishbel."--_p. 127._]
+
+She found herself in the little boat, and rowing towards the cave
+before she knew she had consented. The night seemed only a paler
+day. They rowed close into the shore, till they discovered a place
+where the rock-face was cleft, and showed a pale light within.
+There was just space for the boat to float in, passing through a
+low, overhanging archway. Ishbel drew her breath sharply and clasped
+her hands, as Duncan paused, watching her face, once they were
+through it.
+
+[Illustration: "It is a pretty boat to take a lass out in."]
+
+They were in a deep circular basin, the water, a lovely pale green,
+darker in the shadows. The rocky sides were cut, here and there,
+into long narrow openings, into one of which Catriona's piper must
+have wandered; here Ishbel saw the water lying dark and mysterious,
+shadow-haunted.
+
+Bending over the edge of the boat, she could see the yellow sand
+far below; in bright sunshine her own fair face would have been
+reflected. Tiny jelly-fish edged with lilac spots, and with long
+white fringe, floated beside the seaweed, like strange jewels, and
+far above them they could see the pale opalescence of the summer
+sky, soft, exquisite, pearly. Fringing the opening were ferns and
+heather, and tall fox-gloves, but the fairy bells did not stir in
+the breathless air. Were the wee folk, the good folk, the green
+folk, lurking within? If she watched, would she see a tiny face peep
+out? She waited--watched--and waited--and the time passed.
+
+"Duncan, I do not see anything!" Ishbel spoke at last, breathlessly,
+eagerly. She had forgotten Rory, she had forgotten everything but
+her desire. "Row me further in, Duncan."
+
+He pushed the boat forward, and Ishbel sat with her dark blue
+eyes--they seemed black in the shadow--strained eagerly forward,
+listening, waiting. Nothing moved, except that now and then little
+waves would break with a plashing ripple against the boat. Far up on
+the rocks, a passing breath of wind now and then swayed the flowers
+and the grasses; but no fairy face peeped anywhere, there was no tap
+of dancing feet, no note of elfin music.
+
+"Duncan, Duncan, there is nothing, nothing at all!"
+
+The note of bitter disappointment in her voice roused Duncan. Once
+or twice he had essayed to speak, having no desire for a silent
+adventure, but Ishbel had raised her little brown hand sharply. He
+might disturb the fairies. At last the silence had chilled even
+her. It was all of no use. She could see and hear nothing.
+
+"We will chust be going home then," he said practically, caring
+not at all for her disappointment, for, of course, it was all
+"foolishness." "Maybe they are not dancing to-night; we will better
+chust go home."
+
+"She said I would be sure to see them."
+
+There was a sob in her voice; as he pushed the boat out, she crushed
+the rowans bitterly in her lap, and they fell into the bottom of
+the boat. She remembered Rory suddenly, as, once outside, she
+noticed that the weather had changed during her long waiting, that
+the light seemed obscured, that there were white horses leaping in
+the distance, and that the wind swept sharply in their faces as
+they looked seaward. It would be dangerous now to keep quite close
+to the rocks, for a heavy groundswell had risen. Duncan, glancing
+round, expended some forcible Gaelic, for he knew he would need all
+his muscles to row the clumsy boat, if they were to be safe, and he
+hated trouble. He would have to keep out to sea to avoid the rocks.
+
+During the long pull home, through the now angry waters, Ishbel sat
+quite silent. When Duncan bade her "Bale!" almost furiously, the
+boat having an ugly leak, she did so almost mechanically.
+
+Nothing seemed to matter. There were no fairies, and she would have
+to tell Rory she had broken her word!
+
+They found a sandy, sheltered bay at last where they could land.
+Duncan alone knew how hard had been the struggle against wind and
+tide in the clumsy and leaky craft; but Ishbel did not see a tall
+waiting figure on the shore, till she was preparing to leap from the
+boat.
+
+Then a strong hand took hers, and she glanced, with a startled cry,
+to see Rory himself, grim, grave, silent, with something new in his
+face which chilled her through and through. How was he there?
+
+He helped Duncan to pull up the boat, almost disdainfully, looking
+at it when it lay out of the water with a kind of scornful rage.
+
+"It is a pretty boat," he said then in Gaelic, "a pretty boat to
+take a lass out in, I will be saying that, Duncan MacLeod."
+
+MacLeod called to Ishbel sharply, making no reply, and all three
+walked up to the cottage in heavy silence. The night, grown gusty
+and wet, seemed to have changed as suddenly and mysteriously as
+Ishbel's life.
+
+At the door she paused and faced her lover; his silence galled and
+tormented her.
+
+"Well!" she said, "well!"
+
+If she had pleaded with him--been penitent, sorrowful! Alas! it was
+no penitent face which met his, and jealousy and wrath broke forth
+fiercely, sweeping love aside.
+
+"Are you asking what I am thinking, Ishbel?" he cried, "of the lass
+who promised me, and who broke her word, and went out with Duncan
+MacLeod? Well, I am thinking chust nothing at all of her! I hef
+warned her that the boat was not safe, and of the squalls, and that
+it was not the thing for a lass like her to go so late; and she
+had promised, and yet she went! And this was the claymore brooch
+made of Iona pebbles I hef bought for you; and it can go there!" He
+flung the little packet remorselessly into the heather. "And as for
+yourself, I think nothing of you at all, and everything is over. And
+I am sailing for New Zealand with Mr. Campbell to-morrow. He asked
+me, and I said 'No,' but I will go now, and will walk into Portree
+this very night! _Beannachd leibh_ (good-bye)."
+
+He had turned away then, furiously. It had all passed as suddenly,
+swept up as unexpectedly as had the squall outside the Cave of
+Gold. Ishbel stood as if dazed, staring straight before her. A
+Highlander's rage is like a Highland storm; one bends before it
+instinctively. Ishbel did so now.
+
+Rory did not look back. Duncan, in the doorway, saw him stride on to
+the road, through the little patch of oats before the door. He set
+his face towards the high road for Portree. In a very few moments
+the sound of his footsteps died away and the night swallowed him.
+That was all right, Duncan thought. New Zealand! Capital!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+    "There follows a mist, and a weeping rain,
+    And life is never the same again!"
+
+
+Ishbel might have thought of these words, if she had known them,
+on the morrow and on many morrows that followed. For Rory MacPhee
+was not the man to come back, or to speak lightly. He sailed with
+the agent to Glasgow--was believed to have started for New Zealand
+within the week. There, as far as his Skye friends were concerned,
+he vanished. They were the days of rare and slow communication, and
+Rory never wrote.
+
+But Ishbel did not marry her cousin, as everyone expected, including
+MacLeod. She answered him "No," listlessly, but quite doggedly, and
+nothing that he could say, or that Catriona could threaten, served
+to change her. Once the old woman muttered vengefully that she would
+never see the fairies, for she had lost her luck, and Ishbel turned
+on her almost fiercely.
+
+"It is all false," she cried in Gaelic, "for there are no green folk
+at all, and I do not care!"
+
+The mystery and the charm had fled; she no longer dreamed on the
+green grass circle, no longer wondered at the night-song of the
+burn, no longer watched for the kelpies under the boulders in the
+burns or in the Rowan Pool. Belief in the fairies had faded on the
+night in which Rory left her. Except in the little bald, white kirk
+on the hill-side, Ishbel never sang. Song dies on the lips when care
+and sorrow lie heavy on the heart.
+
+It was five years now since that fatal visit to the Gave of
+Gold--Ishbel never mentioned it--and she was returning, in the
+soft, golden haze of a September evening, from the castle. Catriona
+was growing feeble, and Ishbel did everything; the old woman only
+spinning a little, and wandering out to gather sticks and twigs for
+the fire. The girl had been taking up carded wool to the castle, and
+giving the great London ladies there a spinning lesson.
+
+Before the cottage came in view, with its surrounding field of poor
+and thinly growing oats and yellow daisies (there being, indeed, a
+far more plentiful crop of the latter), she paused to look up the
+fairy knoll. There, on the top was the fairy ring. Something made
+Ishbel suddenly turn and mount the little hill.
+
+The sea-loch lay beneath her, tinged with red; the sky was a wonder
+and a glory, but Ishbel was not looking at the sky, or at the loch.
+She was thinking how strange it was that she should go on living,
+and living much as usual, when all that was best and fairest in life
+was gone.
+
+She sighed, looking down at the burn, plashing and leaping over
+the grey boulders. There was that story about the kelpies; her
+grandmother rarely spoke of them now. Were there really no
+kelpies--no brownies? And yet----
+
+A step behind her made her start violently, and she gave a sharp
+cry. A man's tall figure was there, not ten yards off, and there
+flashed across Ishbel suddenly the thought that perhaps, after all,
+it was all true, for this was a ghost! And if there were ghosts, why
+not wee folk and kelpies?
+
+"I believe it is Ishbel, herself. Do you not know me, Ishbel?"
+
+He spoke in a new voice. The fluent Gaelic was gone, and the stiff,
+translated English; he spoke easily, with a strange accent. And yet,
+ah! she knew him at once! It was Rory! Rory, well-dressed, handsome,
+upright, with a different and more independent carriage, but Rory
+all the same!
+
+Ishbel rose and stood quite wordless for a moment. And then--"You
+are a great stranger," she said. "It is a very long time, I believe,
+since you hef been in Skye."
+
+He almost smiled. He was looking down at her earnestly, intently.
+Was it possible that she should be so little changed? Had the five
+years been a dream? Just as he remembered her--with the pale, clear
+skin, the deep sloe-eyes, the ruddy crisp hair, the little droop
+of the head! Ishbel! The girl he had turned his back on, and been
+furious with, and quite forgotten--oh, yes! quite forgotten, though
+he had come back to the Winged Island--well, just to see how all the
+old folks were!
+
+"It is five years," he said deliberately, "five years! Are you--are
+you married, Ishbel?"
+
+The girl raised her eyes and looked at him. It was getting dark,
+and the burn was beginning its night-song. Ishbel noticed that, and
+remembered just how the water used to sing, quite suddenly. The
+lovely, indescribable breath of the muir wind swept in their faces.
+How sweet it was--how entrancing! And oh! me, the velvety deeps of
+her eyes, the little half-sad, half-humorous mouth!
+
+Was she married? Was she?
+
+He repeated the question, but with a new and eager ring in his
+voice, and Ishbel shook her head.
+
+"Though there will have been a good many marriages since you left.
+There was Mari MacLean and Dougal Nicolson, and there was Colin----"
+
+"What about MacLeod, your cousin?"
+
+"He is to be married this year," she said, "to an English lass."
+
+"So you did not marry him, after all, Ishbel?"
+
+"Who said that I would?" she cried, as if stung. "You knew better
+than that! Who said that I would?"
+
+"He did; and that you would go with him that night, if he asked you.
+And you did, Ishbel! It was very cruel, but----" Rory paused then,
+and suddenly spoke in Gaelic, as if it all came back to him. "But I
+am beginning to think that I was cruel, too. Was I?"
+
+He waited, watching her.
+
+Ishbel nodded gently. She also spoke in Gaelic, as if they had
+parted only yesterday.
+
+"Yes, you were cruel, Rory, and you were very hasty. It is true that
+I was a foolish lass, but you might have given me another chance.
+I believed in my grandmother's stories. I wanted to see the good
+folk." She looked away, and sadness and disillusion crept over her
+face. "But I do not believe in them any more, not any more."
+
+"Poor little Ishbel. Poor wee lassie!"
+
+It could not be five years. It could not! They had only parted
+yesterday!
+
+"But it does not matter," Ishbel said, rousing, "and now perhaps you
+will call and see my grandmother? Are you on your way to Uig?"
+
+He did not answer that.
+
+"Ishbel," he said, "I was very cruel, and I was just as angry as a
+man could be, and for five years I have been mad and sore; but deep
+down, deep down, I never forgot you. I hated him, but I loved you. I
+will come and see your grandmother; but--first--first, will you give
+me a kiss, Ishbel, for the sake of the old days?"
+
+Would she? Perhaps, after all, he did not wait for her consent. He
+had her in his arms, and they closed round her, and Isabel's head
+fell on his shoulder with a little sob that was an epitome of all
+the five years' sorrow and heartache.
+
+[Illustration: Catriona heard his story in silence.]
+
+"_Muirnean_ (darling)," Rory whispered, "I love you; and when I
+leave Skye, you will come too, or I will be staying on here with
+you. You shall choose Ishbel--you shall choose; and to-morrow I will
+buy you something better than the claymore brooch that I was cruel
+enough to throw away!"
+
+They walked down to the cottage, and Catriona, who was never
+surprised at anything, shook hands sourly with him; she heard his
+story in silence, and nodded consent when he told her that he and
+Ishbel were to be married, after all. He could look after the croft,
+she said, or buy Colin MacDougal's farm, just above, if he had money
+enough. Would he have money enough? For Duncan kept her very close
+now. Rory laid a packet smilingly in her lap, and said he thought he
+had money enough.
+
+Next forenoon Catriona saw him coming up the road; Ishbel ran to
+meet him, and together they wandered off to the burn-side. They came
+back by-and-by, and Ishbel stood smiling in the cottage door, her
+arms full of rowan branches; Rory had a spray in his coat, and the
+red berries nestled under her chin.
+
+"I have brought you back luck," the girl cried happily. "We found
+the rowans down by the pool. And Rory says that there are maybe good
+folk in the world, after all! Who knows, grandmother?"
+
+Catriona's peat-brown old face was bent over her wheel. She allowed
+there might be one or two, with a half-grunt of satisfaction.
+
+
+
+
+_THE REAL EAST LONDON._
+
+By the Lord Bishop of Stepney.
+
+[Illustration: (_Photo: H. V. Hornville, Gawber Street, E._)
+
+THE "MOTHERS'" GARDEN PARTY GROUP.
+
+(_Showing the Bishop in the Background._)]
+
+
+East London is a very different place from what many people expect
+it to be. There are not a few who still think that they will have
+their throats cut if they venture into it, and I remember one
+visitor who turned up very late for dinner one night at Oxford
+House, and gave as the reason for his lateness that his landlord had
+got one side of him and his landlady on the other, and had held him
+by his coat-tails to prevent him coming to be murdered in Bethnal
+Green.
+
+[Illustration: Old "Oxford House"]
+
+As a matter of fact, East London is probably, by daylight or
+by night, one of the safest parts of London, except in a very
+few selected streets, well known to the police; and one of my
+predecessors, the much-lamented Bishop Billing, was quite right when
+he used to say to the West-End mother, anxious about her daughter's
+safety, if she came to work in East London, "See her as far as
+Temple Bar, and then she will be all right."
+
+What strikes one at first is the extreme brightness and cheerfulness
+of the people, often under very adverse circumstances. I remember
+giving a series of garden-parties when I was Rector of Bethnal
+Green, in the little garden attached to the rectory. There was not
+much room for anything, and the only amusements were skittles and
+races, whilst tea and cake and bread-and-butter were the simple
+refreshments; but not only--as you will see by the photograph--were
+the visitors very content with themselves, but one of them, from one
+of the poorest streets, met me the day after a "party" and said:
+
+"Rector, we did enjoy ourselves yesterday."
+
+"I am very glad of it," I replied.
+
+[Illustration: (_Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd._)
+
+"OXFORD HOUSE"--THE PRESENT BUILDING.]
+
+"But we very nearly didn't come."
+
+"Why not?" I asked.
+
+"Oh! You see, a man down our street, 'e said, 'Don't go--the
+Rector only wants to show you a few old gravestones.' But we tell
+'im now we couldn't have enjoyed ourselves better if we'd been at
+Marlborough 'Ouse."
+
+Then the children of East London are truly delightful. Poor little
+bairns! they often get pale enough spending the year in those
+crowded courts and alleys--and few things are doing better work in
+London than the Children's Country Holiday Fund, which sends about
+thirty-one thousand each year for a fortnight into the country--but
+still nothing daunts their spirits or dims their affection. Often
+have I been cheered through an afternoon's visiting by a group of
+children who would spend their half-holiday afternoon in waiting
+quite quietly outside a sick-room in order to knock at the door of
+the next sick case to which they were quite 'cute enough to know
+that I was going, and so on right down the street. Many of the
+clergy organise Band of Hope entertainments, and teach the children
+to act little plays of their own, and there are no quicker and apter
+pupils than the children of East London, as the prizes carried off
+yearly at the Crystal Palace will show.
+
+The East-End boy, again, is quite a character; we had four hundred
+at Oxford House in one club, besides some hundreds of others in
+brigades. When you told an East-End mother that fact, she would
+generally say, "My word, I find _one_ quite enough!" And certainly,
+on a Whit Monday, when one had at least a hundred and fifty to
+convoy to London Bridge and get safely down to some friend's house
+and back again, they were a fine handful.
+
+[Illustration: (_Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd._)
+
+THE PEOPLE'S PALACE.]
+
+One day I noticed the express stopping pretty often, and wondered
+why, as it was not advertised to stop anywhere. At last the guard
+came to see me at a wayside station, with a very red face, and said
+he would hold me responsible for what my boys were doing; he said
+that they had pulled the danger connecting-rod three times. I went
+round to see what was happening, and asked whether any of them had
+done it. "Oh, yes," said a little chap at once; "it was me; _I was
+only 'anging my 'at up on it!_"
+
+Few things abash the East-End boy. At the end of the journey, my
+friend, who lived near a very magnificent house, was showing us
+through the rooms, and I heard a little boy say confidentially to
+his neighbour, without meaning to be overheard, "_'Em! just like our
+little back parlour at home!_" The good result of all the trouble
+which such expeditions involved, was shown by the contempt they
+displayed--as they marched back crowned with flowers, with horses
+curveting round them, and cabs charging through them, in consequence
+of the inspiriting notes of the band--for the groups of drunken men
+and women we used to meet, who had spent their Bank Holiday in quite
+another way. Once implant in a boy the love of a "better way" of
+spending a holiday, and you have got a long way on the road to make
+him love "a better way" of spending his life altogether. Satan finds
+some mischief still for idle hands to do, but if those hands are
+employed in handling a musket, or playing a flute, or clinging on to
+a horizontal bar--they have ceased to be idle at all.
+
+But space will soon fail me if I go through all the component parts
+of the population in detail. The young girls, with their limbs
+aching for active recreation after long confinement in factories or
+workshops, have been graphically depicted by Sir Walter Besant, and
+few people are doing more good in the district than those ladies
+who, at great trouble, often with real self-sacrifice, are running
+girls' clubs every evening for the girls after their work.
+
+As, of course, is well known, it was one great object of the
+People's Palace to provide this sort of innocent recreation for the
+people, and though it has thrown its strength lately rather into
+its excellent technical classes, it has not left out of sight its
+original mission.
+
+The gymnastic instructor at the People's Palace told me a year or
+two ago that he had no better and more spirited class than a large
+factory girls' class; and I have seen the magnificent Queen's Hall
+filled to overflowing for a nigger entertainment on a Saturday
+night, and more than half-full for a sacred concert on Sunday
+afternoon.
+
+When one is asked, then, what is the matter with East London, and
+what lies behind those great thoroughfares, which look so broad and
+inviting on a fine summer's afternoon, one can only reply by taking
+one's questioner away from the broad thoroughfares into the crowded
+streets and alleys which lie behind them and between. Here is a
+photograph of a crowded back street, which gives an idea of what is
+going on, say, of a Sunday morning during the Bird Fair in Slater
+Street, or the Dog Fair at the top of Bethnal Green Road, or the old
+clothes sale down by Petticoat Lane. We are too thick on the ground,
+that is what it is; the census does not rise, because it _can't_
+rise: we are crammed so full that we can take no more.
+
+I remember once a young ladies' school used to send roses once a
+week from a pretty suburb of London; they used to bring them to
+school in the morning from their gardens, make them at twelve into
+bouquets, send them up by three, and they were in East London homes
+by five. As I used to take the bouquets of beautiful flowers round
+on trays--followed, I may say, by a mob of children yelling for
+a flower, for old and young have a touching love for flowers in
+East London--I always found that I required four bouquets for each
+house, for each house contained at least four families. This is a
+fact which escapes the notice of the casual visitor, who sees a
+harmless-looking house outside, but does not know what is inside.
+
+We are overcrowded, and what overcrowding means from the point of
+view of health and morality only those who reside in the district
+and the local medical officer really know. I used to have sent me
+by the excellent Medical Officer for Bethnal Green--Dr. Bate--the
+death-rate each month compared with the death-rate for the whole
+of London, and there is no reason that I know of to account for
+the 22-27 per 1,000 registered for Bethnal Green compared with the
+18 per 1,000 of the rest of London, except the overcrowded and
+sometimes insanitary conditions in which the people live.
+
+[Illustration: (_Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd._)
+
+A CROWD IN PETTICOAT LANE.]
+
+Things, however, are much better than they used to be. The London
+County Council has done a good deal in pulling down rookeries
+and rehousing large areas--as, for instance, the famous Boundary
+Street area between Shoreditch and Bethnal Green. The Mansion
+House Council for the Dwellings of the Poor has done much through
+its local committees to stimulate local effort; and the district
+authorities are far more active than they were, and alive to the
+responsibilities which fall upon them.
+
+Many an afternoon have I spent with the Sanitary Committee of the
+Vestry of Bethnal Green, condemning insanitary property, and many
+are the sad sights which I have seen when I have been round with
+them.
+
+I remember vividly one or two large houses abutting on a little
+court. As we went with difficulty through the narrow passages and
+looked into the different rooms, we found women sitting silent and
+patient, too busy to say much to us, pasting match-boxes together,
+for which they were to get twopence-farthing a gross. Needless to
+say that these houses had to be condemned; but the difficulty is
+by no means over when such dwellings are condemned. As a man said
+caustically and truly at a meeting held on the subject, "A rat in
+a hole is better than a rat out, any day"; and great consideration
+has to be shown in not turning out too quickly those who have found
+these poor tenements their home before provision has been made
+elsewhere for them.
+
+If those in the West-End and other places who have property in the
+slums would only look after it themselves, and not be content with
+taking the rents without seeing that the places for which they take
+their money are fit to house men and women, and not mere animals,
+great progress would be made. We should be happy to show them the
+best models on which to rebuild their houses, or they may see for
+themselves by observing the pretty two-storeyed houses now built,
+which constitute Hart's Lane, abutting on the Bethnal Green Road,
+and which, being always in demand, pay, we hope, the intelligent
+landlord who built them.
+
+But it is not merely that we are too thick on the ground; for a long
+time we were too much left to ourselves. Those that ate jam lived in
+one place and those that made it lived in another, and naturally
+therefore the "city of the poor," left to itself, generated
+standards, habits, and traditions of its own, some of which are the
+reverse of edifying.
+
+Take, for instance, the prevalence of drink and gambling. A young
+man came to me one night in East London with a face as pale as
+death. I had known him as a boy, but he had dropped out of our club
+system on growing too old for the boys' club, and had got drawn into
+a drinking set. "Save me!" he cried, as he fell upon his knees and
+took my hand. He had, he said, been led in the public-house to put
+his money on horses of which he knew nothing, and had finally spent
+nine pounds belonging to a shop club, of which he was treasurer.
+He had to meet his mates next morning; he was only twenty-one, of
+respectable parents, and engaged to a respectable girl, and with
+only three months to run out of his apprenticeship. "If you don't
+help me, sir, I am ruined for life!"
+
+I did lend him the money, to be repaid by instalments, but the
+story will show the dangers to our young population, and the need
+of strong and definite work among them from their earliest years.
+With a public-house at every corner, and a bookmaker's clerk waiting
+for them during dinner hour, what chance have the poor lads and
+girls unless someone will go down and live among them and teach them
+better things? I remember running-in a man who had the insolence
+to stand outside Oxford House and take money from boys and girls,
+as well as men and women, during dinner hour, and though he was
+fined five pounds at once, he had more than twenty pounds on him
+in coppers and small silver. The fine ought to be raised, as the
+present maximum--five pounds--is easily paid, and they think nothing
+of it, and go on again just the same next day.
+
+[Illustration: (_Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd._)
+
+THE GREAT HALL AT THE PEOPLE'S PALACE.]
+
+It was no doubt the growing necessity of bringing a higher standard
+of life into the "city of the poor" and bridging over the gulf
+between rich and poor, establishing counter-attractions to the
+public-house and the gambling-hell, which led Canon Barnett, some
+fifteen years ago, to suggest the formation of settlements among the
+poor. His visit to Oxford in 1884, backed up by Bishop Walsham How
+and Miss Octavia Hill, led to the establishment of Toynbee Hall
+in Whitechapel, and later on in the same year of Oxford House in
+Bethnal Green. Of the former excellent institution, which still owes
+so much to its founder and present Warden, Canon Barnett, much has
+been written in past years, and, as space is limited even in THE
+QUIVER, I have only room to say a few words more about Oxford
+House. It was founded on a definite Church basis, and its workers
+were and are members of the Church of England, but it threw open its
+clubs and its doors to men of all creeds and all kinds.
+
+When I was myself called to be Head of the House in 1880, it was
+situated in a back street in Bethnal Green, and consisted of a
+disused Church school knocked into rooms. As residents increased,
+we found so small a house quite inadequate, and the present Oxford
+House was built on a disused site in the next street, and opened
+by the Duke of Connaught five or six years ago. It has had a full
+complement of twenty men ever since, and the acquisition of the
+rectory of Bethnal Green when I became Rector of Bethnal Green in
+1895, enabled us for some time to have thirty workers--all laymen
+with the exception of myself.
+
+[Illustration: (_Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd._)
+
+A VIEW OF BETHNAL GREEN MUSEUM.]
+
+The residents do whatever work is entrusted to them by the Head, in
+the daytime working at the Charity Organisation offices, Children's
+Country Holiday Fund, Sanitary Aid Committee; in the evening running
+boys' clubs and men's clubs and Church Lads' Brigades, visiting in
+the London Hospital on Mondays, visiting the sick and others in the
+parish of St. Matthew's, now specially connected with the House, and
+doing innumerable odd jobs for the parish clergy round, with whom
+they are all on the most friendly footing.
+
+And that brings me lastly to the definitely religious work of East
+London. It is here that the result of leaving for so long one
+million people to themselves shows itself in the most disastrous
+form. The habit of church-going or chapel-going has been almost
+entirely lost, and it is only after the most patient efforts on the
+part of the clergy and others that it can be brought again into the
+district. After sampling on several occasions eighty men (invited to
+the garden parties spoken of above) out of different streets taken
+in turn, I discovered that only about one in eighty went either to
+church or chapel, and out of a thousand boys of the age of fourteen
+or fifteen who were questioned on entering one of our large boys'
+clubs, nine hundred were found to have "g.n." written after their
+names, which means "goes nowhere." Now, to the readers of THE
+QUIVER I know that this will seem a very appalling thing, and
+will show that we have what is practically, from a religious point
+of view, a pagan population at our very doors.
+
+On whom, then, does the great stress and strain of converting
+this pagan population fall? Let us give all credit to the good
+work done by Nonconformists in the district, with whom we are on
+excellent terms: let us acknowledge the wonderful gatherings in Mr.
+Charrington's Hall: and in the Pavilion, under the preaching of Mr.
+George Nokes; the good work by Dr. Stephenson in his Children's
+Homes; and by Dr. Barnardo in his boys' work at Stepney Causeway;
+and by other workers scattered up and down the district; but I think
+all would admit that the great strain and stress of the work falls
+upon those who actually live in the very midst of the people, each
+of them with their seven thousand to ten thousand, and sometimes
+twenty thousand, souls to look after.
+
+It is they whose door-bell rings continuously; it is they to whom
+everyone comes in the hour of distress, whether they attend the
+church or not; and it is they and the band of workers they have
+gathered round them who are laying deep the foundations of the
+future City of God, and who are working, with a few exceptions, day
+and night to bring wanderers into the fold.
+
+The people are not irreligious, only non-religious, and all they
+need is patient and loving work in their midst. To attend a parish
+gathering is like going to a happy family party, on such excellent
+terms are the clergy and their workers with the people, and when in
+some churches you find five hundred East-End communicants in the
+early morning on Easter Day, no one can question the self-sacrifice
+and earnestness of those who have once been thoroughly converted.
+
+The great need, of course, is more workers and it is to supply more
+workers that the East London Church Fund exists. It is spent wholly
+on workers, not on buildings at all; and it is my earnest desire,
+with the help of the Bishop of Islington, who is an experienced
+East-End worker himself, and who has now taken over the North London
+district, to raise that fund to £20,000 this year to meet the urgent
+appeals for more workers which come to us from the poorer parts of
+East and North London. The Fund covers an area of 1,800,000 people,
+most of whom are poor.
+
+[Illustration: (_Photo: C. E. Fry and Son, Gloucester Terrace, S.W._)
+
+CANON BARNETT.
+
+(_Warden of Toynbee Hall._)]
+
+Such, then, so far as it can be described in a short article, is
+East London, with all its virtues and its vices, its aspirations,
+its hopes, its possibilities, and its failings. It is a land flowing
+with milk and honey, with the milk of human kindness and the honey
+of human love; but, like the old Canaan, it is not yet fully
+occupied by the host of God. When Christianity is, however, fully
+"in possession," we shall see a great deepening and ripening of all
+the good that lies there, and the East London Church of the future
+will have a character of its own, and will shed a new glory on the
+Christianity which has slowly converted the world.
+
+
+
+
+PLEDGED
+
+[Illustration: PLEDGED]
+
+By Katharine Tynan, Author of "A Daughter of Erin," Etc.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+"ANTHONY MUST KNOW."
+
+
+"And you liked her, Kitty?" said Anthony Trevithick.
+
+It was the morning after his return, and Lady Jane had left them
+alone.
+
+"I liked her amazingly," said Lady Kitty; "and, what is more
+surprising, she liked me."
+
+"It would be surprising if she didn't, Kitty"--looking at her with
+brotherly fondness. "Do you know, Kitty, I used to like you because
+you were pretty, and couldn't help being charming?"
+
+Lady Kitty made a mocking bow.
+
+"But still there is some change in you of late. What is it? You have
+given up being smart and cynical and all that. You are ever so much
+lovelier now than I remember you."
+
+Lady Kitty laughed, but her eyes softened.
+
+"I'm glad you think I'm lovelier, Anthony."
+
+He looked at her sharply.
+
+"What is it, Kitty?"
+
+"Something that must not be told yet, Anthony."
+
+"Oh, it is _that_!"
+
+His voice had an incredulous relief in it.
+
+"It is really _that_, Kitty?"
+
+Lady Kitty laughed up at him out of her chair, and her glance was at
+once shy and proud.
+
+"Yes, it is that, Anthony."
+
+"Do I know him, Kitty?"
+
+"Very well, Anthony. But no one knows yet--only he and I."
+
+"Who, Kitty?"
+
+"Ask Mr. Leslie, Anthony."
+
+"It isn't Jack, Kitty? You don't mean to say it is Jack! Why--you
+deceitful little person!--Jack was just the one man you never tried
+to make captive to your bow and spear; at least, so far as I could
+see."
+
+"My poor Anthony, you never saw very far where I was concerned."
+
+"No, then, Kitty, I didn't."
+
+His face was a little rueful as he said it.
+
+"But I am glad beyond measure," he went on. "There is, perhaps, only
+one thing could make me happier."
+
+He stooped and touched Lady Kitty's soft cheek with his lips.
+
+"You can tell Jack, Kitty," he said. "We are like sister and
+brother, aren't we?"
+
+"I am very fond of you, Anthony. Next to your mother--excluding
+Jack, of course--I think I'm as fond of you as anyone."
+
+"I'm glad you're fond of my mother, Kitty. She doesn't care for many
+people."
+
+"I've been trying to get up courage to tell her, Anthony. I hate to
+keep her in the dark."
+
+"It will be a blow to her, Kitty."
+
+They both laughed and blushed a little consciously.
+
+"Yes, I'm afraid it will."
+
+"But Pamela, Kitty--tell me about Pamela. Did she ever talk about
+me?"
+
+"I can't say that she did, Anthony."
+
+"I suppose she wouldn't," said the lover, a little disappointed,
+nevertheless.
+
+"You're fond of her, Anthony?" said Lady Kitty, looking up at him
+with eyes of alarm. "Really fond of her?"
+
+"I love her and she loves me. As soon as I have established Uncle
+Wilton comfortably with Knowles to look after him, I shall go to
+claim her."
+
+"She _knows_ you love her, Anthony?"
+
+"Oh, yes, she knows."
+
+The young fellow laughed happily, and there was no shadow of doubt
+or of apprehension in his eyes. He had begun to walk up and down the
+room now, impatiently, as if he wanted to be off.
+
+"Why didn't you claim her before you went off to nurse your uncle,
+Anthony? Uncertainty of that kind is hard on a girl."
+
+"I did write. Not, indeed, to her, but to her father, and gave him a
+broad hint of the state of the case. I have often wondered he never
+sent me a word: he was such a good sort."
+
+"He has been very ill, Anthony."
+
+"Ill? My mother never told me."
+
+"He was at death's door, but is out of danger; he must be getting
+strong again by this time."
+
+"My poor little Pam--and all of them! They adore their father, and
+they had no one to help or comfort them!"
+
+"Why didn't you write to Pamela herself?"
+
+"My mother asked me not to till I came back. But now all that is
+over. I am going to her at once."
+
+"You say you wrote to her father, Anthony? Do you know I have a kind
+of idea she said you had not written?"
+
+"I wrote, Kitty, all right, and put it in the letter-box in the hall
+the night before I left. You must have mistaken what she said. Of
+course, her father's illness explains his not having written. And
+now there is no use in writing. I can be there almost as soon as a
+letter."
+
+Lady Kitty's face was troubled as she looked at him.
+
+"You're quite sure you posted the letter, Anthony? Perhaps they
+didn't get it. Letters sometimes go wrong, don't they?"
+
+"Not one out of a million. What are you thinking of, Kitty?"
+
+Lady Kitty jumped up out of her chair and went to him.
+
+"My poor old Anthony," she said, "there's something horribly wrong.
+I wish I hadn't to tell you. Pamela's engaged to a Lord Glengall."
+
+[Illustration: "My poor old Anthony, there's something horribly
+wrong."]
+
+Trevithick looked at her as if he could not take in what he heard.
+
+"You are mad, Kitty," he said slowly. "She is engaged to me."
+
+"I have her word for it, Anthony. There is something wrong, I am
+sure. She has just written it to me."
+
+"Show me the letter, Kitty."
+
+She went to an escritoire in the corner of the room, found the
+letter, and brought it to him. He read it with staring eyes.
+
+"She won't marry him," he said when he had finished.
+
+"My poor Anthony!"
+
+"An engagement is nothing. She was engaged to me. She let me kiss
+her. He is a man with money--I remember now. Do women sell their
+souls for money, Kitty?"
+
+"Some women might, Anthony, but I don't think Pamela would. There is
+something wrong, Anthony, I am sure of it."
+
+"I am going to find out, Kitty."
+
+[Illustration: Something in the attitude smote her.--_p. 446._]
+
+He turned his angry, miserable young face upon her, and her heart
+was wrung for him.
+
+"I am going over there to-night, Kitty."
+
+"You will do nothing rash, Anthony?"
+
+"If I find that anything but her own will has come between us, I
+will do my best to win her back from him. I have the right, Kitty. I
+was the first, and she let me kiss her."
+
+"You say she was engaged to you, Anthony? Do you mean formally?"
+
+"Everything _but_ formally. Ah! I wish I had settled it then--put a
+ring on her before them all. It was my mother. She made me promise
+to do nothing till I came back."
+
+"Oh! she knew, then?"
+
+"I told her, Kitty, and she was bitterly angry. And I, mad that I
+was, I yielded to her will. Afterwards, when I heard she had found
+them out, and got Pam over here, I thought her heart had softened
+to me after all those years, and that she was helping me towards my
+happiness."
+
+"Why did she make you promise that?"
+
+"I am ashamed to say it, Kitty--because she persuaded me you cared
+for me, and ought not to be told suddenly. I beg your pardon, Kitty;
+I was not ass enough to think it of myself!"
+
+"Ah!" said Lady Kitty again, and her eyes were thoughtful, "and poor
+little Pam was miserable. I don't believe they ever had that letter,
+Anthony."
+
+"If she was miserable for me"--and the lover's face lightened--"she
+loves me still, and she must give up the other man for me. If she
+loves me, he has no right to her. I am going to find out, Kitty."
+
+"Where are you going now, Anthony?"
+
+"There are twenty things to be done. I have to see Uncle Wilton and
+tell him I am going. Knowles understands what to do for him, and to
+call Dr. Berners if he were ill."
+
+He took up her hand and kissed it.
+
+"You've been a good little girl to me, Kitty," he said. "Afterwards
+I am going to fight for my love."
+
+As the door closed behind him Lady Kitty went thoughtfully upstairs
+and knocked at Lady Jane's boudoir door.
+
+"May I come in, Auntie Jane?" she said; "are you very busy?"
+
+Lady Jane looked up from her books with an air of expectation, as
+if there might be something pleasant to hear; but her expression
+changed immediately.
+
+"What is the matter, Kitty?" she asked.
+
+"A good deal. Anthony has been telling me that he is in love with
+Pamela Graydon."
+
+"My darling----"
+
+Kitty lifted her hand.
+
+"It only affects me in so far as it affects Anthony. Pamela is
+engaged to Lord Glengall."'
+
+"I remember him. I saw him when I was there. He looked like a
+ploughman, and I thought he was one. I suppose she marries him for
+the title."
+
+"She marries him--if she does--because she is in love with Anthony,
+and thinks he has played her false."
+
+"You are too romantic, Kitty."
+
+"It is the first time I have been called so. Forgive me for
+something I must ask you. Are you at the root of the mischief?"
+
+"What do you mean, Kitty?"
+
+"I begin to have a glimmering of why you brought her here."
+
+"Kitty, tell me first. Do you not mind at all about Anthony?"
+
+"Not in the way you mean. He never cared for me, not in that way. It
+is no use trying to bring these things about."
+
+"It has been my dream, Kitty, since you were quite a little girl.
+I never loved Anthony; but if you were his wife, I think I should
+begin to love him. I thought you cared for him always."
+
+"I should not have let you think that. Some of all this trouble is
+my fault. It is better to be open all the way through. I kept it
+from you because I feared the sharp disappointment it would be to
+you."
+
+"That you did not love Anthony?"
+
+"More than that, Auntie Janie, I loved someone else. I couldn't help
+it. I would have pleased you, if I could, but it did not seem to be
+in my hands. There is a fatality about such things. We might have
+cared for each other if we had not always known you wanted us to."
+
+Lady Jane looked about her with a bewildered air, as though her
+world were crumbling.
+
+"I have thought of it for so many years," she said at last, "that I
+cannot realise how, between you, you have destroyed the one solid
+hope of my life."
+
+"I love you so much, Auntie Janie, that I think I would have married
+Anthony, without love, to please you, if there had not been someone
+else."
+
+Lady Jane turned and looked at her, and her face was tragical.
+
+"I would not have wished that, Kitty. A marriage without love! You
+don't know what it is, child, especially if there has been--or might
+have been--someone else. I only wanted you to have the wish of your
+heart, and to bind you closer to me at the same time."
+
+"Nothing can ever undo our love, Auntie Janie--nothing, nothing."
+
+"Wait till your husband intervenes, Kitty. Who is it, by the way? I
+have seen no sign of such an one in our circle."
+
+"It is Mr. Leslie," said Lady Kitty with bent head.
+
+"Anthony's friend? Yes, I know you liked him, but I thought it was
+for Anthony's sake."
+
+"I am so sorry," Lady Kitty said again. Then she went on, with a
+timidity foreign to her: "Anthony is very unhappy, Auntie Janie. Can
+nothing be done?"
+
+Lady Jane turned away her head.
+
+"What do you expect me to do, Kitty?"
+
+"He is your own son, and he loves Pamela Graydon. She loves him too.
+Why, it was written on her face, if only I had had eyes to see. Yet
+she has engaged herself to another man! What is the meaning of it?"
+
+"I am bad at riddles, Kitty."
+
+"Anthony will unravel it--unless you will. Forgive me, Auntie Janie,
+but he had better know--that his letter to Mr. Graydon remained
+unposted. I do not know if there is anything else, but there is
+that."
+
+"How do you know that, Kitty?"
+
+"I couldn't help knowing it. A few days after Anthony had gone you
+sent me to the little inner drawer of your desk to find Madame
+Lefevre's address. Anthony's letter to Mr. Graydon lay on the top
+with the address uppermost. I never thought of it again till to-day."
+
+"What do you want me to do, Kitty? It is quite true that I
+abstracted the letter from the hall-box before it was emptied for
+the night-post. If you go to my desk again you will find the letter
+there with its seal unbroken. I guessed what it might contain.
+Curiously enough, the habits of a lifetime kept me from opening the
+letter, though I had stolen it."
+
+Lady Kitty made a deprecating gesture, but the elder woman went on
+coldly:
+
+"I wrote myself to Mr. Graydon--a merely formal letter
+explaining Anthony's absence. Afterwards I made an excuse of the
+Verschoyles--people I had almost forgotten--to go myself and see
+for myself. They lived in a barbarous way, as I thought they would;
+and I mistook Miss Graydon's _fiancé_ for an elderly mountain
+farmer. Then I asked the girl over here with the design--which you
+frustrated to some extent--of making her detest us. I also told her
+that you and Anthony were to be married, and that you had always
+been lovers."
+
+"Auntie Janie!"
+
+"Yes, Kitty; you may as well know the full extent of my wickedness."
+
+"But how could you do it? I have always known you as a proud and
+honourable woman."
+
+"I did it first of all for your sake, Kitty. I did think you cared
+for Anthony; and I thought that if this entanglement were out of the
+way he would care for you. I was mistaken all round."
+
+"I ought to have spoken, Auntie Janie. Ah! I see now how much
+trouble can come from even a little deceit."
+
+"What do you want me to do, Kitty?"
+
+"Anthony must know."
+
+"You have no thought but for Anthony."
+
+"The wrong must be undone--if it is possible now."
+
+"He will turn his back on me for ever."
+
+"He will remember that you are his mother."
+
+"I have given him no motherhood. All I had I gave to you--and I have
+lost you, too."
+
+"You have not lost me. Whatever you did we should be the same."
+
+"You think that now. But we can never be the same. However, about
+Anthony. I daresay I can live without Anthony. What do you want me
+to do?"
+
+"He must be told. Shall I tell him, Auntie Janie?"
+
+"No, I will tell him myself. You had better keep out of it. I shall
+tell him as soon as he comes here. Where is he?"
+
+"He went to let his uncle know he was called away. He will soon be
+back."
+
+"Send him here when he comes in. And now, Kitty, go. I have business
+to do."
+
+Lady Kitty went to the door slowly, and, as she turned the handle,
+looked back at the tall figure standing in the middle of the room.
+Something in the attitude smote her. She went back impulsively, and
+flung her arms round Lady Jane.
+
+"If you love me at all as you loved me yesterday, be comforted," she
+cried. "I know it all came through your love for me, and my wretched
+deceit, and I shall always love you, always."
+
+She could not say if there was an answering caress.
+
+"Things will come right," she whispered, "and Anthony will forget
+his anger. We have all need of forgiveness."
+
+"I shall never ask Anthony's," said Lady Jane. "And I do not pretend
+to repent. But he will marry that man's daughter in spite of me, and
+I shall be punished. Go now, Kitty. If Anthony has come in, send him
+to me."
+
+Lady Kitty went. As the door closed behind her, after a last glimpse
+of the erect figure, she had an odd fancy about a picture she
+remembered to have seen of a ship going down at sea with all its
+flags flying.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+"IT IS TOO LATE."
+
+
+But as the days passed the happiness which Pamela had expected did
+not come. Perhaps at first the atmosphere of approval in which she
+lived made a species of false happiness; but in a very short space
+of time things became workaday, and the future, with a husband old
+enough to be her father, showed itself naked of glamour.
+
+Her soul was loyal to her betrothed, though her heart betrayed
+her. She kept perpetually within her sight his unselfishness, his
+patience, his simple-mindedness, his devotion. And yet, if her
+bridegroom were to be no paladin at all, but a certain ordinary
+young gentleman of ordinary good looks and good qualities, instead
+of Lord Glengall, how wildly happy she could have been! It was
+something she dared not think upon--what might have been, instead of
+what was going to be.
+
+It was another hot summer, and Pamela's step grew languid, and her
+eyes had heavy rings about them. Her white cheeks, that were so firm
+and full of health, lost something of their glow.
+
+She spurred herself up to be brisk and cheerful, and apologised for
+her flagging energy with accusations against the weather. And all
+the time Lord Glengall watched her with the anxiety of a loving dog
+in his eyes.
+
+They were to be married at the beginning of September, to have a
+month's honeymoon at Killarney, and then to take Mr. Graydon abroad,
+that so he might escape the damp of the Irish winter.
+
+In August, Pamela was to go to Dublin to see about her frocks. They
+were not to be very many nor very magnificent. Afterwards, said her
+bridegroom, there would be a visit to Paris, and plenty of shopping.
+
+Pamela loved pretty things as well as any girl, and none the less
+because they had never been within her reach. But now her interest
+in such matters seemed feeble. The times when she derived a certain
+quiet happiness from her engagement were when she talked with Lord
+Glengall about what was to be done for the others.
+
+"Is there nothing for yourself, Pam?" he asked once; "you never ask
+for anything for yourself."
+
+And then he stroked the soft pale cheek with a loving finger, and
+the concern in his eyes grew deeper.
+
+Once he said to Pamela that he wished it were all done, and that
+he was free to take care of her; but as he said it, putting a
+protecting arm about her, he felt a quick shudder run through her.
+
+"What is it, Pam?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"Someone walking on my grave," said Pamela lightly.
+
+"Don't talk about such things, child," he implored. "You have all
+your life, the life that I am going to endeavour to make so happy,
+before you. What have you to do with graves?"
+
+And yet another time he said to her that he could almost wish that
+he might give her his love and his care and his fortune without
+marriage.
+
+"I suppose I couldn't adopt you, Pam?" he said lightly, yet his mood
+was a serious one.
+
+"Ah! don't talk about such things," said Pam, in her turn, and her
+heart was sore lest she had grieved him. "No girl could have a
+happier fate than to be your wife."
+
+And since she felt what she said for the moment she contrived to set
+his fears at rest.
+
+It was the most humdrum betrothal from the point of view of young
+and romantic persons. Lord Glengall was no ardent wooer. His manner
+was more the manner of a father than of a lover, and his moments
+of greatest contentment were only marked by a deeper quiet. While
+Pam and he were much together, their talk, unlike the talk of
+young lovers, was of everything but themselves. Lord Glengall had
+plans for the disposal of the great wealth he had brought from the
+gold-fields; but they were plans in which personal ambition had no
+share.
+
+Mr. Graydon was still languid after his illness, and during those
+summer days a great quietness seemed to have descended upon
+Carrickmoyle.
+
+"Sorra's in it!" said Bridget, complaining. "'Tis as if there wasn't
+a bit of young life about the place. 'Tis more like as if there was
+goin' to be a funeral thin a weddin'."
+
+"I'll tell you what, Miss Sylvia," she protested to her prime
+favourite; "there's one-legged Grady the gardener, above at his
+Lordship's, an' his mouth is dry axin' me. I declare I'll take him,
+if only to make a bit av a stir. They say he used to bate the first
+wife wid the wooden leg, but he'll not look crooked at me, never
+fear."
+
+Sylvia, too, shared in the depressing quiet, and even the dogs lay
+and blinked all day in the hot sun, and were too lazy to go out on
+the bog for a dip in the icy-cold water.
+
+Sylvia had her troubles. Her friend Miss Spencer, to whom she was
+oddly attached, was failing. No illness of a violent kind, but
+simply a wasting away and decline had seized upon the poor little
+spinster; and it was a case in which doctor's prescriptions were of
+no use. Miss Spencer's time had come.
+
+Sylvia visited her friend indefatigably, sitting with her long hours
+daily, within doors if the weather were bad, by her wheeled sofa on
+the lawn during the fine hot days. She took her grief with a certain
+bitterness of wrath against that man of long ago who had wronged the
+poor little lady so irreparably. It made her curt of speech, and
+little disposed to notice what was happening where other folk were
+concerned, and her engrossment made Pamela's lot more lonely.
+
+Sylvia's court had in no way diminished its loyalty or its numbers,
+but just for the present the young men were put on one side, and
+accepted their position. They were able to sympathise with one
+another, for their lady had never bestowed a mark of preference
+on any one over the others, that jealousy could be excited. But
+their absence from Carrickmoyle, while it sensibly brightened other
+houses, made that more lonesome.
+
+Pamela had not seen Miss Spencer for some time, when one day Sylvia
+announced to her that the old lady wished to see her.
+
+"You must go, of course," she said, with the brusqueness of grief.
+"I shall come afterwards and relieve you, so that you will be at
+home in time for Glengall."
+
+Pamela went over after lunch, and found Miss Spencer on the sofa
+on the open lawn of Dovercourt, with its delightful views of the
+distant hills.
+
+"It is a fine world to be leaving," said the old lady, nodding at
+the distances, when she had made Pamela take the low chair beside
+her.
+
+Pamela had noticed at once an indefinable change in Miss Spencer.
+The old, half-crazy, brooding look had disappeared, and though the
+face seemed vanishing and melting away in its wasting and fragility,
+the eyes were clear, as if a film had rolled off from them.
+
+Pamela said nothing. The change in Miss Spencer, even since she had
+last seen her, shocked her.
+
+"There, there, child!" said the little woman, patting her hand.
+"Why talk about gloomy things on such a day as this, and with your
+great day approaching? But what is the matter?"--scrutinising her
+closely--"you don't look very bride-like."
+
+"It is the heat," said Pamela languidly; "I haven't felt very lively
+since it set in so hot."
+
+"I remember the time I would have danced at my wedding in the crater
+of Vesuvius. Things are not the same nowadays. There, child," she
+went on kindly, "you will have some tea? I shall have more made for
+Minx, when she comes. She told you I wanted to see you?"
+
+"Yes," said Pamela, "and I shall like the tea, Miss Spencer. It was
+hot crossing the bog. I shall go home through the woods."
+
+The tea was brought, and when Pamela had had hers, Miss Spencer,
+who had been watching her with kind intentness all the time, said
+suddenly--
+
+"I made my will yesterday, Pam."
+
+Pamela looked up in surprise.
+
+"I have provided for Minx. I have left her this place, and a good
+deal of money. She will look after my poor for me."
+
+Pamela nodded her head.
+
+"I've left you nothing, Pam. But I've given Mary what will start her
+in housekeeping. _You_ are going to marry a rich man."
+
+"You are good to think of Mary."
+
+"It is easier to do now than if I had lived longer. Between my
+legacy and what Glengall will do she need not want."
+
+"She deserves to be happy."
+
+"But what is the matter with you, Pam? Why aren't _you_ happy?"
+
+"I am happy."
+
+"With that face, child! There was a woman once--perhaps you know
+her--whose lover went away and never came back. Perhaps he was dead;
+perhaps he had forgotten. You look as if your lover had never come
+back."
+
+Pamela covered her face with her hands.
+
+"There, child! I don't want to distress you, but I am in trouble
+about you. What if he came back, after all?"
+
+"He never will."
+
+"He looked as if he would. Anyhow, if he never did, it would be
+better to be like that woman--a little cracked, perhaps, and always
+expecting her lover, till she woke up one day dying, and in her
+right mind--it would be better to be like her than to marry without
+love."
+
+Pamela trembled, but her face was hidden.
+
+"Tell me, Pam. You won't mind confiding in an old woman who has
+only a few days more to live. What did you do it for? It wasn't the
+money, and all it could bring, attracted you?"
+
+[Illustration: "Tell me, Pam. You won't mind confiding in an old
+woman."]
+
+"No, oh, no!"
+
+"I thought not. What was it?"
+
+"You don't know how good he is."
+
+"That's not enough, Pam, though it might serve if your heart were
+free. What is that to make you give up your life, your freedom to
+think, to hope, to pray? It will be one long struggle, Pamela. You
+will be like a creature in prison, for whom the free world were
+paradise enough."
+
+"I know Glengall is good," she went on. "Another girl might come to
+love him, in spite of his grey hairs, but not you, Pam. One sees
+clearer when one is going to leave all this. Why did you do it, Pam?"
+
+"It is too late to ask."
+
+"Why, Pam?"
+
+"Partly because my father must winter abroad and we had no money.
+Partly, too, because I was angry with--with someone I loved, and I
+thought I would get rid of the anger and the thought of him if I
+were married."
+
+"Minx would have taken care of your father. It was a useless
+sacrifice, Pamela."
+
+She looked at her a minute hesitatingly.
+
+"My people, those of them who survive, are rich. I could take care
+of you, too, Pam."
+
+"It is too late to make any difference."
+
+"It is not too late while you are yet free."
+
+"You don't know how good he is. And he has ordered his future life
+so that I shall always be the centre of it. I can't break his heart."
+
+"If Lord Glengall knew, he would be the first to set you free."
+
+"He would, because he is all unselfishness. But he will never know."
+
+"How will you keep it from him?"
+
+"I shall learn to love him."
+
+"My poor Pam!"
+
+"Ah!" cried Pamela sobbing. "Don't try to turn me back. Because I am
+unhappy, and a burden to myself, would you forbid me making another
+person happy, and he one worthy of all happiness?"
+
+"It is not too late, Pam."
+
+"It is too late. And here is Sylvia. See how punctual she is. She
+grudges me this half-hour alone with you."
+
+Sylvia looked curiously at her sister's haggard and tear-stained
+eyes, but made no comment. She had little sympathy with Pamela's
+languid looks this summer. She was one who had never felt a wound,
+and so had scant comprehension of the troubles of her sister, whose
+lot, indeed, she considered a highly desirable one.
+
+After a few minutes Pamela stood up and took her leave.
+
+She went by the shady paths through the woods, and Pat, who had
+accompanied her, scurried hither and thither in pursuit of many
+a pair of bright eyes and many a white scut. She was in no hurry
+to get home. After the disturbance of her conversation with Miss
+Spencer, she dreaded the meeting with her _fiancé_.
+
+It had been a shock to her to learn that, if she had not been
+so precipitate, her father would still have been safe; for Miss
+Spencer's life was to be counted by weeks, and Sylvia's tenderness
+for him could be trusted.
+
+The green glades of the wood were exquisite. She looked about
+her--at the roof of branches against the blue-and-white sky, at the
+green moss, dotted with harebells, and flecked by broad patches of
+sunlight on its velvety shade. The birds were singing their last
+love-songs, and the wood was full of the music of many waters.
+
+Ah! With an overwhelming revulsion of feeling it came upon the girl
+that if she were only free, with her life in her hands, the beauty
+of the free world were, as Miss Spencer had said, paradise enough.
+If she were but free, if she were but free!
+
+She had come to the Wishing Well in the wood. She put up her hand to
+her throat. Round it was a slender little chain of jewels and gold
+which Lord Glengall had given her. It was choking her.
+
+She took it off stealthily, and laid it on the moss at her feet.
+Then she took a bracelet--his gift also--from her arm. Then she drew
+off her engagement ring of diamonds and emeralds, and added it to
+the glittering heap. If only she could remove those other bonds as
+easily! And all the time she hated herself for the wish.
+
+Mechanically she stooped down, and, taking the water in her hand,
+drank of it. She wished she might forget what had happened here, and
+the poisoned sweetness of glances and words during those months of
+last winter.
+
+"I must forget--I must forget," she wailed, half aloud. "It lasted
+such a little while. There was no time for it to take hold upon my
+life."
+
+And then her hands fell to her side, for there was a quick step
+beside her, and, turning, she saw Anthony Trevithick.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE WOOD OF STRANGE MEETINGS.
+
+
+"Pamela!"
+
+He had come back, and his eyes and his voice were full of fire.
+
+"Pamela! What have you done to yourself, my sweetheart? You are not
+the Pamela I left."
+
+She had turned towards him as irresistibly as the needle to the
+pole. But at his words a quick shiver ran through her. Her eyes
+turned from him and darkened. Her head drooped.
+
+"You have come too late," she said, almost under her breath; and her
+voice was cold.
+
+"Look at me, Pam. I have so much to tell you that you must hear. You
+must not be angry with me. We have been cheated and tricked. I wrote
+to your father to say I would come and ask for you, Pam, the road
+being clear."
+
+"He never had your letter."
+
+"It was not posted, Pamela. I must tell you, Pam, though it is hard.
+You have a right to know. My mother intercepted the letter."
+
+"She detested me. I knew it from the first moment her cold eyes
+rested upon me."
+
+"She does not like me, Pam, much. But that will not part us."
+
+"Ah!" said Pam, and her voice was almost a cry. "But we _are_
+parted. She could not do it, but I have done it by my own act."
+
+His foot knocked against the heap of trinkets on the moss.
+
+"What are these, Pam?" he asked wonderingly.
+
+"Give them to me," she implored. "They are mine. And you must go
+away, Sir Anthony, and never come again."
+
+"Why, I see"--holding the jewels in his hand--"they are his gifts.
+But you have thrown them off!"
+
+His eyes blazed suddenly.
+
+"It is an omen, Pam. Let him follow his jewels. What right has he to
+buy you? You had given yourself to me."
+
+"Ah!" cried Pam, still stretching out her hands for the jewels. "You
+don't know what you are talking about. He is the best man in all
+the world; and our wedding-day is fixed, and my wedding-dress is
+ordered."
+
+The young man flung the jewels on the ground.
+
+[Illustration: The young man flung the jewels on the ground.]
+
+"There," he said, "let them lie where I found them. Why should we
+think of them? It is all a bad dream, Pamela, but not so bad as it
+might have been--not so bad as it might have been. Why, you are
+talking folly, Pam, about wedding-days and wedding-dresses. It is
+our wedding-day you must think of, and the wedding-dress you will
+wear for me."
+
+He held out his arms to her imploringly, and for a moment, with a
+dazed look, she seemed as if she must come. Then she pushed him off
+with a gesture of her two hands.
+
+"No," she said. "Love is not everything--love is not everything.
+There is honour, there is loyalty, there is faith. And you,--you
+have your cousin to think about. She is sweet and lovely. I felt it,
+though I----"
+
+She broke off suddenly.
+
+"Though you loved me and were jealous"; and he laughed masterfully.
+"All wrong, my Pam! I never cared for Kitty in that way, nor she for
+me. She is going to marry my chum, Jack Leslie. They have been in
+love with each other for years."
+
+"Your mother told me----"
+
+His face darkened.
+
+"I know. I shall forgive her when you have yielded your will to
+mine."
+
+"That will never be."
+
+"Never, Pam? Ah! yes, it will. If I had come here and found that
+you loved this other man, I could have done nothing but leave you.
+I came full of anger and fury. All through the journey I had been
+goading myself to a jealous madness; but the minute I saw you here
+beside the well where I told you I loved you, I knew you were mine.
+I can afford to forgive Lord Glengall."
+
+"What do you propose to do?"
+
+"I shall go to the house and explain to your father about the
+missing letter. I was on my way there when I turned aside to the
+Wishing Well and found you."
+
+"My father loves Lord Glengall."
+
+"He loves you better, Pam. He will not want you to marry him, loving
+me."
+
+"You take too much for granted."
+
+"Oh, no, I don't, Pam! You are not the girl to love me seven months
+ago and love another man to-day. And your eyes betray you, darling!"
+
+"And if my father chooses Lord Glengall before you?"
+
+"Then I will tell him the choice does not rest with him. I will go
+to Lord Glengall himself."
+
+"And if he should refuse to listen to you?"
+
+"Then I will come to you, Pamela, my beloved."
+
+She suddenly turned on him her beautiful, stormy eyes, and her face
+was full of tragedy.
+
+"And I shall send you away," she said. "It is no question of loving.
+I shall not see you any more, Tony"--using the familiar name
+unconsciously--"never, I hope, after to-day. And I love you; I do
+love you, and if I might love you for ever I should be the happiest
+woman on earth. No, don't come near me, for I am saying good-bye to
+you. I decline to purchase my happiness, and even yours, at the cost
+of unhappiness to the best man I ever knew. Ah! go now, my love, and
+do not tempt me any more. You will soon forget me."
+
+She turned as if to go, but before Anthony Trevithick could make any
+effort to detain her, a quiet voice spoke beside them.
+
+"I came to meet you, Pamela. I expected to find you alone. Who is
+this gentleman?"
+
+Pamela turned quickly, and put her hand into the hand of her
+betrothed.
+
+"It is Sir Anthony Trevithick, Lord Glengall."
+
+The two men bowed coldly.
+
+"I will take Miss Graydon home now," said Lord Glengall, drawing her
+hand through his arm. "I am grateful to you for having taken care of
+her."
+
+[Illustration: "I will take Miss Graydon home now," said Lord
+Glengall.]
+
+The two stood looking at each other, and the air was as if charged
+with a storm.
+
+"I am staying in the neighbourhood," said Sir Anthony stiffly. "I
+shall hope to see your lordship later on."
+
+"Come," whispered Pamela to her betrothed, "come away. I will
+explain to you."
+
+She stole one glance at the hot and angry face of her young lover.
+Then, without a word, she passed out of his sight down one of the
+wood paths, still clinging to Lord Glengall's arm.
+
+They walked in silence for a few minutes. Then she lifted her eyes
+to her companion's sad face.
+
+"You heard what I said," she half-whispered. "I am not afraid of
+you; I was loyal."
+
+"Yes, you were loyal, Pam, in the spirit, but loyalty without love
+is poor comfort. It is not enough for me."
+
+"I do love you."
+
+"I believe you do, Pam, but there are different kinds of love. Is
+this that other you once told me about?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I thought so. You have had few opportunities for meeting men in
+your quiet life. This is the lad who was your father's pupil?"
+
+"The son of his old friend, Sir Gerald Trevithick."
+
+"I ought to have met him when he was here. But I was finishing up in
+Australia. He is honest, Pam--is he?"
+
+"I am sure he is--now. Before I thought he was false."
+
+"How did it come that he went away like that, having made you love
+him?"
+
+"He was called away to a sick uncle. He wrote to father to explain,
+but the letter never reached him."
+
+"You are sure he wrote?"
+
+"Yes, he has told me. His mother----You saw her once?"
+
+"A frozen-looking woman, dressed like an empress, who came one day.
+She was so haughty to me that I very soon removed myself."
+
+"That was her."
+
+"My poor little Pam!--that was the woman you went to visit
+afterwards? I had not realised it. I never thought of her after that
+day."
+
+"She made me very unhappy. From the first she had a quiet way
+of making me feel not of her world, and afterwards she was
+horrid--about papa. She told me--falsehoods, too."
+
+"Why didn't you come home, Pam?"
+
+"I wouldn't let them know that the visit had been so horrible. Papa
+was pleased for me to go. Then he fell ill, and I came away."
+
+"What did she tell you, Pam?"
+
+"She told me Sir Anthony was engaged to his cousin. It was she who
+intercepted his letter to papa, in which he said he would come back."
+
+"Ah! there are such women. But why didn't he speak fully and frankly
+before he went?"
+
+"I do not know. There was some reason. He spoke of something that
+stood in the way."
+
+Lord Glengall frowned, with his eyes on the ground.
+
+"I shall find out the reason," he said.
+
+"Ah! no," cried Pamela, clinging to his arm. "Let it be. I have told
+him he must go away. I belong to you, and not to him."
+
+A little spasm of pain passed over the irregular features.
+
+"Don't try me too much, Pamela, or I might take you at your word."
+
+"I want you to take me at my word."
+
+"I am sure you do--at this moment."
+
+"Now and always."
+
+"My little Pam! Still mine till I give you up of my own free will.
+You will trust me to do what is for the best?"
+
+"I will trust you for ever. You are not going to give me up?"
+
+Again his face contracted.
+
+"Not unless I ought to, Pam. Not unless the lad is straight and can
+prove himself worthy of you. If I feel he can make you happier than
+I can, I will give you to him. If not, I will keep you in spite of
+yourself, and trust to my love to make you forget him."
+
+"I think that might easily come true."
+
+"Don't make it hard for me, Pam, if I have to cede my right
+to another. Pamela"--she had lifted her hands to him in her
+emotion--"where is your ring?"
+
+Pamela wrung her hands in her trouble.
+
+"Do not be angry with me," she entreated. "I took it off in the
+wood, there where you found me. It is there still."
+
+"Pamela," his voice was stern. "Did _he_ remove your ring?"
+
+"No, no. A thousand times, no! How could you think I would let him?"
+
+"Forgive me, child--I ought to have known you better. But why did
+you take off the ring?"
+
+She looked to left and right, as though seeking a way of escape, and
+answered nothing.
+
+"I see," said Lord Glengall, and his face had a look of suffering.
+"You took it off because it irked you to wear it. You wanted to be
+free."
+
+"It was only a mood."
+
+"A bad mood for me, child. Why could you not have trusted me, and
+have told me I had asked too much? It would have been kinder."
+
+"I shall never forgive myself," cried Pam.
+
+"I am going back for the ring, Pam. Run away home now, and I shall
+bring it. Run now--I can keep you in sight till I see you within the
+door of Carrickmoyle. I shall not be long."
+
+"The ring is on the ground, by the well," said Pamela, her head
+hanging like the head of a sensitive child caught in the act of
+wrongdoing. "You will find it there, and my necklet and bracelet
+also."
+
+Her voice stumbled as she made her full confession.
+
+"Poor Pam!" said Lord Glengall.
+
+"Ah!" she said, "if you would only forget about it. There was never
+any man like you. If I do not love you now, it is only because he
+came first. I shall love you in time. I could not help it."
+
+"Kiss me, Pam, before you go. I have not asked you for kisses when I
+might."
+
+"I have done nothing but hurt you," she cried, conscience-stricken.
+Then she lifted her face for his kiss.
+
+[Illustration: "I have done nothing but hurt you," she said.]
+
+"And I have been hurting you, quite unconsciously, all the time. It
+is the old story of May and December. But, thank God! it is not too
+late."
+
+He lifted his hat again, with the reverential gesture characteristic
+of him. As he stood bare-headed, a glint of the dying sun fell on
+his hair and forehead. It made him look old and dusty and tired.
+
+Then Pamela went away slowly across the park to the house, while he
+stood watching her. When she had entered the house, he went back
+down the wood path.
+
+As he went slowly and sadly, he felt something thrust against him.
+He looked down. It was Pamela's dog, Pat, who had remained behind,
+hunting an elusive rabbit, and had only just come up with their
+trail. The dog jumped about him with demonstrations of joy.
+
+Lord Glengall stooped down and patted the rough head.
+
+"I am not to be your new master, after all, old fellow," he said.
+
+Pat licked his hand vigorously, and then looked up inquiringly into
+his face.
+
+"She has gone home," said Lord Glengall in answer, "and I should be
+a bad substitute."
+
+But Pat manifested very unmistakably that he was going to accompany
+this friend of his back into the woods.
+
+"Ah! good little beast," said Lord Glengall, oddly comforted. "It is
+good to have a dog sorry for one, Pat."
+
+                  [END OF CHAPTER FIFTEEN.]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _Illustrated from Photographs._]
+
+CURIOUS CHARITABLE GIFTS
+
+
+It is a well-known and pleasing fact that several millions of pounds
+are annually devoted, throughout the kingdom, to the purposes of
+public charity, but few people are aware to what a great extent
+charitable gifts in _kind_ are nowadays sent to philanthropic
+institutions. These "donations" vary in value from a few pence
+to hundreds of pounds; and although the greater number consist
+of ordinary articles which are easily disposed of, yet some most
+extraordinary gifts are frequently received, of which the outside
+public hears little.
+
+Quite recently two mummified hands--one with the forearm
+attached--both authoritatively stated to be over 3,000 years old,
+were sent to the Church Army by a West-End physician, who brought
+them from Egypt, and they will doubtless be the means of an
+appreciable accession to the funds of the organisation when disposed
+of.
+
+The Salvation Army also receives some curious articles at times.
+Jewellery of various kinds often finds its way to the Headquarters,
+and some little time ago a deaf-and-dumb convert presented a perfect
+model in cork of one of the barracks, showing the soldiers marching
+in and the roughs gathered around; whilst a travelling showman who
+recently joined the Army begged to be allowed to hand the officers
+his stock-in-trade, which included two remarkable-looking effigies
+used in his ventriloquial entertainments.
+
+The most singular donations received by the Army, however, are
+presented at the harvest festivals. General Booth's followers are
+exceptionally energetic at such times, and it is no uncommon thing
+for the proceeds of the gifts collected for a festival service in a
+poor neighbourhood to amount to some seventy or eighty pounds, half
+of which is retained for the local funds, whilst the remainder is
+sent to Headquarters as a donation towards the general expenses. An
+impromptu barn is frequently erected in the meeting-room with the
+front open to the audience, and in this the gifts are displayed to
+the best advantage.
+
+In addition to fruit, flowers, and vegetables, presents of live
+stock are often made which are not _always_ acceptable. For
+instance, at one place a calf was given, and was accommodated in a
+temporary stall on the platform. But it did not appear to enjoy the
+service. Whenever the band played, it made such a terrible noise
+that eventually it had to be escorted to a quiet corner outside.
+Birds of many descriptions have also joined in these services; and a
+Russian cat which was presented on such an occasion kept up harvest
+celebrations during the night, we are told, by devouring a pound of
+beef sausages, which represented another, though humbler, gift.
+
+[Illustration: MUMMIFIED REMAINS PRESENTED TO THE CHURCH ARMY.]
+
+Many people will question the advisability of allowing live stock to
+be present at such services. The important fact remains, however,
+that gifts of this nature frequently serve to attract large
+crowds of the very people the Army officers wish to influence.
+But difficulties sometimes arise through the thoughtlessness of
+enthusiastic donors. At Chester recently a live donkey was led
+up four flights of stairs to the barracks, and handed over as a
+free-will offering. When the service concluded, it was discovered
+to be impossible for the animal to walk down again; and, to use
+the words of the officer, they "had to tie the thing up in a knot,
+wrap it up in a sack, and lower it gently and gracefully over the
+banisters!" We may hope that the patient animal did not suffer any
+ill effects from his attendance at the service.
+
+Some most curious articles are also occasionally received by the
+Poor Clergy Relief Corporation, which, as is well-known, does a most
+useful work by making grants in money and clothing to clergymen in
+temporary distress, and to the widows and children of clergymen
+who are left insufficiently provided for. These articles comprise
+revolvers, respirators, artificial teeth and wigs, feeding-bottles,
+military and naval uniforms, silk-worm cocoons, and bicycles, and
+all are turned to account either by direct gift or by realisation at
+a jumble or auction sale. An amusing incident, the secretary states,
+recently occurred in the clothing department in connection with an
+involuntary gift. The matron was filling a large bag for a poor
+family whilst a carpenter was in the room engaged on some repairs.
+He had placed his cap--which was a good one--on the table, and the
+matron, thinking it part of the stock, promptly annexed it and
+despatched it with the other things. It was gratefully acknowledged!
+Of course, the carpenter had to be provided with a new cap, which
+he has since been careful to place in his pocket when working in the
+building.
+
+[Illustration: (_Photo: Russell and Sons, Baker Street, W._)
+
+A STACK OF OLD CLOTHING.
+
+(_At the Offices of the Poor Clergy Relief Corporation._)]
+
+But the institution which receives the greatest number of gifts in
+kind is undoubtedly Dr. Barnardo's well-known Home for Waifs and
+Strays in Stepney Causeway. During last year alone 9,651 parcels
+were delivered from various supporters, containing in the aggregate
+over 97,000 articles of various kinds! When it is also stated that
+the sales of these goods realised, in the same twelve months, the
+grand total of £1,850, some idea will be gathered of the enormous
+number of articles dealt with every year, and the welcome addition
+which they bring to the income of the Homes.
+
+The gifts come from all quarters of the globe. Even such far-distant
+countries as India, China, Corea, Burmah, and Japan contribute their
+quota, and many a pathetic history and much amazing romance is
+embodied in the articles received.
+
+One of the most valuable, and certainly one of the most remarkable,
+of the donations which have found their way to Stepney Causeway
+was ex-King Theebaw's ivory throne, sent a year or two ago by a
+gentleman in Rangoon. The throne was somewhat in the form of a
+large armchair, and was ordered by the king in the palmy days of
+his despotism. According to his edict, only the very best craftsmen
+were employed to fulfil the commission, and only the finest and
+soundest tusks were used. The design was exceedingly elaborate,
+and both time and special talent were needed for the task, which
+it took years to accomplish. But, such is the irony of Fate, when
+the work was practically finished the king was deposed, and the
+completed throne never passed into his possession. After some little
+time it came into the hands of the Rangoon donor who so generously
+presented it to Dr. Barnardo. This interesting piece of furniture
+was estimated to be worth some £500. The detail of the work was
+exquisite, a delicate tracery covering nearly the whole, with some
+most beautiful and elaborate carving in high relief lying behind
+it. The little figures inside appeared to be executed with the
+utmost thoroughness, and the chair was an eloquent testimony to the
+genius and patience of the native workmen.
+
+From the same country a number of quaint silver goods are constantly
+received from a resident Englishman and his native wife, both of
+whom take a very keen interest in the work of saving the waifs of
+the slums. Owing to the extensive fluctuations in the value of the
+rupee, and to the low rate of exchange in England, they find it more
+advantageous to purchase native goods which will realise good prices
+in London than to send their donations in cash.
+
+[Illustration: A HANDSOME PIECE OF INDIAN NEEDLEWORK.
+
+(_Worked in Gold and Silver Braid and Sequins._)]
+
+Dr. Barnardo has little difficulty in disposing of such gifts.
+There is a special trade department at Stepney Causeway, consisting
+of a show-room and several large and airy stores. These storage
+rooms, which are not open to the general public, contain a most
+extraordinary collection of gifts, including such articles as
+bedsteads, false hair and teeth, old pictures, jewellery, a
+microscopic cabinet, a three-manual organ, an oak lectern, boxes of
+geological and ornithological specimens, air pillows, sewing and
+sausage machines, a bottled snake, as well as a great variety of
+clothing both new and secondhand.
+
+[Illustration: A GROUP OF CURIOUS GIFTS.
+
+(_From Ephesus, New Zealand, and India._)]
+
+Amongst the more valuable of the articles which have recently
+been received may be mentioned a number of exceedingly dainty and
+costly Eastern shawls, and a cape constructed entirely from birds'
+feathers, which is supposed to be the only one of its kind in
+England. This handsome cape originally belonged to a Spanish lady,
+and is now more than a hundred years old. Each feather was worked in
+separately, and the various colours are so beautifully blended that
+the worker must have possessed considerable artistic talent as well
+as great patience, for it contains some thousands of tiny feathers
+of various hues. Another piece of work that must have entailed an
+immense amount of time and care is a sample of Indian needlework,
+of which we give a photograph. The ground is coarse black cloth,
+but the design is so cleverly worked in gold and silver braid
+and sequins that the result is a most handsome example of native
+embroidery, which needs to be seen to be fully appreciated.
+
+[Illustration: THE RECEIVING ROOM AT STEPNEY CAUSEWAY.]
+
+From India also come the two models of native types photographed
+in the group shown on the preceding page. They are most delicately
+moulded, every detail being scrupulously attended to. The figure on
+the left is ten inches in height, and represents a grass-cutter,
+whilst that on the right depicts an Indian water-carrier, and both
+bear the name of the modeller--Buckshar Paul of Krishnagar.
+
+A different form of Indian work may be seen in the candlestick in
+the same illustration, which is moulded in brass in the form of a
+serpent, and forms a curious and certainly not inartistic ornament.
+Standing beside this is an ordinary-shaped box with a diamond design
+on the lid, and this article is specially interesting, owing to
+its having been constructed of sixteen different varieties of wood
+grown in New Zealand. It is a far cry from this fertile colony to
+the historic city of Ephesus, but we are carried thither in order
+to explain the presence of the two odd-looking pieces of ware
+(representing an ancient vase and lamp) to be seen in the forefront
+of the same photographic group. They were selected at random from
+a number of such articles which Dr. Barnardo has in his possession
+awaiting a remunerative purchaser. The extraordinary character of
+the gifts received at the institution is well exemplified in these
+articles, which were actually discovered in the ruins of the Temple
+of Diana by the well-known antiquarian, the late Mr. F. Wood. Each
+piece is authenticated by the signature of the excavator, which is
+affixed, and they were presented to Dr. Barnardo by Mr. Wood's widow
+about three years ago.
+
+A striking instance of the wonderful changes wrought by time is
+shown in the generous gifts in money and kind recently received
+from the descendants of the mutineers of the _Bounty_. Here is
+romance pure and unadulterated, and Dr. Barnardo may well have said
+that the following letter which recently came into his hands read
+like "something out of a book." It appears that the captain of a
+British vessel wrote to him from Australia as follows: "I called
+in our passage through the Pacific at Pitcairn Island. A number of
+the natives came off, and when they learned I was bound to Great
+Britain, they desired me to take some presents for you, consisting
+of a case full of fancy articles made by themselves. I have already
+despatched this case to you, and I now enclose postal orders for
+£5 10s. 8d., being the cash, less a spurious two-shilling piece,
+which the islanders had collected for your institution." The case
+contained six walking-sticks, eighty cocoanut-shell baskets, as well
+as a quantity of shells and a large number of bananas. These gifts
+form undoubted evidence of the Christian and philanthropic spirit of
+the present Pitcairn Islanders, and at the same time bear valuable
+testimony to the world-wide appreciation of Dr. Barnardo's life-work.
+
+[Illustration: A CORNER OF THE CLOTHES STORE.
+
+(_At Dr. Barnardo's Homes._)]
+
+A walk through the storage rooms is amply repaid by the number and
+the limitless variety of the articles to be seen therein. Here is an
+organ constructed by an amateur after seven years of assiduous work.
+It is unique in its way, the pipes being made of cardboard; but
+whether the gift of the ingenious organ-builder was an altogether
+disinterested one is not for me to state. I heard it whispered
+that the cleverly constructed instrument refused to work properly,
+and was somewhat of the nature of a white elephant to the present
+owners. Another example of tireless ingenuity is to be seen in the
+three large brass models of engines which adorn a corner of the same
+room. The mechanism of these engines is perfect in every way, and
+the models are of considerable value.
+
+In close proximity to them is a dinner service of Worcester china,
+dated 1794, and consisting of 150 pieces. This will doubtless soon
+be "discovered" by a lover of old china, who will also see another
+"find" near by equally worthy of attention. I refer to a dessert
+service of seventeen pieces, which originally formed a wedding
+present before it found its way to Stepney Causeway. The service is
+more than fifty years old, and its chief value lies in the exquisite
+pictures to be found on each plate. The design is different in every
+case, and when it is added that the pictures are hand-painted the
+munificence of the kindly donor will be recognised.
+
+But it is impossible to give an adequate idea of the curiously mixed
+contents of the stores. Cumbersome articles such as mail-carts,
+rocking-horses, Bath-chairs, and water-beds will be found adjacent
+to billiard balls, pipes, samples of inlaid ebony work and other
+"small" goods; whilst near at hand will be found piles upon piles of
+articles of dress of all sorts and conditions. It is not surprising
+that a number of assistants are kept constantly employed in
+receiving, listing, sorting, and selling these miscellaneous gifts,
+which are sent by a grateful public as a small donation to the good
+and beneficent work which has for so many years been carried on by
+means of the Homes.
+
+                                 A. PALFREY HOLLINGDALE.
+
+[Illustration: CLASSIFYING THE MISCELLANEOUS GIFTS.
+
+(_A View at Stepney Causeway._)]
+
+
+
+
+HIS STRANGE REPENTANCE.
+
+AN ADDRESS TO YOUNG MEN.
+
+By the Venerable Archdeacon Madden.
+
+[Illustration: (_Photo: Elliott and Fry, Baker Street, W._)
+
+ARCHDEACON MADDEN.]
+
+
+It was close upon midnight. I was alone in my study, busy clearing
+off a pile of letters that had been waiting all day for a "leisure
+moment." In the midst of my work a vigorous ring of the door-bell
+resounded through the house, followed by such a peremptory _ran-tan_
+at the knocker that I jumped to my feet and rushed to the door to
+see what was the matter. There I found two rough-looking men, who
+lost no time in stating their business. "We want your reverence,"
+they said, "to come and see a poor young fellow who is dying; the
+doctor has given him up, and he is crying out for a minister to come
+and pray with him." I could not refuse such an appeal, and off I
+started with the men. They led me to a narrow street in my parish
+and into one of the most dingy houses in the street. After groping
+my way, by the aid of lighted matches, up a dark flight of stairs, I
+found the dying man in a dirty back bedroom.
+
+He could not have been more than thirty years of age. He was propped
+up in bed, and the grey look of death was upon his face.
+
+As I entered he turned eagerly to me, and, holding out his hand,
+said, "I'm dying, and I am not ready--_not ready_!"
+
+Just as I was about to speak he suddenly gasped out, "John, John!
+hand me those things on the table." John came forward and laid upon
+the bed a sporting paper, a pack of cards, a set of dice, a bottle
+of whisky, and some race lists.
+
+There was a deliberation about the whole business which convinced me
+that the matter had been talked over between the men. When all were
+spread out in due order, the dying man again turned to me and said,
+"Look, vicar, those things have been the ruin of me; and they have
+been a curse to me, and I want to turn my back upon them all--I want
+you to help me to do it." Again I was about to speak, when suddenly,
+stooping down, he gathered them all up and thrust them into my hands
+with the words "Shove them up my back." I was so staggered by the
+request that I stammered out "What--what do you mean?" "I want you,"
+he said, "as God's minister to shove them up underneath my shirt.
+I want to put them behind my back. I want God to see that I have
+done with them for ever." I did not know whether to laugh or cry. It
+was all so absurd and yet so pathetic. The man was in dead earnest.
+He had evidently thought over it, and meant it as an "act" of true
+repentance. He was undoubtedly a man who had "come down in the
+world," and it was not all ignorance.
+
+I said to him, "I will do what you wish, but I will kneel down
+first, and you will repeat a prayer after me." I knelt and he
+repeated after me these words: "Father, I have sinned against
+heaven and before Thee. I renounce all my sins--from the bottom of
+my heart I renounce them all. Father, receive Thy prodigal son, and
+forgive me for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen."
+
+I then rose from my knees and carried out his wishes. To us all in
+that chamber of death it was a most solemn sacramental rite. I,
+indeed, verily believed that it was the outward and visible sign of
+the inward and spiritual grace of a true repentance. There I held
+the things that had cursed his young manhood, ruined a promising
+career, and brought him down to poverty and a premature grave; and
+as I held those emblems of evil behind his back I told him of a
+Saviour who "carried our sins"--upon whom the Lord had laid the
+iniquities of us all.
+
+Little by little he gasped out his tale of sin: the gambling, the
+betting, and the "horsey set" he had got amongst as a youth; then
+drinking and bad company; then "striding came ruin and poverty
+like a weaponed warrior." Deserted, degraded, he crawled into this
+wretched room, sick in mind and body, to die forsaken and forgotten
+by all his old boon companions except John.
+
+The scene of that night has left an indelible impression upon my
+heart and mind. I believe the merciful God accepted that strange
+outward act as an evidence of sincere repentance. To the very last
+he would have us hold those instruments of sin between his shirt and
+his bare back, and as I held them there he died calling upon God.
+
+When I passed out of that house of death into the streets and the
+morning light, I prayed, as I had never prayed before, that God in
+His mercy might deliver this fair England of ours from the deadly
+and degrading vice of gambling.
+
+It is over ten years since my midnight visit to that gambler's
+death-bed. I remember still one sentence of the ruined man: "It
+doesn't pay, sir! It doesn't pay!" Aye! and even if it does pay some
+few, what then? Is it not ill-gotten gain? And if so, what shall it
+profit such a man, though he gain the whole world and lose his own
+soul?
+
+The vice of gambling does not stand alone. It is the mother of sins;
+the sordid and the sensual too frequently go hand in hand. Lying,
+blasphemy, impurity, dishonesty, trickery, double-dealing, follow in
+its train.
+
+The gambler who, by a stroke of "luck," becomes rich in an hour, is
+tempted to spend his winnings in riotous living. It is with him a
+case of "luxury" to-day, despair and drink to-morrow.
+
+A general atmosphere of blackguardism seems ever to pervade the
+race-course. Here is a cutting from the daily press of August last:--
+
+     "BLACKGUARDISM AT THE ALEXANDRA PARK RACES.--Fourteen
+     brutal assaults, committed on the Alexandra Park race-course
+     on Saturday afternoon, have been reported to the police, the
+     assaults in several cases having been accompanied by robbery.
+     One of the gentlemen assaulted was a professional man well
+     known in the neighbourhood. He was standing at a refreshment
+     bar in the grand stand when he was half-killed by roughs.
+     Another person who was assaulted was a member of the Jockey Club
+     staff; but many frequenters of the course were heard to express
+     pleasure at this, in the hope that it would lead to some better
+     provision being made for the exclusion of well-known roughs from
+     the rings and stands."
+
+I have seen more than one young man of my acquaintance stand in the
+felon's dock, and I know they were brought there by betting. I have
+heard the wail of wife and children in the court as the culprit was
+hurried from the dock to his cell. And what was left for him to do
+when he was released from prison? Who will employ a man with the
+stigma of "imprisonment for dishonesty" resting upon him? He sinks
+lower and lower, dragging his poor wife and has little children down
+with him in his degrading descent--down to abject misery.
+
+"In addition, too, to the frightful injustice to wives and children
+caused by betting and gambling, and the results on the home life,"
+says a recent Report of the Convocation of York, "they have an
+injurious effect on those who are addicted to them, deadening
+their spiritual life, and making them indifferent to higher joys
+and nobler pursuits while the passion lasts. An example of this is
+afforded by Greville, who, in his memoirs, says: 'Thank God! the
+races are over. I have had all the excitement and worry, but have
+neither won nor lost. Nothing but the hope of gain would induce me
+to go through the demoralising drudgery, which I am aware reduces
+me to a level of all that is most disreputable and despicable,
+for my thoughts are eternally absorbed in them. It is like
+dram-drinking; having once begun, you cannot leave it off, though I
+am disgusted all the time with my occupation.'"
+
+And it is useless, my brother, to juggle with your conscience in
+this matter. Gambling is a vice, whether it be for penny points or
+for "ponies." The question of the amount of the bet has nothing to
+do with the sin of gambling. The principle is what we look at.
+
+"The wrong of gambling lies not in the excessive indulgence in an
+intrinsically innocent practice, but in the surrender to chance
+of acts which ought to be controlled by reason alone, and decided
+by the will in accordance with the moral laws of justice or
+benevolence."
+
+Brother men! shun this vice. It is the certain road to ruin. Do not
+be lured to your doom by this terrible fascination. Shake off its
+spell, renounce its tyranny: "It doesn't pay! It doesn't pay!"
+
+[Illustration: "It doesn't pay, sir! It doesn't pay!"]
+
+It is an accursed thing. It degrades the mind, it demoralises the
+whole moral being, and, if not renounced, means everlasting ruin.
+
+This is no time for smooth words. Gambling is a growing evil in the
+land. Women and children, as well as men, have become entangled
+within its meshes, and are being dragged down to perdition. It
+destroys all that is noble and unselfish in the human heart. It
+paralyses the will, stultifies the reason, and stifles every holy
+emotion in the soul. The man who "prepares a table for fortune and
+fills up mingled wine to destiny," who makes chance his idol and
+gain his god, will live to curse the day of his birth. Be wise,
+therefore, O ye sons of men and seek the Lord your God with all your
+hearts; for "the blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He addeth
+no sorrow with it."
+
+
+
+
+Told in Sunshine Room.]
+
+[Illustration: THE PRINCE'S MESSAGE.]
+
+A Fairy Parable. By Roma White.
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a country all sweet with the honey-smell
+of white clover, and all full of music with the song of birds. Rain
+and wind swept it now and then; but, when they had passed the warm
+joy of sunshine came again, and the shadows of sailing, snowy clouds
+drifted purple over the soft green sides of the hills where the
+young kids played round their quiet mothers, so that all the people
+who lived in the beautiful country felt its loveliness thrill their
+hearts.
+
+But surrounding the clover-fields and the bright gardens and the
+sunny meadows was a band of black darkness, and those who had passed
+into the darkness never came back. Everybody who sang and laughed
+and loved in the sunshine knew that some day their turn would come
+to step alone into the strange country of night that girdled the
+land like an impenetrable curtain; and sometimes one or another
+would come and look sadly and tearfully on the darkness, and then
+turn back with bowed head, and try to forget it. And sometimes a
+sound of low, sad singing would approach it, and men and women,
+with tears running down their faces, would accompany some dear one,
+whose time in the bright country was finished, to the edge of the
+silent darkness and watch him pass away into it, never to return;
+and though they held out beseeching hands after him, and strained
+their sight that they might perceive whither he had gone, the
+darkness never gave up its secret; only continued to lie, hushed and
+mysterious, round the land where the apple-blossom budded and the
+young lambs played.
+
+Now the King of the country had seven daughters and an only son. The
+daughters were very beautiful, but the son was fairer than the day.
+His hair was as golden as the noontime of the South, and his eyes
+were blue and laughing as the summer sea, and his mother loved him
+better than life, from the day when he lay in a little white and
+silver cradle by her side.
+
+The royal children played together in the gardens and courts of the
+palace, and sometimes the Queen gathered them about her and told
+them tales of the fairies and the dewy rings which they danced into
+greenness on summer nights; or she would tell them of brave kings
+who had done their duty, and loving queens whose names had been
+blessed by their subjects. And the children would ask questions
+about the dark belt that encircled the country, of which they had
+heard, but which they had never seen. And then the Queen would shake
+her head and fold her arms tightly about them one by one, but the
+child that she pressed most closely to her was her only boy.
+
+But one day a great fear fell upon the kingdom, and all the palace
+was hushed and still. It was told that the little Prince's days
+were numbered, and that he must soon pass away. And a few hours
+later twilight fell over the land, and through the twilight came
+the solemn steps of mourners and the sound of tears. And the lilies
+bent their white heads, and the roses nestled sadly together among
+their green leaves as the royal procession swept wailing by through
+the dusk. And for a few moments a child's voice spoke, and then
+it ceased as the little Prince went bravely away, alone, into the
+darkness, and those who had loved him were left behind.
+
+[Illustration: The little Prince went bravely ... into the darkness.]
+
+They returned by-and-by to the palace, and the King took up his
+royal duties again, and the seven Princesses went back to their
+lessons and to their play. Sometimes they would talk, with sudden
+sobs, of their brother, and then they would forget him while tending
+to their flowers and watching the wild birds on the wing. The King,
+too, now and then, would rest his face upon his hands, and be very
+silent for a while. But his kingdom claimed him, and he had not the
+time always in which to mourn.
+
+Only the Queen never forgot, for the little Prince had been her
+only son. Night after night she went alone to the edge of the
+darkness, and tried to pierce it with her longing eyes, and to beat
+it away with her mother's hands; but it was always motionless and
+impassable, and seemed to extend into endless night.
+
+But one evening, as she knelt there, quiet for very weariness,
+there came a sweet smell through the dusk, as if the spices of wild
+thyme were crushed out by some approaching tread; and the sleeping
+flowers that had hung heavily under the weight of her falling tears,
+lifted their faces and unfolded their closed petals, as if they were
+dreaming of the morning sun. And then, all at once, fragrance and
+warmth and light were about the Queen; and, looking up, she saw the
+radiant figure of a wise, quiet man.
+
+His voice spoke to her, and she heard many echoes in it, so that it
+stirred her memory strangely. It was as if she listened to the notes
+of a thrush on a dewy morning, or to the south wind among the summer
+trees by night.
+
+"Why do you mourn here, all alone?" he asked her gently.
+
+Her tones shook as she answered him.
+
+"I am weeping for my only son, who has gone away from me into this
+darkness by which we stand."
+
+For a moment the wise man was silent; his grave, tender eyes looked
+down into hers.
+
+"You try to beat the darkness away with your hands," he said
+by-and-by, "and you feel only that it is like solid rock to your
+touch. You strain your sight to pierce it, and, as you gaze, you
+realise its blackness, and it becomes deeper to your eyes. Why,
+then, do you stay upon its margin?"
+
+"I stay because I hope and pray that, by dwelling near it, I may
+catch a glimpse of my only son; that I may hear his voice speak to
+me, or feel for a moment the warm, clinging touch of his little
+hands. I stay because I crave for a message from him, to tell me
+that he loves me still."
+
+Then there was pity in the wise man's eyes, and it was the sweet
+pity of a mother who sees a child cry over a broken toy.
+
+"Your son has many messages far you," he said, "but you cannot find
+or read them here; and, if you stay, your eyes will soon grow too
+dim to see, and the darkness will hold itself all about your heart.
+Turn your face and footsteps back to your people and your king, and
+seek there a message from your son which shall speak of consolation."
+
+The Queen was silent then, and her feet and hands were still. She
+looked up at the wise, quiet man, and, as she looked, she saw that
+his eyes were like those of the child who had passed away, and she
+caught at the hem of his robe with trembling fingers.
+
+[Illustration: "My sentence is--Forgiveness!"]
+
+"Who are you?" she cried. "Who are you, with your wise words, and
+your eyes like those of my son, who was but a little, little child?"
+
+Then into the face of the man came a wonderful look, so that the
+Queen, seeing it, bent her head and bowed her forehead upon her
+hands. And it seemed to her, for a moment, as if strange sweet
+scents blew to her, and the darkness broke away into long alleys of
+light and bloom. And then there was a hush, and when she looked up
+again the wise man was gone.
+
+But she remembered that he had given her the sweetest promise in the
+world--the promise of a message from her only son; and, believing
+him, she went away from the belt of darkness, and turned again to
+the palace, to her children, and to her king.
+
+And as she passed along the road she came across a poor cripple who
+had fallen and hurt himself by the way. His wounds bled, and he
+looked up at the Queen with wistful eyes. So she went, herself, to
+the nearest stream to fetch water for him, and she gave him some to
+drink, and bound up the poor bruises, and soothed him with gentle
+words. And as she tended him, she forgot for a moment the darkness
+into which her son had passed, and only remembered that the land, in
+spite of its beauty, was full of suffering and tears, and that she
+had her work to do among her people; and she looked with her shining
+mother's eyes into the cripple's face, and bade him be comforted.
+
+And then, all at once, a wonderful thing happened. The cripple
+spoke, in faltering tones, to thank her; and his voice thrilled her,
+for it was the voice of her little son.
+
+Wondering and grave, the Queen passed on. Some blue butterflies flew
+by, circling in the still air. As she looked at them her heart was
+suddenly stirred to reverence and gratitude and joy for the beauty
+of their silken burnished wings. And as the thrill of tenderness
+shook her, it seemed, all at once, as if a glow were across her
+path, and as if, through the glow, she heard the child-laughter of
+the little Prince who had passed away.
+
+And so it happened, day after day, as the weeks sped by. Whenever
+the heart of the Queen was stirred to holiness by deeds and thoughts
+which were true and lovely and pure there came to her all the tender
+sweetness of memory and of communion, so that she knew that beyond
+the darkness her little son still sent his thoughts to her in love.
+But whenever she went to the belt of gloom to weep his voice was
+silent, and it seemed to her as if he had gone away for ever.
+
+And one day there came a strange beggar to the palace gates, with
+wild, wicked eyes and hatred of all men in his heart; and he had
+sworn to injure the King because the King was great and good. He
+kept his vow, and struck at the kind King as he was passing through
+the gates. But the Queen saw the raised dagger, and sprang in front
+of her husband, so that she received the blow herself.
+
+Then the Queen lay in strange silent illness, and the court met to
+judge the deed. The beggar crouched, terrified and trembling, before
+them; but, ere sentence could be given, a sweet woman's voice bade
+those who condemned him to pause, and the judges saw that the Queen
+had risen from her bed of sickness and stood among them.
+
+"Wait!" she cried, "wait! I, who have borne the pain, must speak the
+sentence."
+
+She paused, and, crossing to the beggar, laid her hand upon his head.
+
+"My sentence is--Forgiveness!"
+
+Her voice rang out like a sweet silver trumpet in the court-room,
+and everybody was very still. Then, all at once, the beggar burst
+into tears.
+
+But nobody else spoke or moved. Only the tears of the beggar flowed
+down until they made a tiny crystal pool, and the Queen, who bent
+over him, saw into the pool as into a mirror.
+
+And she beheld the margin of the country and the deep black fog
+which lay beyond; and as she looked, the fog broke away into long
+gleaming alleys of flowers with shining mists above them, as if of
+a rising sun, and, among the bloom, the face of the little Prince
+smiled fully upon her once again.
+
+Then, all at once, she heard the voice of the wise, quiet man, and
+she perceived that he stood again by her side.
+
+"What does it all mean?" she asked him breathlessly; "what does it
+all mean?"
+
+The beggar, whose face was pressed to the hem of her robe; the
+court, who still remained hushed and motionless; and the King, whose
+eyes reverenced her, all waited for the wise man's reply. It came to
+them softly, like the murmur of pine needles in a south wind.
+
+"There can be no Death where there is Love."
+
+[Illustration: decorative]
+
+[Illustration: Our Roll of Heroic Deeds
+
+We record this month a signal act of heroism which took place a
+few years ago in a coal-pit near Dalkeith. The mine was suddenly
+flooded, a vast volume of water rushed through the workings, and
+it was only after some hours of dangerous and most difficult work
+that the imprisoned miners were rescued. It was then discovered
+that Walker, a boy of twelve, had been left behind, and immediately
+James Nolans volunteered to save him. Nolans had to be forcibly
+pushed through the rushing torrent by some of his comrades; then he
+had to grope about under the water to find a rail which he used for
+the purpose of guidance, and, after narrowly escaping death from
+drowning, he eventually discovered the terrified lad. Even then it
+was doubtful whether they would escape alive; but after a plucky
+dash through the water, and by the help of some old ladders hastily
+fastened together, they managed to regain their comrades, who never
+expected to see them again.]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: musical score]
+
+Rise, Gracious God, and Shine.
+
+  _Words by_ WILLIAM HURN, 1813.     _Music by_ H. WALFORD DAVIES, MUS.D.
+                                      (_Organist of the Temple Church._)
+
+
+_With majesty._
+
+    1.  Rise, gracious God, and shine
+          In all Thy saving might!
+        And prosper each design,
+          To spread Thy glorious light:
+        Let healing streams of mercy flow,
+        That all the earth Thy truth may know.
+        Amen.
+
+    2.  O bring the nations near,
+          That they may sing Thy praise;
+        Let all the people hear
+          And learn Thy gracious ways:
+        Reign, mighty God, assert Thy cause,
+        And govern by Thy righteous laws.
+
+    3.  Put forth Thy glorious power;
+          The nations then will see!
+        And earth present her store
+          In converts born to Thee.
+        God, our own God, His Church will bless,
+        And earth will teem with fruitfulness.
+
+    N.B.--The last verse should be sung _ff_ in unison.
+
+
+
+
+TEMPERANCE NOTES AND NEWS.
+
+By a Leading Temperance Advocate.
+
+
+THE CARE OF THE INEBRIATE.
+
+The present year has brought into operation a new Act of Parliament
+dealing with the habitual drunkard. The unfortunate men and women
+of the type of the notorious Jane Cakebread have been the despair
+of stipendiary magistrates for years past. At the time of writing
+the working of the new Act has not settled into shape, so it is all
+too early to forecast its probable results. Meanwhile we tender our
+congratulations to Dr. Norman Kerr, F.L.S., for it is to this humane
+and philanthropic physician we are indebted for anything like an
+intelligent treatment of the confirmed dipsomaniac. Dr. Kerr was
+born at Glasgow in 1834, and graduated at Glasgow University in
+1861. While yet a student he took a keen interest in temperance and
+established a society for his fellow-students. From that time to
+the present, his active services to the reform have been steadily
+maintained. He takes a prominent part in the work of the Church
+of England Temperance Society, the United Kingdom Alliance, and
+the National Temperance League. It is, however, as an authority on
+dipsomania that he is best known. He is the founder and President
+of the Society for the Study and Cure of Inebriety, and it was at
+his instigation that a highly successful Colonial and International
+Congress on Inebriety was held in Westminster Town Hall in July,
+1887. Dr. Kerr has written largely on the subject, and his learned
+work on "Inebriety: Its Etiology, Pathology, Treatment, and
+Jurisprudence," speedily passed into several editions. He is almost
+as well known in the United States as at home. The gist of Dr.
+Norman Kerr's views may be best indicated by the opening sentence of
+the volume referred to. He writes:--
+
+"No _disease_ is more common than inebriety, and yet none is so
+seldom recognised. No _disease_ is more widespread. In the whole
+circle of even an extensive acquaintance it may happen that no
+member has been known to have suffered from any of the leading
+diseases which prevail in our islands, that no one has been laid
+low by phthisis or cancer. But there are very few families in the
+United Kingdom which have not had at least one relative who has been
+subject to inebriety."
+
+[Illustration: (_Photo: William Whiteley, Bayswater, W._)
+
+DR. NORMAN KERR.]
+
+
+ANOTHER GOOD IDEA.
+
+The latest new effort to popularise temperance amongst women is a
+scheme prepared by the Durham and Northumberland County Union of
+the British Women's Temperance Association. It takes the form of a
+summer school to be opened at Barnard Castle, where ladies may study
+temperance in its scientific aspects, and receive various aids as
+to the methods of imparting this knowledge. The forenoons will be
+given to lectures, the afternoons to recreation, excursions, etc.
+Full particulars may be obtained from Mrs. Richardson, The Gables,
+Newcastle-on-Tyne.
+
+
+BEER IN THE HAY AND HARVEST FIELDS.
+
+This is an age of specialists, and Mr. John Abbey is certainly the
+specialist of the temperance propaganda in relation to agriculture.
+The son of a yeoman, he very early turned his attention to the
+importance of "soberising" our harvest fields. By his writings,
+his speeches, and the invention of teetotal drinks called Stokos,
+Hopkos, and Cokos, he has gradually produced a wonderful change in
+agricultural circles. It is Mr. Abbey's habit to go the round of
+the agricultural shows in their season, where he pitches his tent,
+in which he dispenses his drinks, distributes his literature, and
+discusses "the why and because" of his movement with all and sundry.
+From the many letters received by him, we are permitted to quote one
+from a correspondent who farms seven hundred acres:--
+
+"I am glad to tell you that we have done harvest without a drop of
+beer being given to the men, and they appear to like Stokos better
+this year than ever. They usually had eight gallons or more a day,
+and worked well with it, and throughout the excessive heat we had
+not a man ill. Years ago the men would get beer into the field,
+and there was a great deal of drunkenness among them, but now I
+am thankful to say that Stokos has, by virtue of its excellent
+qualities, practically _driven the beer out of the field_, and work
+goes on delightfully."
+
+[Illustration: (_Photo: A. E. Coe, Norwich_)
+
+MR. JOHN ABBEY.]
+
+It may be mentioned that this agricultural work is only a detail of
+Mr. Abbey's life, for he is the Organising Secretary of the Church
+of England Temperance Society for Norwich Diocese, having previously
+held a similar appointment far many years in Oxford Diocese.
+
+[Illustration: MR. ABBEY'S TENT AT THE NORFOLK AGRICULTURAL SHOW.
+
+(_Distributing Temperance Drinks._)]
+
+
+COMING EVENTS.
+
+On April 13th a concert will be given at Stafford House, under the
+patronage of H.R.H. the Duchess of York, in aid of the Church of
+England Temperance Society Juvenile Union. On April 19th the annual
+meeting of the Guild of Hope will be held at Grosvenor House, the
+Duke of Westminster in the chair. On May 1st the annual meeting of
+the National Temperance League will be held in Exeter Hall, the
+Archbishop of Canterbury presiding. In July there will be two fêtes
+at the Crystal Palace--one on the 5th by the National Temperance
+Choral Society, and the other on the 29th, under the direction of
+the Church of England Temperance Society.
+
+
+"GIVE THE BOY A CHANCE."
+
+During the past decade the Church of England Temperance Society has
+developed a wonderful leaning towards practical effort. Its Police
+Court Mission has been of incalculable service, and has received the
+hearty recognition of such able magistrates as the late Mr. Montagu
+Williams, Sir John Bridge, Mr. A. de Rutzen, and others. The Police
+Court Missionaries have for some time been gravely concerned as to
+what to do with young boys brought up for their first offences.
+Last June the Church of England Temperance Society established a
+Boys' Shelter Home at Gunnersbury. To this institution boys are now
+remitted instead of to prison. Here they have a chance of learning
+some useful industry, situations are found for them, and they are
+thus given a new start in life. The Bishop of London opened the
+Home, which is managed under the direction of a small sub-committee
+of the London Diocesan Church of England Temperance Society.
+
+[Illustration: THE BOYS' SHELTER HOME.
+
+(_Established by the Church of England Temperance Society for first
+offenders._)]
+
+
+[Illustration: (_Photo: Debenham and Gould, Bournemouth._)
+
+MR. ROBERT SAWYER.]
+
+
+AMONG THE RAILWAY MEN.
+
+One of the most interesting, and certainly one of the most useful,
+temperance organisations, specially catering for a distinct class
+of workers, is the United Kingdom Railway Temperance Union. It
+commenced in a very humble way in 1882, and in a sense owes its
+origin to Mr. S. Cutler, an earnest man employed by the Metropolitan
+Railway Company, who approached the Church of England Temperance
+Society to see if something could be done to bring together the
+different railway men who were in sympathy with temperance work.
+As the result of a conference, the Union was started, and it has
+remained in connection with the Church of England Temperance
+Society ever since. To-day it has branches on nearly every line
+of railway in the United Kingdom; and every grade of the service,
+from the influential director down to the humble bookstall lad, is
+represented in the membership. The railway men were fortunate in
+securing the interest of Mr. Robert Sawyer, Recorder of Maidenhead,
+at the commencement of their operations, for besides contributing
+very largely from his purse, Mr. Sawyer, as President of the Union,
+practically devotes his life to the interests of railway men. He
+is literally "in journeyings oft," and has a most able lieutenant
+in Mr. A. C. Thompson, the first and only Secretary of the Union.
+The railway men run a little temperance journal of their own,
+appropriately entitled _On the Line_. One has only to glance through
+its attractive pages to see that the Union is very much alive.
+For those who are employed on railways temperance is certainly an
+excellent thing, and there can be no doubt also that the safety of
+the travelling public is helped not a little by the hard work of Mr.
+Sawyer and his cheery comrades.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: SCRIPTURE LESSONS FOR SCHOOL AND HOME
+
+INTERNATIONAL SERIES]
+
+With Illustrative Anecdotes and References.
+
+
+=MARCH 19TH.--Christ the Good Shepherd.=
+
+_To read--St. John x. 1-16. Golden Text--Ver. 11._
+
+Last lesson showed Christ as source of _light_--giving sight to the
+eyes and heart of blind man; to-day's shows Him as "Love," the Good
+Shepherd, giving His life for His sheep.
+
+I. =Christ the Door of the Fold= (1-10). _Connection_ with healing
+of blind man.
+
+Pharisees were bad shepherds--he found the true.
+
+They drove him away--Christ the Good Shepherd took him into His fold.
+
+_Explanation_ of the different parts of the parable.
+
+The sheepfold--Christ's Church on earth (ver. 16).
+
+The door--Christ Himself, the only way to God.
+
+The sheep--the people of Christ (Ps. c. 2).
+
+The shepherds--God's ministers, feeding and leading the flock (1
+Pet. v. 2) in the right way.
+
+The porter--God's Spirit opening hearts to Christ.
+
+_Illustration_: Christ is as a Good Shepherd. How?
+
+He comes to the sheep in the fold. He calls by name, and goes before
+to lead them. They recognise voice, trust Him, and follow.
+
+_Contrast_ between Christ and the Pharisees. They are robbers (St.
+Matt. xxiii. 14, etc.), blind guides, hypocrites, leading men to
+ruin. Now thirsting to kill Him. Christ is the way of salvation.
+Thief _takes_ life; shepherds _protect_ life. He _gives_ life, here
+and hereafter.
+
+_Application._ Whosoever believeth in Him shall have everlasting
+life.
+
+II. =Christ the Good Shepherd= (11-16). _His name._
+
+Good, _i.e._ beautiful, noble, loving. He is _perfect_ in contrast
+with imperfect ministers; _true_ as opposed to false; _good_ as
+giving His life. Mere hirelings desert the flock in danger.
+
+_His work._ Knows each intimately--cares for wants. Dies that they
+may be saved. Seeks wanderers. Folds all safely in fold at last.
+
+=Lessons.= The privileges of Christ's flock.
+
+1. _Safety_ in the fold of His Church.
+
+2. _Succour_ in time of want and danger.
+
+3. _Sympathy._ They know Him, and He knows them.
+
+
+=Christ the Door.=
+
+It is said that the ancient city of Troy had but one way of
+entrance. In whatever direction the traveller went, he would find
+no way into the city but the one which was legally appointed, and
+the only one which was used by those who went in and out. There is
+only one right way to the favour of God, to the family of God, to
+the presence of God in prayer, and, finally, to the City of God in
+eternity, and that one way is Christ. "I am the way," He declares,
+"and no man cometh unto the Father but by Me."
+
+
+MARCH 26TH.--Review Lesson.
+
+_Golden Text--St. John x. 27._
+
+Christ's divine nature been seen in twelve lessons with the results
+ensuing therefrom.
+
+I. =True Light= (i. 1-14). Showing Father's eternal glory, power,
+wisdom. Dwelling as man among men to lighten their souls.
+
+II. =First Disciples= (i. 29-42). Divinity testified by God's voice
+at His baptism. Faith shown by new disciples who saw Lamb of God.
+
+III. =First Miracle= (ii. 1-11). Divinity shown by almighty power
+and glory in sympathy.
+
+IV. =First Convert= (iii. 1-17). Christ as Teacher unfolds divine
+mysteries. He knows for He has seen. Nicodemus, a Pharisee, believes.
+
+V. =First Samaritan= (iv. 5-26). Divinity shown by omniscience.
+Gives water of life. Samaritan woman and others believe.
+
+VI. =First Child= (iv. 46-54). Christ gives fresh life to sick
+child. Nobleman believes.
+
+VII. =Christ's Authority= (v. 17-29). Shares Father's counsels.
+Appointed Judge. All men honour Him.
+
+VIII. =Multitude Fed= (vi. 1-14). He Who made world, supplies His
+people's wants. As God, He multiplies food; as Man, cares for and
+sympathises.
+
+IX. =Feast of Tabernacles= (vii. 14, 28-39). Christ as God, gives
+life, also refreshment (like water) to soul by Holy Ghost. Thus,
+Three Persons in Godhead share work of man's salvation.
+
+X. =Freeing from Sin= (viii. 13, 31-36). Divine power alone can free
+from bondage of sin and Satan. This Christ gives. Many believed on
+Him.
+
+XI. =Healing Blind= (ix. 1-11). Christ's divine light opens eyes and
+heart. Blind man saved.
+
+XII. =Good Shepherd=. Christ, Himself God, the way to God. Gives
+life by laying down His life. One fold, one flock, one Shepherd.
+
+=Lessons=. 1. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
+
+2. No man cometh to the Father but by Me.
+
+3. Lord, I believe, help Thou my unbelief.
+
+
+Christ, Lord of All.
+
+     During the last moments of a godly woman, speech had left her;
+     but she managed to articulate the word "Bring." Her friends, in
+     ignorance of her meaning, offered her food, but she shook her
+     head, and again repeated the word "Bring." Thinking she desired
+     to see some absent friends, they brought them to her; but again
+     she shook her head; and then, by a great effort, she succeeded
+     in completing the sentence--
+
+    "Bring forth the royal diadem,
+    And crown Him Lord of all"--
+
+     and then passed away to be with Jesus.
+
+
+APRIL 2ND.--Raising of Lazarus.
+
+_To read--St. John xi. 32-45. Golden Text--Ver. 25._
+
+Gospel began with miracle at joyful family gathering. To-day's
+lesson tells of sad gathering of family and friends at a funeral. He
+would again show divine power.
+
+I. =Death Triumphant= (32-37). _Scene of sorrow_ at Bethany, two
+miles from Jerusalem. Little family, Lazarus and two sisters. Had
+received Christ before (St. Luke x. 38). Now the breadwinner has
+been taken ill and dies. Sickness, death, bereavement, all causes
+of sorrow and sadness. Had sent for Christ, but He had delayed to
+come (ver. 6). At last He arrives, but body had been buried. Martha
+meets Him first (ver. 21), then Mary. Both utter same reproach--had
+He been in time, their brother need not have died. Their faith weak.
+Thought of Him as Good Physician--did not fully realise His almighty
+power. How did this affect Christ? He was troubled, He sighed, He
+wept. His best friends not yet learned Who He was and what His
+power. To them sorrow, suffering, death, seemed to have triumphed.
+Was it so?
+
+II. =Death Vanquished= (38-44). _Scene of joy._ A Conqueror of
+death is there. See actions of the different people. _Christ_
+commands removal of stone. _Martha_ remonstrates--the body begun
+to corrupt--four days dead (no coffin, only wrapped in linen).
+Showed unbelief, after Christ's words (ver. 23). _Mary_ watches in
+silence, trusting in Christ to do right. _Jews_, expectant, roll
+away the stone as bidden. Then Christ speaks; thanks God for hearing
+His prayer; cries aloud to Lazarus. The dead man comes forth, is
+released from grave-clothes, and restored to his home. Death is
+swallowed up in victory.
+
+_Result._ Many of the Jews believed. God's glory is manifested.
+
+=Lessons.= 1. _Christ a loving Friend._ Can be touched with the
+feeling of our infirmities.
+
+2. _Christ a living Saviour._ Taught Martha, comforted Mary,
+restored Lazarus. Gives eternal life.
+
+
+Faithful unto Death
+
+     In the excavations made at the buried city of Pompeii, the
+     remains of a Roman soldier were found at one of the gates.
+     Embedded in the once molten lava which swept down upon the
+     doomed city was found the skeleton of the soldier whose post
+     of duty was at the gate, still grasping a sword in its bony
+     fingers. When the panic came upon the city, and those who could
+     made good their escape, he had remained faithful to his sense
+     of duty, and with resolute courage faced a fearful death. The
+     Christian soldier can face death with equal courage, for he has
+     obtained victory over sin and death through Jesus Christ his
+     Lord.
+
+
+APRIL 9TH.--The Anointing in Bethany.
+
+_To read--St. John xii. 1-11. Golden Text--St. Mark xiv. 8._
+
+Christ again at Bethany, preparing for His sufferings and death.
+Chief priests and Pharisees took counsel to kill Him (xi. 53). His
+friends gather in numbers to give Him a public welcome.
+
+I. =Christ's Friends= (1-3, 7-9). _The feast._ Took place at
+Bethany, at house of Simon, once a leper. The family of Bethany
+all present--showed their regard for Christ in different ways.
+_Lazarus_, honoured guest, at the table with Him. _Martha_ giving of
+her skill in house-keeping (St. Luke x. 38). _Mary_ giving a costly
+present.
+
+_The anointing._ Mary comes behind Christ--having fetched an
+alabaster box full of precious ointment--breaks the box, pours it
+on His head (St. Mark xiv. 3) and His feet (ver. 3), wiping them
+with her hair. The house is filled with sweet smell. Why did she do
+this? _It was an act of love._ Christ had done much for them--stayed
+with them, above all restored their brother to life. Another
+reason: Christ had lately spoken of His death as soon coming. This
+thought quickened her love to intensity. She must give it outward
+expression. She had kept it for His burial (ver. 7), but gives it
+now. _It was an act of self-denial._ Did not stay to count the cost,
+to think how little she need give. Gave the best gift she had. Would
+keep back nothing from Him. _The act was approved and accepted._ She
+did what she could.
+
+=Lessons.= 1. Christ's death draws men's hearts (xii. 32). Therefore
+send the Gospel to all.
+
+2. True love delights in self-denial. Deny self, take up cross and
+follow Christ.
+
+3. Offerings accepted by God. Alms as well as prayers come before
+Him (Acts x. 4).
+
+II. =Christ's Enemies= (4-6, 10, 11). _Judas_ grudges the
+gift--calls it waste--professes zeal for the poor. What was his real
+motive? Covetousness. Had been made treasurer of monies given to
+and spent by Christ and apostles. Hoped to get something out of it
+for himself. Was it waste? Gifts given to Christ cannot be wasted.
+Others will take note and copy. This loving gift has led multitudes
+to do what they can. Missionaries to give up lives for Christ, many
+to give money, work, service, etc. Even cup of water only given for
+His sake rewarded.
+
+_Chief priests._ Consult out of envy to kill Lazarus. His rising led
+many to believe in Christ. Their power became less.
+
+=Lesson.= Take heed, and beware of covetousness.
+
+Which are we: friends or foes of Christ?
+
+
+Give the Best you have to God.
+
+     It matters not how poor the offering, if given in the right
+     spirit. A legend tells how once a little boy in church had no
+     money to place among the offerings. So he gave a rosy apple, the
+     only gift he had it in his power to offer. Presently, when the
+     alms were removed, there was found among them an apple of gold.
+     The simplest gift is in the sight of God as pure gold.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: SHORT ARROWS
+
+Notes of Christian Life & Work]
+
+
+Our New Waifs.
+
+In accordance with the announcement in our December number, we left
+it entirely to our readers to select the new QUIVER waifs.
+All the votes have now been received, and arranged, with the result
+that Rose Heelis heads the list of the candidates for Miss Sharman's
+Orphan Home, whilst John Harrison is the successful candidate for
+Dr. Barnardo's Home.
+
+[Illustration: JOHN HARRISON.
+
+(_The new Quiver Waif at Dr. Barnardo's Home._)]
+
+Our readers will doubtless be interested in the portrait of each
+to be found on this page, but it is unnecessary to repeat the
+particulars concerning these little ones which were given at the
+time we invited the votes. The support of the new waifs will involve
+a total annual expenditure of £31 (£15 for Rose Heelis and £16
+for John Harrison), and for this amount we are relying upon the
+generosity of our readers. Contributions to the special Waifs' Fund
+will be gladly received, and duly acknowledged month by month in
+our pages. Such contributions should be addressed to the Editor of
+THE QUIVER, La Belle Sauvage, Ludgate Hill, London, E.C. A
+list of the donations to the fund during the month of January will
+be found on page 480.
+
+
+Stooping to Conquer.
+
+A peculiar feature connected with the Ancient and Honourable
+Artillery Company of Boston is that each officer, at the end of
+his term of command, which lasts a year, returns to the ranks as
+a private; thus there are something like a score of gentlemen who
+have had full control of the regiment, and who are now once more
+content to obey. Here is a lesson for those who serve in the Church
+Militant. We cannot all be colonels and generals--there must be a
+few private soldiers!--and it is certain that he who cannot obey
+is not fit to command. Much energy and temper is wasted by those
+who fight against sin and sorrow through unwillingness to take what
+is called a subordinate position. Surely this is to forget the
+Saviour's words--"If any man desire to be first, the same shall be
+last of all, and servant of all."
+
+[Illustration: ROSE HEELIS.
+
+(_The new Quiver Waif at Miss Sharman's Home._)]
+
+
+The "Welcome."
+
+Sixteen years ago, the first restaurant for women in the City of
+London was started at 16, Jewin Street. The "Welcome" was opened in
+a five-storeyed house in the very midst of factories. It is now the
+centre of help of every kind for a class brought before the public
+in Sir Walter Besant's "Children of Gibeon." Hundreds of women
+frequent this place to refresh their jaded and chilled bodies with
+soup and bread at three halfpence or excellent meat-puddings at
+twopence. In cases of distress and starvation free dinner tickets
+are granted. Who can tell how many women this aid has saved from
+crime when hunger has driven them to the verge of stealing? The
+work of the "Welcome" is not limited to care for the bodies of City
+toilers. Three rooms are used for dinner and tea, three others for
+evening classes of various kinds. From six to half-past nine clubs,
+musical drill, sewing and improvement classes, services of song,
+missionary or Gospel temperance meetings, attract an attendance
+averaging from 270 to 300. The largest number come on Thursday
+evening, which is devoted to Bible classes. To many whose days are
+spent in hot workrooms the shady gardens lent on Saturdays by kind
+friends are like a new world. One girl asked if she could see the
+strawberry trees; another, why the bunches of grapes were tied to
+the top of glass-houses. The revelation of a new world outside their
+own limited sphere helps to raise the ambition to live a new and
+higher life.
+
+[Illustration: (_Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd._)
+
+IN THE "WELCOME" CLUB AT MIDDAY.]
+
+
+"Nobody's Own."
+
+Many regiments in the British army are called after and said to be
+owned by this or that prince or princess. There is "The Princess of
+Wales's Own," "Princess Charlotte's Own," and so on. One regiment,
+however, rejoices in the nickname of "Nobody's Own," because it
+is not named after anybody. It is a grand thing to think that no
+Christian can be called "Nobody's Own," for we are all called after
+Christ and owned by our Father in heaven.
+
+
+New Books.
+
+Elsewhere in this number will be found an illustrated article on
+"Childish Memories of Lewis Carroll," and we venture to think that
+readers of those reminiscences will require no pressing to turn to
+the biography of this universally favourite author, just published
+by Mr. Fisher Unwin under the title "The Life and Letters of Lewis
+Carroll." Mr. S. D. Collingwood, who is responsible for the work,
+frankly admits that it is impossible to give a really adequate
+presentation of the extraordinarily complex character of his late
+uncle. He has, however, produced a most able and interesting sketch,
+which includes many characteristic letters, and is profusely
+illustrated. Quite a different life-story is also before us in
+the form of the Rev. George Adam Smith's biography of his friend,
+the late Professor Henry Drummond (Hodder and Stoughton). No one
+could lay down this book without feeling that Drummond was in every
+sense a great man--with a great intellect, a great heart, and a
+constant, burning desire to be about his Father's business. It is
+true that he made mistakes, that he put forth certain theories not
+generally acceptable, and which he himself modified in later years,
+but throughout his life his honesty of purpose was unquestionable.
+His influence and power as a preacher and teacher were remarkable,
+and many of those whom he reached through his addresses and books
+will feel indebted to Dr. Smith for this critical and comprehensive
+story of his life.--From Messrs. Smith, Elder and Company comes a
+new story from our own contributor, Katharine Tynan, entitled "The
+Dear Irish Girl," of which we need say no more than that it is the
+love story of a most winning Irish lassie, written in the bright,
+entertaining style so well-known to our readers.--"Helps to Godly
+Living" (Elliot Stock) is the happy title of an excellent little
+work which consists of helpful and comforting extracts from the
+writings and addresses of the present Archbishop of Canterbury,
+selected and arranged by the Rev. J. H. Burn, B.D.--A pathetic
+interest attaches to the two dainty volumes of poems by the late
+Dr. J. R. Macduff, entitled "Matin and Vesper Bells" (Cassell), in
+that the author did not live to see their completion. Many of the
+poems have been already published independently in various forms,
+but we believe that this collected edition of Dr. Macduff's tender
+and inspiring verse will be heartily welcomed.--We have also to
+acknowledge the receipt of a tastefully produced volume entitled
+"The More Excellent Way" (Henry Frowde), in which the Hon. Mrs.
+Lyttelton Gell has carefully arranged the choicest extracts from
+the works of ancient and modern authors on "The Life of Love"; a
+collection of addresses on the Beatitudes by the Rev. J. R. Miller,
+D.D., entitled "The Master's Blesseds" (Hodder and Stoughton); an
+interesting and instructive work on medical missionary work amongst
+the blind in India, entitled "They Shall See His Face" (Bocardo
+Press, Oxford); "Aids to Belief" (Elliot Stock), a series of studies
+on the divine origin of Christianity by the Rev. W. H. Langthorne;
+and a volume of sermons by the late Charles H. Spurgeon, which have
+been published by Messrs. Passmore and Alabaster under the title
+"The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit."
+
+
+A Wolf-Boy.
+
+[Illustration: (_Photo supplied by the Missionary Leaves Association._)
+
+  AS A BOY.      THE WOLF-BOY OF SECUNDRA.      AS A MAN.]
+
+What was to be done with such a boy! The magistrate sahib of
+Bulandshahr had heard of Romulus and Remus, but rational people
+rejected the legend of their infancy. Yet here was a child of five
+or six years of age, crawling on the ground before him, and the
+statement of several witnesses that he had been smoked out of a
+wolf's den could not be disputed. These men were natives of India.
+Whilst travelling in a jungle of the Bulandshahr district, they
+saw a queer though undoubted specimen of humanity crawl into a
+hole. By the magistrate's order a fire was lighted at the mouth.
+Out sprang a snarling and indignant mother-wolf, which, after
+scattering the bystanders, fled for life. Behind her ran on all
+fours a little boy, who was speedily secured and conveyed to the
+magistrate. He was imbecile. He would eat no food but raw meat,
+and he tore any clothing placed on him into shreds. The magistrate
+sent him to the Church Missionary Orphanage at Secundra, a refuge
+for between four and five hundred children, nearly all infants
+picked up in the streets or by the roadside. There this child,
+who was found on Saturday, February 4th, 1867, grew up into
+manhood. On the same principle that Robinson Crusoe called his man
+Friday, the wolf-boy was named Sanichar, or Saturday. By degrees
+a certain amount of intelligence and a decided religious instinct
+developed. He became gentle and sociable, and ready with cheerful
+unselfishness to share the many little presents he received with
+his companions. He attached himself with great affection to one of
+the caretakers. On the death of this man, Sanichar in dumb sorrow
+and bewilderment looked from one to another of his friends for an
+explanation. They pointed to the grave, and then to the sky. The
+boy was deeply impressed, and ever afterwards, if he felt ill, he
+would feign sleep, and point first to the ground and then to the
+sky. He never learnt to speak, but perhaps he was trying to convey
+the impression that he looked forward to following his dear friend.
+Two other wolf-boys and one wolf-girl were brought to the Secundra
+orphanage, but they died soon afterwards. Whether they had been cast
+out by their parents or kidnapped by the inveterate robber-wolves
+of the district could not be discovered. They were a witness that
+tenderness, too often lost in heathenism, may be found in one of
+the most rapacious beasts. With hundreds of little outcasts under
+Christian care, they tell of a Father above who remembers even
+though parents may forget their children.
+
+[Illustration: THE LOCKHART MEMORIAL.
+
+(_In Lewisham Congregational Church._)]
+
+
+Memorial to a Medical Missionary.
+
+Medical missions have come into deservedly increasing prominence of
+late years; and a few months ago a beautiful tablet was erected in
+Lewisham Congregational Church to the memory of Dr. Lockhart, the
+first Protestant medical missionary to China, who went out about the
+year 1838. The tablet is a beautiful piece of work in alabaster and
+marble, and is carved in the form of a triptych, _i.e._ in three
+panels, the medallion portrait occupying the centre. On the left
+hand panel appears the following inscription:--"In affectionate
+memory of Dr. Lockhart, first medical missionary to China, founder
+of hospitals at Macao, Shanghai and Pekin, who served the London
+Missionary Society with untiring zeal for twenty-six years in the
+mission field, and with unabated devotion in England to the last
+day of his life. Member of this church for thirty-seven years.
+Deacon and Church Secretary. Born October 3rd, 1811. Died April
+29th, 1896." The following inscription appears on the right hand
+panel:--"This memorial is erected by those who admired him as a
+strong man, loved him as a friend, hold his services in grateful
+memory, and who pray that his zeal for missions and his devotion
+to the Church may inspire all who shall ever worship within these
+walls." The tablet is placed on the wall of the church near the
+vestry door, where Dr. Lockhart used often to stand before the
+service, watching the people enter.
+
+
+Self-control.
+
+A man who lately came over from America told the writer that on
+board the steamer one of the passengers went up to another in the
+smoking-room and asked him to have a drink with him. The man thus
+invited continued reading a newspaper and made no reply. The other
+man again asked him to drink with him. No answer again. A third
+invitation was then given in these words: "Sir, I have asked you in
+as friendly a way as possible to drink with me, and each time you
+went on with your reading, and had not the civility to answer me.
+Now I ask you for the third time if you will drink wine, whisky,
+or anything else with me?" The man then put aside his paper and
+answered very quietly: "Do you see that glass, sir? Well, if I were
+to take even a quarter of it, I could not leave off until I had
+drunk all the liquor on board. This is why I would not drink with
+you." All present admired the man's self-control, and learned a
+striking lesson on the danger of putting temptation in a brother's
+way.
+
+
+An Ever-Recurring Question.
+
+Two friends of the writer were sitting in a close carriage,
+discussing the problems of life--where we came from and whither we
+are going. The driver of the carriage went rather too near another
+vehicle. "Where are you going to?" shouted the driver of the latter.
+The occupants of the carriage looked at each other and remarked,
+"That is just what we were wanting to know." So it is that the great
+problems of life cannot be ignored, for they are reflected in the
+small incidents of daily existence. Particularly is this the case
+with the question whence we came and whither we are going. This can
+never be shelved.
+
+
+The Circulation of the Bible.
+
+Few people have any idea of the enormous number of Bibles published
+annually in this country. Mere figures of so many millions mean
+little to most folks. But it may give some more adequate idea of
+the vast number to put it as follows: The British and Foreign Bible
+Society, of Queen Victoria Street, alone publish above a million
+and a half of Bibles every year, or more than 4,100 every day. Now,
+if each of these 4,100 Bibles was of the average thickness of one
+and a half inches, they would, if piled upon one another, reach to
+a height of 6,159 inches. As the top of St. Paul's cross is about
+364 feet or so above the level of St. Paul's Churchyard, this huge
+pile of Bibles would reach to a height nearly one and a half times
+as great as the top of the famous cross! Or we might represent the
+whole lot by one immense Bible, which would be 66 feet by 47 feet by
+14 feet, and would reach from the steps leading to St. Paul's right
+to the top of the pillars there! And this would but represent the
+output for a single day of only one of the great Bible circulating
+mediums of this country!
+
+[Illustration: A BIBLE 66 FT. BY 47 FT. BY 14 FT.
+
+(_Representing one day's output of the British and Foreign Bible
+Society._)]
+
+
+
+
+_OUR INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF PEACE._
+
+
+We are glad to be able to report that requests for forms are
+steadily being received, and a goodly number have been returned
+filled with signatures. To those of our readers who are striving
+to obtain the distinction of being the first to send in a thousand
+names (for which a prize of Ten Pounds is offered) we would say that
+it is not necessary for all the signatures to be given together.
+They should be forwarded in batches of fifty or a hundred, and
+credit will be given for every name so sent. The following letter
+which we have received from a correspondent at Birmingham is of
+interest, as it emphasises the fact that the Ten Pounds we offer
+will not only act as an incentive to activities on behalf of
+peace, but may also at the same time benefit some local charity.
+"Please send me," the correspondent writes, "some sheets of the
+International League of Peace. If I am fortunate enough to get the
+Ten Pounds, I am going to give it to some good society--whichever
+our clergyman thinks best. Trusting to hear from you by return."
+
+The following is the form in which our memorial has been issued:--
+
+     "=We, the undersigned, desire to express our earnest sympathy
+     with the peace proposals contained in the recent Rescript of his
+     Imperial Majesty the Czar of Russia, and hereby authorise the
+     attachment of our names to any international Memorial having for
+     its object the promotion of Universal Peace upon a Christian
+     basis.="
+
+This may be copied at the head of blank sheets of paper, and the
+signatures placed beneath; but we shall be very pleased to send
+(post free) any number of printed forms on receipt of an application
+addressed to the Editor of THE QUIVER, La Belle Sauvage,
+London, E.C.
+
+The objects of our League have already been endorsed, amongst other
+prominent men, by the =Lord Bishop of London=, the =Rev. Hugh
+Price Hughes= (President of the Wesleyan Conference), the =Rev.
+Samuel Vincent= (President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain
+and Ireland), and =Pastor Thomas Spurgeon= of the Metropolitan
+Tabernacle.
+
+
+THE QUIVER FUNDS.
+
+The following is a list of contributions received from January 1st,
+1899, up to and including January 31st, 1899. Subscriptions received
+after this date will be acknowledged next month:--
+
+     For "_The Quiver_" _Waifs' Fund_: R. Hutchinson, Boston Spa, 2s.
+     6d.; Readers of _The Christian_, per Morgan and Scott, £5; Miss
+     Renée Benson, Grenoble, 1s. 6d.; J.J.E., Govan (134th donation),
+     5s.; A Glasgow Mother (104th donation), 1s.; E.A., 2s. 6d.;
+     R.S., Crouch End, 5s.
+
+     For _Dr. Barnardo's Homes_: A Scotch Lassie, 5s.; Baby George,
+     2s. 6d.; J.R., 5s.; E.H., Devon, 2s.; Gertie, Finsbury Park.
+     3s.; M.A.C, 5s., An Irish Girl, 10s. 6d.; Madame Scaravaglioné,
+     10s.; A.K., 5s.; A Warwickshire Lass, 5s.; Anon., 2s. The
+     following amounts have been sent direct:--R.H.B.P., 4s.; A.H.,
+     10s; M.M.Q., £5; E.A.H., 7s. 6d.; A.W.O., 4s.; M. M., 5s.;
+     M.E.B., 15s.; J H.W., 5s.; "Inasmuch," 6s.; T.P., Leamington, £1.
+
+     For _The Children's Country Holiday Fund_: Madame Scaravaglioné,
+     10s.; J. and E.H., £1.
+
+     For _Miss Weston's Homes, Portsmouth_: J. and E.H., £1.
+
+     For _The Robin Dinners_: Alice Bishop, 3s.
+
+     For _St. Mark's Hospital, City Road, E.C._: A Thank-offering, 1s.
+
+     The Superintendent of the St. Giles Christian Mission asks us
+     to acknowledge the receipt of a parcel of clothing from Oakham,
+     Rutland.
+
+
+OUR FINE ART PLATES.
+
+Doubtless many of our readers are interested in the announcement
+which has been appearing for several months past on our wrapper to
+the effect that certain coupons will entitle the holder to receive a
+set of Fine Art Plates for a trifling sum. We desire to supplement
+that announcement by stating that the pictures will be of sacred
+subjects, and will, moreover, be printed on specially prepared
+plate paper in order to obtain the best possible results. The
+selected paintings are by Lord Leighton, Sir John Millais, Edward
+Armitage, R.A., Ford Madox Brown, W. C. T. Dobson, R.A., and William
+Dyce, R.A., and the series will form an admirable selection of the
+best-known works of these famous artists--well worthy of a permanent
+place in every home.
+
+
+ROLL OF HONOUR FOR SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORKERS.
+
+The =Special Silver Medal= and =Presentation Bible= offered for the
+longest known Sunday-school service in the county of =Durham= (for
+which applications were invited up to January 31st, 1899) have been
+gained by
+
+  MR. JOHN J. BAILEY,
+  Newgate Street, Barnard Castle,
+
+who has distinguished himself by _fifty-six_ years' service,
+principally in the Sunday School of the Barnard Castle Parish Church.
+
+As already announced, the next territorial county for which claims
+are invited for the _Silver_ Medal is
+
+  DEVONSHIRE,
+
+and applications, on the special form, must be received on or before
+February 28th, 1899. We may add that =Kent= is the following county
+selected, the date-limit for claims in that case being March 30th,
+1899. This county, in its turn, will be followed by the territorial
+county of =Cheshire=, for which the date will be one month
+later--viz. April 30th, 1899.
+
+The names of members recently enrolled will be found in our
+advertisement pages.
+
+
+
+
+THE QUIVER BIBLE CLASS.
+
+(BASED ON THE INTERNATIONAL SCRIPTURE LESSONS.)
+
+
+QUESTIONS.
+
+49. From what parable of our Lord do we gather that the sheepfolds
+in ancient times were large and surrounded by a high fence?
+
+50. By what illustration does our Lord teach us that it is through
+Him alone we can be saved? Quote passage.
+
+51. In what way does our Lord contrast His care of His people with
+the neglect shown by the Jewish teachers?
+
+52. Quote passage which shows that Jesus had never attended any of
+the public Jewish schools?
+
+53. In what words does our Lord speak of the Scriptures as God's
+revelation of Himself to man?
+
+54. What were the two miracles performed by our Lord at Cana of
+Galilee?
+
+55. What was especially remarkable in the miracle of raising Lazarus
+from the dead?
+
+56. What reason did our Lord give for His delay in going to Lazarus
+when he was ill?
+
+57. What was the effect of the miracle of raising Lazarus?
+
+58. What reason have we for supposing that Simon the Leper was the
+husband of Martha, the sister of Lazarus?
+
+59. What information does St. John give as to the character of Judas
+Iscariot?
+
+60. What prophecy concerning our Lord was delivered by Caiaphas, the
+High Priest?
+
+
+ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON PAGE 383.
+
+37. In a desert (or uninhabited) place near Bethsaida on the
+north-west side of the Sea of Galilee (St. Luke ix. 10).
+
+38. It was known as the Sea of Chinnereth (Numb. xxxiv. 11; Josh.
+xii. 3).
+
+39. Because St. Philip was a native of the district of Bethsaida
+(St. John i. 44, and vi. 5).
+
+10. The Jews thought that Jesus was the son of Joseph the carpenter,
+and born in Galilee; whereas they had been taught that no one would
+know of the birthplace or parentage of the Messiah (St. John vii.
+27, 41; St. Luke iv. 22).
+
+41. They sent officers to arrest Jesus (St. John vii. 2, 32).
+
+42. Because on the last day of the Feast special sacrifices were
+offered for all Israel, and the priest, having taken water from the
+Pool of Siloam, poured it upon the altar (St. John vii. 37).
+
+43. Because they understood that, as the "Light of the World," Jesus
+claimed to be the Messiah (St. John viii. 12; Isaiah ix. 2, and lx.
+1).
+
+44. "When ye have lifted up the Son of Man" (St. John viii. 28).
+
+45. Jesus appears to have made the Jews unable to see Him, and so
+passed out of the Temple, going through the midst of them (St. John
+viii. 59; 2 Kings vi. 18).
+
+46. That the disciples believed in the doctrine of "transmigration
+of souls," which was taught by the Jewish Rabbis at that time (St.
+John ix. 2; Josephus, "Ant." xviii. ch. 1, sec. 3).
+
+47. By telling him to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam (St. John
+ix. 7).
+
+48. The Jews excommunicated the man whose sight Jesus had
+restored--that is, they shut him out of the synagogue--thus
+depriving him of all religious privileges (St. John ix. 22, 34).
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
+Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as
+printed.
+
+Missing page numbers are page numbers that were not shown in the
+original text.
+
+The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up
+paragraphs, thus the page number of the illustration might not match
+the page number in the List of Illustrations.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43642 ***