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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #66659 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66659)
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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature,
-Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 50, Vol. I, December 13, 1884, by
-Various
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art,
- Fifth Series, No. 50, Vol. I, December 13, 1884
-
-Author: Various
-
-Release Date: November 3, 2021 [eBook #66659]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-Produced by: Susan Skinner, Eric Hutton and the Online Distributed
- Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
- produced from images generously made available by The Internet
- Archive)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR
-LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, FIFTH SERIES, NO. 50, VOL. I, DECEMBER 13,
-1884 ***
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration:
-
-CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
-
-OF
-
-POPULAR
-
-LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART
-
-Fifth Series
-
-ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832
-
-CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)
-
-NO. 50.—VOL. I. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1884. PRICE 1½_d._]
-
-
-
-
-A GLACIER GARDEN.
-
-
-The glacier garden lies far away on a steep hillside by the Lake of
-the Forest Cantons. Close to the picturesque town of Lucerne, a little
-path leads past the sandstone crag on which is hewn Thorwaldsen’s
-famous monument, to the small inclosed space, overshadowed by trees,
-where have recently been discovered vestiges of the most remote days
-in the youth of our old mother-earth. Hidden away amongst tangled fern
-and bright green grass, we see huge surfaces of native rock, some
-furrowed with parallel lines, others, with curious petrifactions of
-the sea; and giant boulders smoothed and polished that do not in the
-least resemble the surrounding rocks, but which are travellers from the
-Alps, left stranded here by the glaciers in the last great Ice Age. It
-is indeed a wonderful garden, with a wonderful history, and although,
-as unscientific observers, we cannot trace the different phases of
-its development in the dim geological past, still, standing by these
-gray old stones on which have been laid the softening and romantic
-influences of countless ages, it is as if we had pages of the world’s
-history unrolled before our eyes.
-
-The proofs of past glaciers are all around us in the grindings and
-scratchings on the rocks—in the ice-worn stones—and still more in
-the deep smooth circular hollows, which are perhaps the most perfect
-known specimens of the singular phenomena called glacier-mills. These
-erosions have been found also in Scandinavia and in the Jura Mountains,
-and are caused by the rapid whirling of a stone by a stream from the
-melting ice, which in the course of ages scoops out ever deeper and
-wider these cavities in the rock. But in this little garden we can
-trace the origin of the glacier-mills, from the tiny erosion just
-commenced, to the grand basin, twenty feet in diameter, and more than
-thirty feet deep, on whose smooth walls are clearly marked the spiral
-windings caused by the whirling of the stone perpetually from east to
-west. If you take up the glacier-stone that lies at the bottom of this
-mill, you will see not only how strangely round and polished it has
-become, but also that it is composed of totally different rock, and
-must have been transported hither by the great Reuss glacier from the
-granite slopes of the St Gothard.
-
-To look at these polished cavities, nobody would dream that they were
-the mere evidences of the eddying action of an ice-stream upon a small
-fragment of rock, and yet this is exactly what geology teaches us they
-really are; indeed, there is no rock or mineral, even the flint and
-agate, but what is permeable in some degree by the action of water; and
-like granite and marble, most stones are softer and more easily wrought
-before they are dried and hardened by air-seasoning. Are not similar
-effects of the action of torrents in the erosion of rock seen in almost
-every gorge through which rushes a mountain torrent? It seems all but
-incredible that to a little rippling rivulet is due the tremendous
-erosion of many alpine ravines, with their great height and precipitous
-walls. But science tells us very strange tales, even that the mountain
-streams in the present day are depressing the ridges of the Alps
-and the Apennines, raising the plains of Lombardy and Provence, and
-extending the coasts far into the waters of the Adriatic and the
-Mediterranean. Thus it is easy to understand how, at that remote period
-when a vast ice-sheet covered not only our garden but all Switzerland
-from the Alps to the Jura, the loose stones which had become detached
-from the moraine, and were met by some barrier in the ice whirled about
-by rushing water, ground down first the ice, then the rock, and in the
-wear and tear of unnumbered centuries grew round and smooth like the
-basins in which they revolved.
-
-It is very seldom that loose fragments of rock exercise a protective
-power upon the ice; but instances have been met with on the higher
-glaciers of large stones warding off the rain and the radiation of
-the sun from the ice immediately beneath them; so that as the glacier
-wastes and lowers in the course of time, these glacier-tables remain
-fixed upon elevated pillars of ice, which sometimes reach to a height
-of ten or twelve feet above the general level.
-
-At Lucerne, it is impossible to forget, as we wander about the paths
-in this archaic garden, that countless years before the great glaciers
-planed away the old flora from off the face of the land, there was a
-period of tropical heat and tropical vegetation which succeeded the
-earliest epoch in the existence of our globe. Petrifactions of the
-first stages of life are distinctly visible upon, the rocks—relics of a
-primeval ocean.
-
-But with the story of the rocks there is mingled no trace of human
-interest. For them Time has stood still and the seasons brought no
-change, until a few years ago, when the ground being excavated for the
-foundations of a new house, these unsuspected relics were brought to
-light from amongst the sand and pebbles and ice-worn boulders. These
-relics are unconnected even with the first traditions of the people of
-the Alps, and had remained in quiet slumber beneath the glacial débris
-for long ages before the earliest settlers raised their pile-dwellings
-above the blue waters of the lake. Evidence, indeed, has been afforded
-that the lacustrine dwelling-places were inhabited by generations of
-men two thousand, or, as some authorities affirm, six thousand years
-before the Christian era. Amongst the piles of oak, or beech, or fir
-wood, rising occasionally in three or four tiers, one above another, in
-the accumulated waste of animal and vegetable life found at the bottom
-of the lake, were stone celts and other implements of bone or flint,
-memorials of a people who perished at a period beyond the reach of the
-most distant annals; very old, in an historical point of view, although
-in a geological estimate they are but of yesterday. For what is the
-antiquity of the earliest of these relics compared with that of the
-latest records plainly written upon the smooth surface of the rocks?
-
-In the glacier garden we find not only the indefinable charm of a vast
-antiquity, but a suggestiveness of the strange contrast between the
-present and the past. On the one hand there is busy life, noise, warmth
-upon the winding shores of the placid lake, magnificent mountains
-girdled by forest trees, and woven in and out with verdant pastures and
-far-off snow—all things lovely of the earth present before our eyes; on
-the other hand, we have a glimpse into the remote and mysterious past,
-when the sun shone down upon an illimitable white world of snow and ice.
-
-
-
-
-ONE WOMAN’S HISTORY.
-
-
-CHAPTER XII.
-
-Miss Gaisford had found a quiet nook in the lower grounds of the hotel,
-well out of view from the windows, where there was little likelihood of
-being disturbed by the ordinary run of visitors. Now and then, a newly
-married couple, or a pair of turtle-doves who were not yet married, but
-hoped to be before long, would invade her solitude; but such momentary
-interruptions served rather to amuse her than otherwise. ‘Here comes
-another peripatetic romance,’ she would remark to herself. ‘Now, if
-those two young people would only come and sit down beside me, and
-tell me all about it, first one telling me a bit and then the other,
-till I knew their story by heart, they would do me a real kindness,
-and save me a lot of invention. All newly married couples ought to be
-compelled to write their Love Memoirs, which should afterwards be bound
-in volumes (calf), and kept in a sort of Record Office, where we poor
-story-tellers could have access to them whenever we happened to be hard
-up for a plot.’
-
-To this sheltered nook a table and chair had been brought from the
-hotel, and here, on this Friday forenoon, Miss Gaisford was busy
-writing. But she laid down her pen more frequently than was usual with
-her when so employed, and had little fits of musing between times.
-
-‘I’m not i’ the mood this morning, that’s certain,’ she said at last.
-‘My thoughts seem all in a muddle. I can’t get Mora out of my head.
-She puzzles me and makes me uneasy. It’s mental illness, not bodily,
-that keeps her to her room. Colonel Woodruffe had a long talk with her
-on Wednesday, and then drove her back to the hotel, which he would
-scarcely have done, I think, if he had been decisively and finally
-rejected. There’s a mystery somewhere; but Mora is a woman whom one
-cannot question. I have no doubt she will tell me all about it when she
-feels herself at liberty to do so. Meanwhile, it’s a good lesson in
-curbing that curiosity which certain cynical moralists of the inferior
-sex have had the unblushing effrontery to affirm to be the bane of
-ours.—But this is frivolity.’ She dipped her pen in the inkstand, and
-running her eyes over the few lines last written, read them half aloud:
-
-‘“Next moment, Montblazon’s equipage, which was drawn by six coal-black
-steeds, and preceded by two outriders in livery, drew up at the
-palace gates. As the Duc alighted from his chariot, a woman, young
-and beautiful, though in rags, pressed through the crowd till she
-was almost near enough to have touched him. ‘For the love of heaven,
-monseigneur!’ she cried in piteous accents. A gorgeously attired lackey
-would have thrust her back, but an imperious gesture of Montblazon’s
-jewelled hand arrested him. There was something in the expression of
-the woman’s face which struck him as though it were a face seen in a
-dream long ago. Montblazon, who knew not what it was to carry money
-about his person, extracted from the pocket of his embroidered vest a
-diamond—one of a handful which he was in the habit of carrying loose
-about him to give away as whim or charity dictated—and dropped it
-into the woman’s extended palm. Then without waiting for her thanks,
-he strode forward up the palace stairs, and a few moments later found
-himself in a saloon which was lighted by myriads of perfumed wax tapers
-set in sconces of burnished silver. Montblazon, who towered a head
-taller than any one there, gazed round him with a lurid smile.”’
-
-‘Yes, I think that will do,’ said Miss Pen as she took another dip of
-ink. ‘“Lurid smile” is not amiss.’
-
-She was interrupted by the sound of footsteps. She looked up, and as
-she did so, a shade of annoyance flitted across her face. ‘I thought
-that I was safe from her here. I wonder how she has found me out,’ she
-said to herself.
-
-The object of these remarks was none other than Lady Renshaw. It was
-quite by accident that she had discovered Miss Gaisford. The news
-told her by Mr Etheridge had excited her in no common degree; there
-was no one in the hotel that she cared to talk to; so, finding it
-impossible to stay indoors, she had sought relief in the open air. She
-was expecting Bella and Mr Golightly back every minute; meanwhile, she
-was wandering aimlessly about the grounds, and brightened up at the
-sight of Miss Penelope. Here at least was some one she knew—some one
-to talk to. She advanced smilingly. ‘What a number of correspondents
-you must have, dear Miss Gaisford,’ said her ladyship after a few words
-of greeting. ‘You seem to spend half your time in writing.’ She was
-glancing sharply at Miss Pen’s closely covered sheets of manuscript.
-
-‘Yes, I do write a good deal,’ answered the latter as she began to
-put her sheets in order. ‘I rather like it. Between you and me, when
-Septimus is busy other ways, or is enjoying his holiday, I sometimes
-try my hand at writing a sermon for him.’
-
-‘Really now! And do the congregation never detect the difference
-between your discourses and his?’
-
-‘I don’t think they trouble their heads a bit about it. So long as we
-don’t make use of too many hard words, and get the sermon well over in
-twenty minutes, they are perfectly satisfied.’
-
-Lady Renshaw was in possession of a certain secret, and although she
-had given her word that she would not reveal it for the present, it
-was too much to expect of poor human nature that she should not make
-some allusion to it, if the opportunity were given her, especially in
-conversation with another of her own sex.
-
-‘I understand that we are likely to have one or two important arrivals
-at the hotel this evening,’ she remarked with studied indifference, as
-she shook a little dust off the flounces of her dress.
-
-‘Indeed. A Russian Prince, an Ambassador, an Emperor travelling incog.,
-or whom?’
-
-‘Dear me, no!—nobody of that kind. But my lips are sealed. I must not
-say more.’
-
-‘Then why did you say anything?’ remarked Miss Pen to herself.
-
-‘Still, when you come to know, I feel sure that you will be
-surprised—very greatly surprised. Strange events may happen here before
-to-morrow. But I dare not say more, so you must not press me.’
-
-‘I won’t,’ responded Miss Pen emphatically.
-
-‘Why, I declare, yonder come my darling Bella and Mr Golightly! I’ve
-been looking out for them this hour or more.—You will excuse me, my
-dear Miss Gaisford, I’m sure.’
-
-‘Certainly,’ was the uncompromising reply.
-
-Her ladyship smiled and nodded, and then tripped away as lightly and
-gracefully as a youthful elephant might have done.
-
-‘Now, what _can_ the old nincompoop mean?’ asked Miss Pen of herself.
-‘That there is some meaning in her words, I do not doubt. She is no
-friend of Mora, I feel sure. Can what she said have any reference to
-her? But I’m altogether in the dark, and it’s no use worrying. If
-there’s trouble in the wind, we shall know about it soon enough.’
-
- * * * * *
-
-‘He has proposed—I know it from his manner,’ exclaimed Lady Renshaw to
-her niece as soon as they were alone in the hotel; ‘so it’s no use your
-telling me that he hasn’t.’
-
-‘I had no intention of telling you anything of the kind,’ answered the
-girl demurely.
-
-‘What did you say to him in reply?’
-
-‘Very little. You told me not to say much. Besides,’ added Bella slily,
-‘he seemed to like to do most of the talking himself.’
-
-‘Men generally do at such times.—But didn’t the young man say anything
-about speaking to me?’
-
-‘O yes, aunt.’
-
-‘And very properly so, too. But you need not refer him to me just
-at present; I will give you a hint when the proper time arrives.
-Meanwhile, I hope you will not allow yourself to get entangled to such
-an extent that you won’t be able to extricate yourself, should it
-become necessary to do so.’
-
-Bella was taken with a sudden fit of sneezing.
-
-‘Mr Archie Ridsdale’s affair is by no means a _fait accompli_,’
-continued her ladyship; ‘and we shall see what we shall see in the
-course of the next few hours.’ She nodded her head with an air of
-mystery and tried to look oracular.
-
-Presently Bella pleaded a headache and escaped to her own room.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Clarice was at the station at least twenty minutes before the train by
-which Archie was to travel could by any possibility arrive. It showed
-great remissness on the part of the railway people, considering how
-anxious she was for her sweetheart’s arrival, that this very train
-should be five minutes and fourteen seconds late. Such gross disregard
-of the feelings of young ladies in love ought to be severely dealt with.
-
-At length the train steamed slowly in, with Archie’s head and half his
-long body protruding from the window, to the annoyance of every other
-passenger in the compartment. He was out of the train before any one
-else, and as it glided slowly forward before coming to a stand, those
-inside were favoured with a sort of panoramic glimpse of a very pretty
-girl being seized, hugged, and unblushingly kissed by a young fellow,
-to whom, at that moment, the code of small social proprieties was
-evidently a dead letter.
-
-‘What about your father?’ asked Clarice as soon as she had recovered
-her breath in some measure and had given a tug or two to her
-disarranged attire.
-
-‘What about him?’ queried Archie, who was looking after his portmanteau.
-
-‘Of course he has not come down by this train, or you would have
-travelled together. But I suppose you know he’s expected at the
-_Palatine_ to-night—at least so Mr Etheridge told me.’
-
-‘Etheridge! is he here?’
-
-‘Yes; didn’t you know? He reached here a few hours after you left for
-London. He brought a letter for you from your father all the way from
-Spa.’
-
-Archie scratched his head: even heroes go through that undignified
-process occasionally. ‘Upon my word, I don’t know what to make of the
-governor,’ he said. ‘He seems to get more crotchety every day. Here,
-according to what you say, he sends poor Etheridge all the way from Spa
-as the bearer of a letter which any other man would have intrusted to
-the post; then he apparently changes his mind and telegraphs for me to
-meet him in London. To London I go, and there wait, dangling my heels;
-but no Mr Governor turns up. Then Blatchett receives a telegram from
-somewhere—by-the-bye, he never told me where he did receive it from—in
-which I am instructed to return to Windermere immediately, and am told
-that my long-lost papa will meet his boy there. It’s jolly aggravating,
-to say the least of it.’
-
-‘Mr Etheridge says that Sir William may perhaps want to see me. O
-Archie, I was never so frightened in my life!’
-
-He soothed and petted her after the fashion which young men are
-supposed to find effectual in such cases, and presently they drew up at
-the hotel.
-
-They went at once to the sitting-room, the only inmates of which they
-found to be Lady Renshaw, Bella, and Mr Golightly. The last had come
-to inquire whether Miss Wynter would go for a row on the lake after
-dinner. If she would, there was a particular boat which he would like
-to engage beforehand.
-
-Lady Renshaw was doubtful. She was inclined to think that Bella had
-caught cold on the lake in the morning. She had sneezed more than once.
-It would scarcely be advisable, her ladyship thought, for Miss Wynter
-to venture on the water again in the chill of the evening. Besides, the
-clouds looked threatening, and to be caught in a storm on the lake, she
-had been told, was dangerous.
-
-In short, without exactly wishing to discourage Mr Golightly, she was
-desirous of damping his ardour in some measure for the time being. Till
-she should be able to judge how events were likely to shape themselves,
-he must not be allowed too many opportunities of being alone with
-Bella; perhaps even, at the end, it might become necessary to give him
-the cold shoulder altogether.
-
-Lady Renshaw was in the midst of her platitudes when Archie and Clarice
-entered the room. On their way from the station Clarice had spoken of
-her sister’s indisposition, so that Archie was prepared not to find
-Madame De Vigne downstairs; but probably he had hardly counted upon
-coming so unexpectedly on her ladyship. As, however, she was there, the
-only possibility left him was to look as pleasant as possible.
-
-He greeted her with as much cordiality as he could summon up at a
-moment’s notice, and then he turned to Miss Wynter, whose pretty
-face he was really pleased to see again. There was a hidden meaning
-laughing out of his eyes as he shook hands with her. It was as though
-he had said: ‘You naughty girl, I should like to spoil your little
-game, just for the fun of the thing, but I won’t.’
-
-He did spoil it, however, a moment later, all unwittingly. Turning to
-Dick, who appeared to be gazing abstractedly out of one of the windows,
-he gave him a hearty slap on the shoulder. ‘Dulcimer, old chappie, how
-are you? Delighted to see you again.’
-
-Next moment he could have bitten his tongue out.
-
-‘Dulcimer!’ shrieked her ladyship, whose ears had caught the name.
-
-The young people turned and stared at each other in blank dismay. Dick
-shrugged his shoulders, and was the first to recover his _sang-froid_.
-The moment had come for him to take the bull by the horns.
-
-‘Dulcimer!’ again exclaimed her ladyship in a tone of hopeless
-bewilderment, that was at once both ludicrous and pathetic, as she
-glanced at the dismayed faces around her.
-
-‘Even so, Lady Renshaw. I am Richard Dulcimer, at your service.’ He
-spoke as quietly as though he were mentioning some fact of everyday
-occurrence.
-
-‘You, that Richard Dulcimer—that impudent pretender—that—that
-cockatrice, who used to follow my niece about in London wherever she
-went! No, no’—peering into his face—‘I cannot believe it. You are
-amusing yourself at my expense.’
-
-‘Nevertheless, unless I was changed at nurse, I am that cockatrice,
-Richard Dulcimer. As any further attempt at concealment would be
-useless, if your ladyship will permit me, I will enlighten you in a few
-words.’
-
-She only stared at him, breathing very hard, but otherwise showing by
-no sign that she heard what he was saying.
-
-‘I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Wynter on several occasions in
-London,’ resumed Dick. ‘Whether your ladyship believes it or not, I
-fell in love with her, hopelessly and irremediably. I am a poor man,
-and you scouted my pretensions, and forbade your niece ever to speak
-to me again. It is not in my province to blame your ladyship for doing
-that which you deemed to be for Miss Wynter’s advantage; but it by no
-means followed that I should fall in with your views. I heard that you
-and Miss Wynter were coming to this place, and I determined to follow
-you. Had I not made some change in my appearance, you would at once
-have recognised me, and my plans would have been frustrated. I took off
-my beard and moustache, dyed my hair and eyebrows, donned a clerical
-costume which I happened to have by me for another purpose, and trusted
-to my good fortune to escape detection. The rest is known to your
-ladyship.’
-
-‘The rest—yes. You said that your name was Golightly, and you
-introduced yourself to me as the son of the Bishop of Melminster, which
-shows plainly what a wicked wretch you must be.’
-
-‘Your ladyship must excuse me if I set you right as regards the facts
-of the case. I said that my name was Golightly. So it is—Richard
-Golightly Dulcimer; but I never said, nor even hinted, that I was
-the son of Bishop Golightly. It was your ladyship who arrived at that
-conclusion by some process of reasoning best known to yourself.’
-
-‘Oh!’ was all that her ladyship could find to say at the moment.
-
-Archie and Clarice stole quietly out of the room.
-
-Lady Renshaw turned to her niece. ‘Am I to presume, Miss Wynter, that
-you have been a party to this vile fraud?’ she asked in her iciest
-tones. ‘Am I to understand that you have known all along that this
-person was Mr Dulcimer, and that you have been cognisant of this wicked
-conspiracy?’
-
-Bella hung her head.
-
-‘Your silence convicts you. It is even so, then. I have nourished a
-viper, and knew it not. But, understand me, from this time I discard
-you; I cast you off; I have done with you for ever!’
-
-Tears sprang to the girl’s eyes. ‘O aunt, forgive me!’ she exclaimed as
-she sprang forward and tried to clasp her ladyship’s hand.
-
-The latter drew back a step or two and waved her away. ‘Touch me not!’
-she said. ‘Henceforth, you and I are strangers. You have chosen to
-sacrifice me for the sake of this impostor. Marry him—you can do no
-less now—and become a pauper’s wife for the rest of your days. That is
-your fate.’
-
-Lady Renshaw turned without another word, drew her skirts closer around
-her, and stalked slowly out of the room.
-
-The weeping girl would have hurried after her, had not Dick put his arm
-round her and held her fast.
-
-‘No,’ he said; ‘you shall not go just yet. She wants to make you
-believe that she is an ill-used victim, whereas it is you who have been
-the victim all along. Yes, the victim of her greed, her selfishness,
-and her willingness to sacrifice you for the sake of her own social
-advancement. What would she have cared whom you married, or whether you
-were happy or miserable, if only, by your means, she could have climbed
-one rung higher on the ladder of her ambition! Here is the proof: Now
-that she finds you are no longer of use to her for the furtherance of
-her schemes, she casts you off with as little compunction as she would
-an old glove. Dearest, she is not worth your tears!’
-
-But Bella’s tears were not so readily stanched, and for a time she
-refused to be comforted.
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII.
-
-Half an hour later, as Lady Renshaw was sitting alone in her room,
-musing in bitterness of spirit on the mutability of human affairs, a
-message was brought her. Sir William Ridsdale’s compliments to Lady
-Renshaw, and would her ladyship favour him with her company for a few
-minutes in his apartments?
-
-She rose with a sigh. Her anticipated triumph was shorn of half its
-glory. Archie Ridsdale might be a free man to-morrow, and it would
-matter nothing now, as far as she was concerned. Bella had made a fool
-of herself, and doubtless Archie had all along been a party to the
-deception. This thought coming suddenly, revived her like a stimulant.
-What would her disappointment be in comparison with his humiliation
-when he should learn that which his father had to tell him! Then there
-was that haughty Madame De Vigne. For her, too, the hour of humiliation
-was at hand. As she thought of these things, while on her way to Sir
-William’s room, Lady Renshaw’s spirits rose again. She felt that life
-had still some compensations for her.
-
-A staid-looking man-servant ushered her into the room. She gazed round;
-but there was no one to be seen save Colonel Woodruffe, who was a
-stranger to her, and Mr Etheridge. The latter rose and advanced with
-his thin, faint smile.
-
-‘I was given to understand that I should find Sir William Ridsdale
-here,’ said her ladyship in a somewhat aggrieved tone.
-
-‘I am Sir William Ridsdale, very much at your service,’ was the quiet
-reply of the smiling, white-haired gentleman before her.
-
-Probably in the whole course of her life Lady Renshaw had never been so
-much taken aback as she was at that moment. She literally gasped for
-words, but none came.
-
-‘Will you not be seated?’ said the baronet; and with that he led her to
-a chair, and then he drew up another for himself a little distance away.
-
-‘I will give your ladyship credit for at once appreciating the motives
-by which I was influenced in acting as I have acted. I came here
-incognito in order that I might be able to see and judge for myself
-respecting certain matters which might possibly very materially affect
-both my son’s future and my own. Archie was got out of the way for a
-day or two; and the only person who knew me not to be Mr Etheridge was
-my old friend here, Colonel Woodruffe, to whom, by-the-bye, I must
-introduce your ladyship.’
-
-‘It was really too bad of you, Sir William, to hoax us all in the way
-you have done,’ simpered her ladyship when the process of introduction
-to the colonel was over. She did not forget that elderly baronets have
-occasionally fallen victims to the wiles of good-looking widows. ‘But
-for my part, I must confess that from the first I had my suspicions
-that you were not the person you gave yourself out to be. There was
-about you a sort of _je ne sais quoi_, an impalpable something, which
-caused me more than once to say to myself: “Any one can see that that
-dear Mr Etheridge is a gentleman born and bred—one who has been in
-the habit of moving in superior circles. He must have known reverses.
-Evidently, at one period of his life, he has occupied a position very
-different from that of an amanuensis.”’
-
-‘Madam, you flatter me,’ replied the baronet with a grave inclination
-of the head. ‘As I have had occasion to remark before, your ladyship’s
-acumen is something phenomenal.’
-
-The widow was rather doubtful as to the meaning of ‘acumen;’ but she
-accepted it as a compliment. ‘And now, dear Sir William, that you have
-come and seen and judged for yourself, you will have no difficulty in
-making up your mind how to act.’
-
-‘My mind is already made up, Lady Renshaw.’
-
-‘Ah—just so. Under the painful circumstances of the case, you could
-have no hesitation as to the conclusion at which you ought to arrive.
-What a fortunate thing that I happened to find that scrap of paper in
-the way I did!’
-
-‘Very fortunate indeed, because, as I remarked this morning, it might
-have fallen into the hands of some one much less discreet than your
-ladyship. As it happened, however, although I did not say so to you at
-the time, it told me nothing that I did not know already.’
-
-‘Nothing that you did not know already!’ gasped her ladyship.
-
-‘Nothing. Madame De Vigne, of her own free will, had already
-commissioned her friend, Colonel Woodruffe, to tell me without
-reservation the whole history of her most unhappy married life.’
-
-‘What an idiot the woman must be!’ was her ladyship’s unspoken comment;
-but she only stared into the baronet’s face in blank amazement.
-Recovering herself with an effort, she said with a cunning smile:
-‘People sometimes make a merit of confessing that which they can no
-longer conceal. You will know how to appraise such a statement at its
-proper worth. You say that your mind is already made up, Sir William. I
-think that from the first there could be no doubt as to what the result
-would be.’
-
-‘Very little doubt, indeed,’ he answered drily. ‘For instance, here is
-a proof of it.’
-
-He rose as he spoke, and crossed to the opposite side of the room,
-where was a window set in an alcove, which just at present was
-partially shrouded by a heavy curtain. With a quick movement of
-the hand, Sir William drew back the curtain, and revealed, to Lady
-Renshaw’s astonished gaze, Mr Archie Ridsdale sitting with a skein of
-silk on his uplifted hands in close proximity to Miss Loraine, who was
-in the act of winding the silk into a ball. The young people started
-to their feet in dismay as the curtain was drawn back. It was a pretty
-picture. ‘There’s no need to disturb yourselves,’ said Sir William
-smilingly; ‘I only wanted to give her ladyship a pleasant surprise.’
-With that he let fall the curtain and went back to his chair.
-
-‘A pleasant surprise, indeed! You don’t mean to say, Sir William’—— Her
-ladyship choked and stopped.
-
-‘I mean to say, Lady Renshaw, that in Miss Loraine you behold my son’s
-future wife. He has chosen wisely and well; and that his married life
-will be a happy one, I do not doubt. In the assumed character of Mr
-Etheridge, I made the acquaintance of Miss Loraine, so that I am no
-stranger to her sweet temper and fine disposition. If anything, she is
-just a leetle too good for Master Archie.’
-
-Lady Renshaw felt as if the ground were heaving under her feet. In
-fact, at that moment an earthquake would hardly have astonished her.
-Most truly had Sir William been termed an eccentric man: he was more
-than eccentric—he was mad! She had only one shaft more left in her
-quiver, but that was tipped with venom.
-
-‘Then poor Archie, when he marries, will be brother-in-law to a person
-whose husband was or is a convict,’ she murmured presently, more as if
-communing sorrowfully with herself, than addressing Sir William. Her
-eyes were fixed on the cornice pole of one of the windows; and when she
-shook her head, which she did with an air of profound melancholy, she
-seemed to be shaking it at that useful piece of furniture. Sir William
-and Colonel Woodruffe exchanged glances. Then the baronet said: ‘Will
-you oblige me, Lady Renshaw?’
-
-He led the way to the opposite end of the room, where anything they
-might say would be less likely to be overheard by the young people
-behind the curtain. ‘Yes, as your ladyship very justly observes,’
-said the baronet, ‘when my son marries Miss Loraine, he will be
-brother-in-law to an ex-convict—for the fellow is alive—to a man whom I
-verily believe to be one of the biggest scoundrels on the face of the
-earth. It will be a great misfortune, I grant you, but one which, under
-the circumstances, can in nowise be helped.’
-
-‘It will be one that the world will never tire of talking about.’
-
-‘Poor Madame De Vigne! I pity her from the bottom of my heart; and you
-yourself, as a woman, Lady Renshaw, can hardly fail to do the same.’
-
-Lady Renshaw shrugged her shoulders, but was silent.
-
-‘What a misfortune for her, to be entrapped through a father’s
-selfishness, when a girl just fresh from school, into marriage with
-such a villain!’ resumed the baronet. ‘But in what way could she
-possibly have helped herself? Alas! in such a case there is no help
-for a woman. When—years after he had robbed and deserted her, and had
-fallen into the clutches of the law—she received the news of his death,
-it was impossible that she should feel anything but thankfulness for
-her release. Time went on, and she had no reason to doubt the fact of
-her widowhood, when suddenly, only three days ago, her husband turned
-up—here! I have told you all this, Lady Renshaw, in order that you may
-know the truth of the case as it now stands, and not be led away by any
-distorted version of it. Ah, poor Madame De Vigne! How was she to help
-herself?’
-
-‘That is not a question I am called upon to answer—it is not one that
-the world will even condescend to ask. The fact still remains that she
-is a convict’s wife, and as such the world will judge her.’
-
-‘Yes, yes; I know that what we term the world deals very hardly in such
-matters—that the innocent are too often confounded with the guilty.
-But in this case at least, the world need never be any wiser than it
-is now. The secret of Madame De Vigne’s life is known to three people
-only—to you, whom a singular accident put in possession of part of it;
-to Colonel Woodruffe; and to myself. Not even her sister is acquainted
-with the story of her married life. Such being the case, we three have
-only to keep our own counsel; we have only to determine that not one
-word of what we know respecting this most unhappy history shall ever
-pass our lips, and loyally and faithfully carry out that determination,
-and the world need never know more of the past life of Madame De Vigne
-than it knows at the present moment. As for the fellow himself, I shall
-know how to keep his tongue quiet. I am sure that you agree with me,
-dear Lady Renshaw.’
-
-A vindictive gleam came into her ladyship’s eyes. The time had come
-for her to show her claws. Such a moment compensated for much that had
-preceded it.
-
-She laughed a little discordant laugh. ‘Really, Sir William, who would
-have thought there was so much latent romance in your composition?
-Who would have dreamt of your setting up as the champion of Beauty in
-distress? To be sure, if you persevere in your present arrangements,
-this Madame De Vigne will become a connection of your own, and regarded
-from that point of view, I can quite understand your anxiety to hush
-up the particulars of her very ugly story. Family scandals are things
-always to be avoided, are they not, Sir William?’
-
-‘Always, Lady Renshaw—when practicable.’
-
-‘Just so. But as Madame De Vigne, thank heaven! will be no connection
-of mine either near or distant, you will pardon me if I hardly see
-the necessity for such extreme reticence on my part. The world will
-get to know that I have been mixed up to a certain extent in this
-affair—somehow, it always does get to know such things—and I shall
-be questioned on every side. What am I to say? What reply am I to
-make to such questions? Am I to tell an untruth, and say that I know
-nothing—that I am in absolute ignorance? Or am I to prevaricate, and
-insinuate, for instance, that Madame De Vigne is a lady of the highest
-respectability and of unblemished antecedents—a person, in short, whom
-any family might be proud to count as one of themselves? You will
-admit, Sir William, that the position in which I shall be placed will
-be a most embarrassing one?’
-
-‘Most embarrassing indeed, Lady Renshaw—almost as much so, in fact, as
-if some one were to say to you: “I was past your grandfather’s shop in
-Drury Lane the other day. The place looks precisely as it did forty
-years ago. Nothing is changed except the name over the door.” That
-might be rather embarrassing to you, might it not?’
-
-All at once Lady Renshaw looked as if she were about to faint. The
-rouge on her cheeks showed up in ghastly mockery of the death-like
-pallor which had overspread the rest of her face. Her lips twitched
-convulsively. She sat staring at Sir William, unable to utter a word.
-
-‘In most families, Lady Renshaw, nay, in most individual lives,
-there are certain secrets, certain private matters, which concern
-ourselves alone, and about which we would infinitely prefer that the
-world, and perhaps even our most intimate friends, should remain in
-happy ignorance. It could be no gratification to your ladyship, for
-instance, if the circle of your acquaintance were made aware that
-your grandfather started in life as a rag and bone merchant in the
-fashionable locality just named—“Solomon Izzard” was the name painted
-over his door—and that your ladyship first saw the light under the
-roof of that unsavoury emporium. No; certainly that could be no
-gratification to you. Your father at that time was just beginning to
-lay the foundation of the fortune which he subsequently accumulated as
-a speculative builder. My father owned certain house property in the
-neighbourhood, and he employed your father to look after the repairs.
-Hence it was that, on two occasions when little more than a youth, I
-was sent with business messages to the Lane, and it was on one of those
-occasions that I first had the distinguished pleasure of meeting your
-ladyship. You were a mere child at the time, and your father used to
-call you “Peggy,” if I mistake not. He was holding you in his arms,
-and you struggled to get down; but he would not let you go. “She wants
-to be off with the other children,” he said to me; “and then she gets
-playing in the gutter, and makes a nice mess of herself.” Those were
-his exact words. Your ladyship will pardon me for saying that you
-struck me at the time as being a remarkably pretty child, although it
-is possible that your face might with advantage have been a little
-cleaner than it was.’
-
-Never before in the whole course of her life had Lady Renshaw had
-the tables turned on her in such fashion. Scalding tears of rage and
-mortification sprang to her eyes, but she bit her lip hard and kept
-them back. At the moment, she felt as if she could willingly have
-stabbed Sir William to the heart.
-
-She sat without uttering a word. What, indeed, could she find to say?
-
-‘Come, come, Lady Renshaw,’ resumed Sir William smilingly; ‘there is
-no occasion for you to be downhearted. The best thing that you and I
-can do will be to draw up and sign—metaphorically—a treaty of peace,
-to which Woodruffe here shall act as witness. The terms of the treaty
-shall be these: you on your part shall promise to keep locked up in
-your bosom as a sacred secret, not even to be hinted at to your dearest
-friend, that knowledge respecting the married life of Madame De Vigne
-which has come so strangely into your possession; while I on my part
-will promise faithfully to keep undivulged those particulars concerning
-your ladyship’s early career of which I have just made mention—which,
-and others too that I could mention, although you could in nowise help
-them, I feel sure that you would not care to have published on the
-housetops. Come, what say you, shall it be a compact between us?’
-
-‘As you please,’ she answered sullenly as she rose from her chair,
-adding with a contemptuous shrug, ‘I have no wish to injure Madame De
-Vigne.’
-
-‘Nor I the slightest desire to humiliate Lady Renshaw.’
-
-Was it possible that this man, whose tongue knew how to stab so keenly,
-could really be the same individual as mild-mannered, soft-spoken Mr
-Etheridge, who had seemed as if he could hardly say Bo to a goose!
-
-Her ladyship seemed to hesitate for a moment or two; then she said:
-‘I will see you again to-morrow—when you are alone,’ with a little
-vindictive glance at the impassive Colonel Woodruffe.
-
-‘I shall be at your ladyship’s command whenever and wherever may suit
-you best.’
-
-He crossed to the door, opened it, and made her one of his most stately
-bows as she walked slowly out, with head erect and eyes that stared
-straight before her, but with rage and bitter mortification gnawing at
-her heartstrings.
-
-‘We have still that scoundrel of a Laroche to reckon with,’ said Sir
-William quietly to the colonel as he shut the door upon her ladyship.
-
-
-
-
-RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ANGLO-INDIAN CHAPLAIN.
-
-BANGALORE—THE ENGLISH CANTONMENT.
-
-
-About a mile distant from the old fort and city of Bangalore are
-the English cantonment and modern native town. Conceive a field or
-parade-ground a mile and a half in length and a quarter of a mile
-in breadth, lined on each side by avenues of large beautiful trees,
-overshadowing the encircling footpath and carriage-drive. Along the
-southern boundary of this parade-ground are the houses and shops of
-the Europeans and Eurasians; whilst to the north are lines of barracks
-for both European and native troops, from the midst of which rises
-prominently the tower of St Andrew’s Church, which is, or was, the
-finest and highest building in Bangalore. Many are the beautiful roads
-stretching away from this parade-ground into the country, where are the
-picturesque dwelling-houses of civilians and officers, whose encircling
-gardens all the year round are in perpetual bloom—for Bangalore,
-though in a tropical region, has an Italian climate. The fortunate
-Europeans who are stationed there are not scorched up by the terrible
-heat under which their unlucky countrymen must swelter at Madras and
-in the southern plains; and Christmas comes to them at Bangalore, not
-wreathed with snowflakes and pendent with icicles, as it does to us,
-but beautiful with roses and variegated garlands of flowers.
-
-It was rather a novel thing for my friends Dr Norman Macleod and Dr
-Watson to be taken on a New-year’s day, as I took them in 1868, to a
-magnificent show of flowers and fruits in the ‘Lall-baugh’ Gardens of
-Bangalore. In his usual happy style, the celebrated Norman thus relates
-his visit: ‘The European quarter is as different from the Pettah as
-Belgravia is from the east end of London. Here the houses are in their
-own compounds with shrubs and flower-gardens quite fresh and blooming.
-Open park-like spaces meet the eye everywhere, with broad roads as
-smooth and beautiful as the most finished in England. Equipages whirl
-along, and ladies and gentlemen ride by on horseback. One catches a
-glimpse of a church tower or steeple; and these things, together with
-the genial air, make one feel once more at home; at all events, in a
-bit of territory which seems cut out of home and settled in India.
-There are delightful drives, one to the Lall-baugh laid out in the
-last century by Hyder Ali. Our home feeling was greatly intensified
-by attending a flower-show. There was the usual military band; and
-crowds of carriages conveyed fashionable parties to the entrance.
-Military officers and civil servants of every grade were there, up
-to Mr Bowring, Chief Commissioner of Mysore. The most remarkable and
-interesting spectacles to me were the splendid vegetables of every
-kind, including potatoes which would have delighted an Irishman; leeks
-and onions to be remembered, like those of Egypt; cabbages, turnips,
-cauliflowers, peas, beans, such as England could hardly equal; splendid
-fruit, apples, peaches, oranges, figs, and pomegranates; the display
-culminating in a magnificent array of flowers, none of which pleased
-me more than the beautiful roses, so redolent of home. Such were the
-sights of a winter’s day at Bangalore.’
-
-Around the English cantonment, more especially on the north side of
-it, is the modern town of Bangalore, containing about sixty or seventy
-thousand inhabitants, who are chiefly Tamulians, the descendants of
-those native camp-followers and adherents who accompanied the British
-forces from Madras and the plains of the Carnatic when they conquered
-and took possession of the land. There are likewise at Bangalore a
-goodly number of English and Irish pensioners, who have chosen rather
-to abide in India than come back to this country; and certainly, with
-scanty means, they are better off there in a warm and genial clime than
-they would be here, with our long and dreary cold and icy winters. And
-when those pensioners are sober and industrious, they have abundant
-opportunities in India to enable them to support themselves and their
-families in great comfort, and even to become what we Scotch people
-call ‘bein folk.’ I could give many pleasing instances from amongst
-them of ‘success in life.’ I knew three Scotch gentlemen who were
-highly respected bank agents, and who had gone to India as artillerymen
-in the Honourable East India Company’s service. But although it be
-thus a pleasant fact that many of our pensioned soldiers have done
-well and prospered in India, yet it is melancholy to relate that a
-goodly portion of them are sadly wanting in sobriety and industry, and
-consequently their continued stay in that country is not for good,
-but for evil. So impressed was I with this that, when asked by a high
-military official for my opinion as to whether the government ought
-to give greater encouragement to the time-served soldiers to settle
-permanently in India, I at once and decidedly said No; because, when
-freed from military discipline, their lives too frequently were such
-that they lowered the prestige of the English name, and helped to
-injure the salutary respect which the natives have hitherto had for
-their white-faced rulers.
-
-In a pretty little village near Madras, called Poonamalee, as well
-as in Bangalore, there dwell very many of those pensioners with
-their families. I was wont to pay periodical visits to this place on
-professional duty; and certainly I found it at first not only strange
-but grotesque to see young men and maidens and numerous children,
-with faces as black as a minister’s coat, but yet bearing some good
-old Scottish name, and speaking the English with an accent as if they
-had been born and bred in the wilds of Lochaber. My beadle, as sable
-a youth as could be, was a M‘Cormick, and proudly claimed to be an
-Inverness-shire man. I remember, towards the close of the Mutiny,
-of driving with my wife, on a moonlight evening through a beautiful
-‘tope’ of palm-trees, when suddenly our ears caught the distant strain
-of the bagpipes. There was no mistaking it; faint though it was, we
-could distinguish it floating and wailing through the silent night as
-_M‘Clymont’s Lament_. Gradually the music became louder, until we were
-able to discover whence it emanated. I got out of the carriage before
-an opening in the trees, and winding my way by a narrow path, I came
-at last to a small bungalow where a man was strutting up and down the
-veranda playing on a genuine pair of Scottish bagpipes. His garments
-were white, but his face was perfectly black. He was astonished at my
-appearance, and so was I at his; and my astonishment was not diminished
-when in answer to a question as to his name, he replied to me in a
-pleasant Argyllshire accent: ‘My name is Coll M‘Gregor, sir; and my
-father was a piper in the forty-second Highlanders, and I believe he
-came from a place they called Inveraray.’ Poor M‘Gregor! from that
-night I knew him well. Black though he was, he was a most worthy man;
-and one of the last sad duties I performed ere leaving India was to
-visit him when dying in the hospital, and to bury him when dead amongst
-the sleeping Scotchmen in St Andrew’s churchyard.
-
-In the _Illustrated London News_ there is a picture entitled ‘Recruits’
-which gives a very faithful representation of the composition of the
-British army. A smart recruiting sergeant is leading away captive a
-batch of young men—the thoughtless, reckless shopboy, the clownish
-rustic, the discontented artisan, and the downcast ‘young gentleman’
-who has wasted his substance in riotous living. The picture rekindles
-in my memory several instances of the last-mentioned type. In the
-following stories, it will be seen, from obvious reasons, that where
-names are mentioned, these are fictitious.
-
-There is a clump of trees in the immediate vicinity of Bangalore which
-is known as ‘the Dead-man’s Tope.’ In it there is a solitary grave,
-that of a young Scotchman. For many years the natives alleged that his
-‘ghost’ was to be seen walking mournfully amongst the trees, for they
-said he could not rest until his appointed years had been fulfilled.
-He had been a corporal in a Scotch regiment stationed in Bangalore,
-beloved by all his comrades, but unfortunately hated by the sergeant
-of his company. At last, goaded by the unjust treatment he received
-from this sergeant, he struck him down in a moment of passion. In those
-days, discipline was stern; the young corporal was tried, and condemned
-to be hanged in the presence of the whole garrison. The execution
-took place; but so great was the feeling against the sergeant, that
-he had to be sent away from the regiment down to Madras, protected
-by a military escort. The general officer who told me this story was
-a witness of this sad scene, and was the interpreter to the native
-soldiers of the reason of the execution. That young corporal belonged
-to Glasgow, and was connected with many respectable families in the
-city.
-
-Here is a happier tale. John Home, after many years’ service in the
-Honourable Company’s artillery, retired on a pension, and settled at
-Bangalore. He became editor of a small local paper, and so for a few
-years was a prominent member of the community. He married, and had an
-only son. This boy was but an infant when the father died, his death
-being hastened by intemperate living. On Home’s private writing-desk
-being opened, his relations found, to their amazement, a sheet of
-paper with the handwriting of the deceased telling his real name—for
-Home was a fictitious one he had assumed on his enlistment—and whence
-he came, and where his relatives were to be found. These disclosures
-were made, so the paper said, for the only reason that perhaps on some
-future day they might benefit his boy; and were it not for this hope,
-the secret would have gone down with him to the grave. Strange to say,
-not many months elapsed when an advertisement appeared in an Edinburgh
-paper signed by a legal firm, asking for information about this very
-man, giving his real name. Of course the Edinburgh gentlemen were at
-once communicated with; and after all the evidences were submitted,
-and no doubt well scrutinised, the claim of the widow and her child
-was acknowledged. The boy was brought home and educated; and I trust
-still is, what he was a few years ago, the proprietor of a ‘snug little
-estate.’ Such is some of the romance of the ‘rank and file’ of our army.
-
-
-
-
-COLONEL REDGRAVE’S LEGACY.
-
-
-IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER III.
-
-The spinster sisters held a council of war on the day following the
-events we have described. They were not disappointed at the failure of
-the marriage proposals to Miss Fraser; for that young lady was by no
-means the kind of guardian they would select for their brother as a
-bulwark against the troubles and vexations of this mortal life. The way
-was now more clear than ever for the success of their original plan.
-Septimus had learned their ideas and wishes, and had gradually become
-more amenable to reason. The beauty and talent of the handsome widow
-had been fully descanted upon. Nor were her monetary qualifications
-lost sight of by the practical Penelope. The question of suitability as
-to age had been delicately but firmly touched upon by both the sisters.
-
-‘Mrs Fraser is only ten years your junior, Septimus, and that is the
-difference which should always exist between husband and wife. Indeed,
-I see no objection to even a greater disproportion, but that is the
-minimum necessary to conjugal happiness. I am certain that Mrs Fraser
-has a _tendresse_ for you, and that any proposal from you would meet
-with every encouragement.’
-
-Septimus left the room considerably mollified, and immediately after
-he had done so, Penelope turned to her sister, and said: ‘I trust,
-Lavinia, you approve of all I have been saying to dear Septimus?’
-
-‘Entirely, my dear sister; but’—— Lavinia paused.
-
-‘You have always a “but,” Lavinia. Pray, speak out.’
-
-‘Well, I have a suspicion that Mrs Fraser has a lurking sentiment for
-Mr Lockwood.’
-
-‘Good gracious, Lavinia! you certainly conceive the most extraordinary
-notions.’
-
-‘I do not say for a single moment that the sentiment is reciprocated,’
-replied Lavinia.
-
-‘Why, Frank Lockwood is young enough to be her son!’ indignantly
-exclaimed Penelope.
-
-‘Hardly, Penelope, unless Mrs Fraser was marriageable at the age of
-six,’ Lavinia continued. ‘Then I cannot help thinking that Frank is in
-love with Blanche.’
-
-Penelope made a gesture of assent. ‘That is highly probable, and would
-account for her rejection of Septimus.’
-
-Finally, the sisters mutually agreed that it would be politic to
-prepare Mrs Fraser for the possible proposal of their brother.
-
-We trust the reader will not contemptuously label the spinster sisters
-as ‘matchmakers;’ for surely matchmaking is a fitting task for the
-angels, if it be true, as we are often told, that marriages are made in
-heaven.
-
-At this moment the widow chanced to enter the drawing-room where
-the sisters were sitting. Her features still showed traces of the
-disappointment she had recently experienced.
-
-‘We have not seen you all the morning, Mrs Fraser.’
-
-‘I awoke with a slight headache, and sought the solitude of the Chine,
-my sole companion a book,’ replied the widow.
-
-‘I trust you are better?’ said Lavinia.
-
-‘Yes, thanks. I never enjoy Tennyson so much as when surrounded by
-murmuring foliage, and my ears filled with the sound of falling waters.’
-
-‘How charming to have preserved your sentiment till _now_,’ said
-Penelope in marked tones.
-
-This remark may seem ill calculated to put the widow in a good-tempered
-frame of mind. But Miss Redgrave had uttered it advisedly. The more
-fully Mrs Fraser was impressed with her own increasing years and
-fading charms, the more likely she was to listen to the suit of the
-elderly-looking Septimus.
-
-For a moment the widow coloured, as if in anger. ‘That is not exactly a
-complimentary remark, my dear Miss Redgrave.—Now, don’t apologise, for
-I am not in the least offended. How can I be, when I have a daughter,
-not only marriageable, but actually engaged to be married!’
-
-The sisters simultaneously left off their needlework, and gazing in
-astonishment at the speaker, sat as mute as the twin sisters carved in
-stone in the sandy Egyptian desert.
-
-‘Yes; Mr Lockwood has asked my consent to his marriage with Blanche,
-and I have graciously accorded the same. Heigh-ho! it will be a great
-trial for me, when the hour of parting comes.’
-
-‘I congratulate you most sincerely, my dear Mrs Fraser,’ exclaimed
-Penelope. ‘We have known Frank from a child. He is everything that a
-man should be, clever, accomplished, with good prospects, and of high
-moral principles.’
-
-The widow sighed. ‘I shall be very lonely. I have not an affectionate
-sister as you have; and when a woman has once known the happiness
-of married life, and the comfort and protection of an affectionate
-husband, life is indeed a blank when she is left utterly alone.’
-
-Like a second Wellington, Penelope saw her chances of a successful
-attack. In love and war, the occasion is everything. She gently laid
-her spare fingers on the plump hand of the widow, and softly whispered:
-‘Why should you be utterly alone, dear friend?’
-
-Mrs Fraser directed an inquiring glance in response at the speaker.
-
-‘We know of one who would be only too happy to be your companion for
-life,’ pursued Penelope. ‘Of a suitable age, amiable, and rich.’
-
-The countenance of the widow was suffused with a soft blush as she
-said: ‘Where shall I find this earthly treasure?’
-
-‘In this house, Mrs Fraser. Our beloved brother, Septimus.’
-
-Mrs Fraser had much ado to avoid making a wry face, as she mentally
-contrasted the white-haired ‘brother’ with his vacuous expression of
-countenance, and the black-haired Frank Lockwood, with his bright
-intelligent glance and fascinating smile. But it was now quite as
-probable that she would marry the Emperor of China as the solicitor of
-the Redgrave family; so she softly murmured; ‘I had no suspicion of
-anything of the kind.’
-
-Rapidly the widow reviewed all the attendant circumstances of the case.
-Von Moltke himself would have envied her comprehensive glance at the
-pros and cons of an important conjuncture of events. Septimus was of
-good family, of suitable age, possessed of ample means, and last, but
-not least in the eyes of the widow, was not too clever; and therefore,
-in all probability easily manageable, that indispensable desideratum in
-a husband. We are not sure that Mrs Fraser was correct in her deduction
-on this point, for foolish people are frequently obstinate, under the
-false idea that they are thereby displaying firmness.
-
-‘If I were to accept Mr Redgrave on the instant, in consequence of your
-recommendation, my dear Penelope, neither he nor his sisters would
-respect me. I have always found great pleasure in the society of your
-brother, and have a great respect for his character. More, I am sure,
-my dear Penelope, you would neither expect, nor wish me to say.’
-
-Both the sisters cordially kissed the blushing widow, and expressed
-themselves as quite satisfied with the avowal, Penelope adding: ‘I have
-more than a presentiment that in a few weeks we shall be enabled to
-give you the kiss of a sister.’
-
-No more was said on the present occasion.
-
-The widow retired to her chamber, and as she contemplated her
-features in the glass, soliloquised: ‘No—at forty, one must not be
-too particular; and there are twenty thousand excellent reasons why I
-should change my name from Fraser to that of Redgrave.’
-
-It is needless to say that the sisters did not allow the grass to grow
-under their feet with respect to the proposed alliance between the
-families of Redgrave and Fraser. Much stress was laid by them in their
-conversations with the widow as to the shyness of their brother, and
-the necessity of some encouragement being extended to him. At length
-Septimus screwed his courage to the sticking-place and resolved to
-learn his fate. By a singular coincidence, he found the widow seated
-on the identical bench occupied on a similar occasion by her youthful
-daughter. An involuntary sigh escaped him as he mentally instituted a
-comparison between the sylph-like figure of Blanche and the more portly
-form of her mother. As he sat down by her side in response to her
-invitation, he felt his courage oozing away. On the former occasion,
-he had been bold as a lion; but in the presence of the keen-witted
-woman of the world, he fully realised his mental inferiority. Some
-commonplaces ensued, and then Mrs Fraser, laying down the newspaper
-which she held in her hand, suddenly observed: ‘What is your opinion of
-thought-reading, Mr Redgrave? Do you believe in it?’
-
-‘I scarcely know whether I do or not,’ responded Septimus. ‘Do you?’
-
-‘Implicitly,’ replied the widow. ‘Shall I give you a specimen of my
-powers?’
-
-‘I should be delighted. Can you read my thoughts?’ said Septimus.
-
-‘I can. But you must promise two things: That you won’t be offended at
-my guess; and that you candidly admit whether I am correct in my guess.’
-
-‘I promise.’
-
-‘Give me your hand.’
-
-Septimus placed his trembling fingers in the strong grasp of the widow.
-‘You are at this moment contemplating matrimony.’
-
-‘That is correct,’ said Septimus.
-
-‘The lady is a widow.’
-
-‘Wonderful!’ cried Septimus. ‘Can you tell me her name?’
-
-‘My powers do not extend so far,’ returned Mrs Fraser.
-
-‘Your successful guess, my dear Mrs Fraser, has helped me out of a
-great difficulty.’
-
-‘How so?’
-
-‘You have half-performed my task for me. Do you think a lady, handsome,
-rich, and well-bred, and still comparatively young, would consent
-to unite her fortunes with mine? I am some ten or a dozen years her
-senior. I have been a bachelor all my life, and may have thus acquired
-peculiar ways. But I would settle the whole of my cousin’s legacy upon
-her, if she would take pity on my solitary state. Dear Fanny, can you
-not guess, without thought-reading, the name of my enslaver?’
-
-The widow looked down and managed to blush becomingly, and impart a
-slight tremor to the hand which still held that of Septimus.
-
-‘I will not affect to misunderstand you, Mr Redgrave; you are making my
-unworthy self an offer of marriage.’
-
-‘And you accept it?’
-
-‘I do.’
-
-Septimus sealed the contract by a chaste kiss on the cheek of the
-widow, and felt a sensation of inexpressible relief that the Rubicon,
-for good or evil, was passed.
-
-‘I may now tell you, dear Septimus, that Blanche is also engaged.’
-
-‘I know it.’
-
-‘Impossible! I only knew it myself forty-eight hours ago!’
-
-‘Do not ask me at present, dear Fanny. I learned the fact by an
-accident.’
-
-The widow presently retired to her chamber, under the plea of nervous
-agitation, but in reality to inform her daughter of her engagement. But
-it was reserved for Septimus to perform that pleasant duty. Scarcely
-had Mrs Fraser retired, when Blanche appeared on the terrace. ‘Have you
-seen mamma, Mr Redgrave?’
-
-‘Mrs Fraser has this moment left me.—Blanche, I have a favour to ask of
-you.’
-
-‘Of me!’
-
-‘That you will not breathe a syllable to your mamma that I proposed to
-you three days ago; at least, not for the present.’
-
-‘Certainly, Mr Redgrave.’
-
-‘You will at once see the necessity for my request, when I tell you
-that I have this day proposed to another lady and been accepted.’
-
-Blanche indulged in a merry peal of laughter, which she found it
-impossible to repress. ‘Pray, forgive me, Mr Redgrave. I congratulate
-you that you have so speedily recovered from your late rejection.’
-
-‘Yes, Blanche, as I could not be your husband, I have resolved on being
-your father.’
-
-Blanche remained petrified with astonishment for a few seconds, then
-exclaiming: ‘I must go at once to dear mamma and congratulate her,’
-prepared to enter the house.
-
-But Septimus seized her hand and said: ‘Now, tell me the name of _your_
-future partner. Though I shrewdly suspect, yet I think in my new
-position as your father I am entitled to know for certain?’
-
-‘Mr Frank Lockwood,’ replied the blushing girl, as she broke away and
-ran into the house.
-
-There was not a happier circle round a dinner-table in the island than
-that assembled in Oswald Villa that evening. The engaged couples were
-mutually satisfied with their matrimonial prospects, while the spinster
-sisters saw the wish of their hearts gratified in the engagement of
-their beloved brother with so suitable a person as Mrs Fraser. But at
-that moment a cloud was forming on the horizon which was destined to
-effect a great change in the fortunes of the betrothed couples.
-
-
-
-
-A SAMPLE OF MARSALA.
-
-
-Time was, long ago, when certain of us thought that Spain was the place
-where the then despised Marsala wine was made. Struggling to obtain
-the favour and recognition of the public, and held as a kind of humble
-cousin of sherry, cheaper to buy and meaner in all its conditions,
-Marsala had no honour in England some thirty years or so ago. Those who
-gave it gave it for need; and for the most part tried to pawn it off
-as its more aristocratic relation, thinking that no one would suspect
-the truth when that silver label, shaped like a vine-leaf with ‘Sherry’
-cut out in Roman capitals in the centre, was hung round the neck of the
-heavy cut-glass bottle. And as sherry was certainly a Spanish wine,
-the false reasoning born of association of ideas made one think that
-Marsala also was a Spanish wine.
-
-The way to Marsala from Palermo is exceedingly interesting. The country
-is beautiful with all the grand Sicilian beauty—broken foregrounds,
-noble mountain forms, the dark-blue sea, of which the splendour is
-enhanced by the gray green of the olives and the contrast of the golden
-hue given by the lemon-trees hanging thick with fruit. All the waysides
-along the railroad are rich in flowers, making the land look as if
-enamelled. Rugged capes and fertile plains, small smooth exquisite bays
-and inland mountains, orange-gardens and vineyards, fields of pale
-lilac flax, woods of beech and ilex, and rivers running down in song
-to the sea—there is not a feature of Southern scenery wanting on this
-lovely way. And the sea, where the white sails of passing ships gleam
-in the sunlight like the wings of birds, is as beautiful as the land,
-where here a ruined temple crowns a height, and there a modern mansion
-stands sheltered on the slopes. Among the beautiful things of the sea
-is the uninhabited rocky island called ‘The Island of Women’ (_L’isola
-delle femmine_). The legend is that in old times, when pirates
-abounded, the ‘Barbari’ used to seize such hapless Sicilian women as
-they found wandering by the shore, and lodge them on this island till
-they had finished their fighting on shore; when they would return and
-carry off their prey.
-
-In time the beauty of the lovely road fades away, and the country
-becomes utterly uninteresting. Still, even when there is no more
-flowery charm and no more golden colour, there is always association,
-and the way up to Segesta and Solinunto, with the ruined temple visible
-on the crest of the mountain, brings before the mind the long train of
-glorious images by which the ancient history of Sicily is thronged.
-For we are skirting the base of Mount Eryx, now Monte Giuliano,
-whence Acestes the king came down to meet Æneas when he landed on his
-return from Carthage; and where Æneas—so they say—founded the town of
-Acesta, which afterwards became Egesta, and is now Segesta. And all
-the well-known story repeats itself. ‘Selinus rich in palms,’ and ‘the
-shallow waters of Lilybæum’ which were ‘left behind;’ the race, and the
-beauty of the contending youths; poor Dido’s sad story; the death and
-burial of Anchises, the father whom Æneas saved from burning Troy by
-carrying on his shoulders—it is all living and palpitating as in those
-youthful days when imagination touched the pages with light, and made
-the dead words breathe with love and sorrow and passion. It is worth
-coming here, if only to realise Virgil and his matchless poem! But we
-draw up at a station, and the present puts the past to flight—the real
-blots out the ideal born of imagination and poetry.
-
-Armed _carabinieri_ are at every station. This is not usual either
-in Sicily or elsewhere in Italy, where soldiers keep order at the
-stations, but are not so numerous nor so heavily armed as these. The
-district about Trapani, however, in which we are, has not a good
-name; and the government knows what it is about when it takes extra
-measures of precaution for the safety of travellers. That it does take
-these extra measures insures the safety of the wayfarers. At Marsala
-itself, the whole train is taken possession of before it has well come
-to a stand, and long before the passengers have got out. The crowd
-swarms into all three classes indiscriminately; and there is much
-rough pushing and hustling, but no actual brutality. Still, it is
-sufficiently like the return of ’Arry from a Crystal Palace fête to be
-unpleasant; though for all that, the Italian ’Arry is a good-natured
-soul, with no malice in him. What he wants in malice, however, he makes
-up in garlic. There has been an Easter-week procession here—it is
-‘Holy Thursday’—and all the neighbourhood has sent its young men, each
-township and village its quota, till they have come in their hundreds,
-and have to be taken back again the best way they can.
-
-Near Marsala is one of the three promontories which give Sicily its
-name of Trinacria—Cape Lilybeo, the very Lilybæum whose ‘shallows
-blind,’ ‘dangerous through their hidden rocks,’ caused Æneas to land on
-the ‘unlucky shore’ of Drepanum. Here in calm weather you can see the
-remains of houses beneath the sea, as at Pozzuoli, near Naples. But the
-point of the whole visit is the wine-stores of Ingham—the largest and
-most important of all the Marsala wine-factories. These stores seem to
-be interminable; and the perspective of arches, from each side of which
-branch out these huge above-ground cellars, is a sight at once strange
-and picturesque. The _balio_ or inclosure wherein the whole concern
-stands—storehouses, workshops, dwelling-house, garden, fields, &c.—is
-really like a fair-sized estate. To ‘walk in the grounds’ is quite
-enough exercise for any moderate-minded pedestrian. The oldest two
-stores date from 1812, and are the parents of all that have come after.
-They are picturesque little places now, covered with glossy dark-green
-ivy and flame-coloured bougainvillia; but, like the fathers and mothers
-of prosperous families, they are set aside as comparatively useless in
-the presence of their stalwart children.
-
-In going through the stores, one is struck not only with the number,
-but also with the enormous size of the wine-vats. Some are of huge
-proportions, not quite equalling the famous Tun of Heidelberg perhaps,
-but coming pretty close to it, and holding wine to the worth of an
-astounding figure. The value of one store alone comes up to a moderate
-fortune; and there are thirty in all. Once a boy went to sleep in one
-of those weird receptacles, and was not found till the next morning.
-The fumes had overpowered him, but he came out none the worse. Some
-of the wine given us to taste is fifty years old, and is delicious in
-proportion to its age and preciousness; and some of the finer sorts
-of younger date are unsurpassed in any wine-store extant. Then there
-is the huge vat of _vino cotto_ or _vino madre_; and there is the
-distilling apparatus, which is very beautiful and dainty. The Custom
-House is jealous and exact. It seals up all with a letter-lock, waxen
-seals and silken threads; so that no tampering is possible with the
-retorts or the receivers. The cool obscurity of the cellars, where
-these immense vats are ranged like so many transformed giants, gives
-one a sense of restfulness and shelter; while out of doors, the sun,
-lying keen and bright on wall and pavement, casting shadows as sharply
-defined as if purple paper had been cut with a pair of scissors and
-thrown on the ground, has the sentiment of passionate vitality peculiar
-to Sicily. Men in coloured shirts, with blue or red sashes round their
-waists, add to the general picturesqueness of the scene; and the white
-wings of the pigeons shining like silver against the blue sky, complete
-a chord of colour to be seen only in the South—that fervid South where
-to live is sufficient enjoyment, and where artificial wants as we
-have them are neither known nor appreciated, being of the nature of
-encumbrances and superfluities. For what else is wanted than the sun
-and the sky, the fruits and the flowers, the charm and the glory of
-nature? Nevertheless, the material luxury of the North and West is
-invading the hitherto frugal and, in one way, ascetic South; and France
-and England both, are being imitated even so far as Marsala, where once
-the house was held as merely a place of refuge where tired Christians
-might sleep at noon and at night, but in nowise as a place of enjoyment
-worth the spending of thought or money to make beautiful.
-
-From the vats full of their golden treasure to the casks in process of
-making, the transition is natural. Here, again, light and colour give
-a certain charm, making a novelty of that which is so well known at
-home. For cask-making in Marsala is very much the same as cask-making
-in England; and only the men, with very minor details in the method
-of manipulation, are different. It is the same drying of the wood,
-the same setting of the staves, the same hammering on of the hoops in
-regular succession of blows, and we fancy the same kind of white oak,
-of which the staves are made, shipped from America for England as well
-as for Marsala. Hans Christian Andersen might have written a sprightly
-sketch of the oak as it stood in its virgin forest, with grizzlies and
-panthers, pretty woodchunks and sweet wild birds all about, till it was
-cut down by the forester; packed into a raft and started down the Big
-River by the lumberman; brought over to Europe by the huge steamship;
-made into casks, and filled with the golden juice of grapes beneath
-the glorious sky of Sicily—the wine to be drunk at the marriage of the
-bride, the birth of the heir, the death of the master. The place where
-they clean the barrels, some in the old-fashioned way of hand-rocking,
-with chains inside; the sheds where they cut the hoops and make the
-bolts—the drill and the circular saw going through iron and wood like
-so much butter or cheese; those where they steam the barrels and those
-where they mark them—these, too, come into the day’s work of visiting
-and inspection; as well as the cooking-place and the dining-shed for
-the three hundred men employed.
-
-These men are noticeably clean and smart in appearance; they are, too,
-as industrious as they look; for no loafers are allowed, and he who
-does not know how to work with a will soon receives his dismissal.
-The touch of English energy and English precision is plainly visible
-throughout—with one result, that, unlike Southern workmen, as generally
-found, these do not care to keep all the holidays which are so frequent
-in Roman Catholic countries. They work about ten and a half hours in
-the day; and each man is searched and numbered on coming in and going
-out.
-
-The word Marsala recalls the time when the Saracens ruled the land,
-just as Mongibello for Etna, Gibbel Rossa at Palermo, and all
-Sicilian agricultural and irrigatory terms recall them. It is really
-_Marsh-Allah_, ‘the port of God.’ Round about our _balio_ are many
-interesting things, principally the caves where, not so long ago, a
-murderer hid in perfect safety, and where in lawless times brigands and
-outcasts took refuge and found security. They are interminable, and it
-is impossible to visit them all; but our guide takes us through some of
-the most practicable, where we have occasion for a little gymnastic
-exercise here and there among the broken rocks and steep sharp pitches.
-An army of brigands might hide away here undetected and unseen.
-Fortunately, at this time there are none to hide. No organised band of
-brigands exists anywhere in Sicily, and the stranger is absolutely safe.
-
-Besides these caves, there is a strange folly in the shape of a
-ballroom and banqueting-room cut out of the living rock. There are
-tables and the place for the musicians, benches and divisions, all
-made in the rock underground. These odd rooms have been used, and it
-is to be supposed enjoyed. When we see them, the only guests are black
-beetles, a couple of dirty little lads as unkempt as wild Highland
-cattle, and a half-maniacal shock-headed Dugald kind of creature, with
-an atmosphere of garlic, which makes us rejoice when we turn out once
-more into the fresh air blowing over the breezy flower-clad upland,
-with the blue sea in front and the bright sun overhead.
-
-
-
-
-CONCERNING FLORIDA.
-
-
-A contributor, who is conversant with his subject, sends us the
-following important items, which we commend to young men who
-contemplate emigration.
-
-‘Heads of families,’ says our correspondent, ‘with “little to earn
-and many to keep,” with several sons growing up and having a desire
-to go abroad and see the world, will be glad to know that there are
-ways for providing for the olive branches other than sending them to
-Australia or Manitoba to earn merely nominal wages as farm-labourers.
-Until recently, the United States depended almost wholly upon the
-enterprise of foreigners for their supply of oranges; but, as if by an
-inspiration, the discovery has been made that they can, amongst the
-numerous other industries for which they are remarkable, grow their own
-oranges, and that, too, of better quality, both in size and flavour,
-than those which are imported. The great and unequalled facilities for
-cheap and rapid transportation have opened up nearly the whole of the
-peninsula of Florida to settlement; and what was only recently very
-correctly described as a vast expanse of swamps, lakes, and sluggish
-rivers, is now a vast system of drainage-canals and railways.
-
-In Florida, four hundred pounds will buy forty acres of land, ten of
-which may be cleared, fenced, and planted with orange-trees. A house
-may be inexpensively erected at an average cost of ten pounds per room.
-The orange-tree will bear five years from the bud, or ten years from
-seed; but a man left in charge—say the son of the owner—would have no
-difficulty in supporting himself by the sale of small fruit, which,
-coming to perfection in the middle of winter, commands the best prices
-in the New York and other Northern markets. In ten years, oranges are
-handsomely remunerative, and the crop steadily increases in value with
-every succeeding year. For those who cannot wait so long, the lemon
-and lime may prove more attractive, as they bear much sooner. They are
-almost as profitable, though not quite so hardy.
-
-The list of things which can be grown profitably in Florida is
-so long and various as to include such dissimilar articles as
-potatoes, cocoa-nuts, plantains, guavas, mangoes, tomatoes,
-pine-apples, pumpkins, water-melons—which frequently weigh a
-hundredweight—grape-fruit, citron, cotton, sugar, strawberries, coffee,
-tea, tobacco, mulberries, pears, quinces, apples, Scuppernong grapes,
-&c. The woods and forests which have been slumbering all these years
-are now alive with settlers, who are actively employed felling timber,
-clearing land, erecting fences, planting groves, building houses, and
-in numerous ways expending their energy on the improvement of the
-land. The old cry, “Go west,” has been changed to, “Go south;” and
-now thousands of families from the Northern States are there, having
-orange and lemon groves, with pretty cottages simply but comfortably
-furnished, situated on the banks of rivers and lakes.
-
-For the man who is fond of outdoor exercise and has a taste for
-gardening, the life in Florida has a charm all its own, for
-fruit-growing is nothing but gardening on an extensive scale. The soil
-in Florida has the most unpromising appearance, looking like nothing
-so much as silver sand. Yet what a charm it possesses! Seeds put in
-this apparently hopeless material spring up almost immediately; and
-cabbages, lettuces, radishes, and turnips may be eaten three weeks from
-sowing in the middle of January. Fish of large size, from ten pounds
-upwards, abound in the rivers and lakes, and being easily caught, make
-a very welcome addition to the larder. Deer, wild turkeys, quail, and
-numerous other kinds of game have not yet learned to shun the haunts of
-men.
-
-Extensive drainage-works have made available for settlement vast tracts
-of land which have probably been submerged for centuries, but which
-now, thanks to the remarkable system of drainage-canals, is as dry
-and firm and as healthy to live upon as the best land in the State. A
-pretty site judiciously chosen on the banks of a lake will eventually
-enormously enhance the value of the property when the surrounding
-country is settled up. The plan suggested for persons of small means is
-to take up forty acres. Having ten acres cleared and planted at once,
-the whole might be fenced in, and a comfortable house built in the
-middle of the allotment. The remaining thirty acres can be brought into
-cultivation by degrees, and in the meantime will serve to graze cattle
-and sheep, which, being turned into the grove at night, fertilise it in
-the most effectual and inexpensive manner.’
-
- * * * * *
-
-Another correspondent has favoured us with the following notes:
-
-‘Upon landing at New York City in the beginning of April of the present
-year, the weather was particularly disagreeable—cold, rainy, and
-sleety, and I was only too glad to leave the inclement North for the
-bright sunny South.
-
-On the morning after landing at New York, I took my ticket for
-Jacksonville, Florida, and on the journey, stopped a few hours at
-Washington, and also spent a night at Savannah, Georgia; reaching
-Florida, the land of flowers, romance, and orange groves, in three days
-from the time of leaving New York.
-
-Florida was first discovered by Sebastian Cabot in 1497, and after
-various vicissitudes in its history, became one of the United States
-in 1845. It is gratifying to know that the undoubted advantages and
-attractions of this country are becoming better known, and more and
-more appreciated, by all classes both in the United States and England.
-A great amount of English capital and English energy is now being
-attracted to Florida, which is a country offering inducements to the
-capitalist, sport to the sportsman, novel and romantic scenery to
-the tourist, health to the invalid, and very considerable advantages
-to the intelligent emigrant. The area of Florida comprises sixty
-thousand square miles; and the soil is adapted to an infinite variety
-of products, such, for instance, as corn, oats, rice, beans, peas,
-potatoes, turnips, cabbages, strawberries, tomatoes, melons, cucumbers,
-oranges, lemons, limes, peaches, figs, &c.; and in South Florida,
-cocoa-nuts, pine-apples, bananas, and other fruits and vegetables
-too numerous to mention. The climate is charming. In winter, the
-thermometer seldom goes below thirty degrees, or in summer above
-ninety; and although the State is the most southern of the United
-States, hot nights or oppressive days are comparatively rare. This is
-accounted for by its peculiar position, shape, and surroundings. The
-constant breezes, either from the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico,
-purify the atmosphere, and render the Floridian climate enjoyable the
-whole year; and I may add, that after a four years’ residence in the
-State, I know of no disease that is indigenous or prevalent.
-
-Jacksonville is situated on the grand St John’s River, and is the
-largest and most important city in Florida. It has a population of
-over twenty thousand, and will ere long take rank with Savannah or
-Charleston in commercial importance. This is the point at which all
-Northern visitors enter the State, and from which they radiate in
-search of health, work, or sport. Here there are fine buildings, shops,
-churches, schools, and about one hundred and fifty boarding-houses and
-hotels, the latter being filled during the winter months with invalids,
-principally consumptives.
-
-The most absorbing question of interest to the greatest number now,
-however, is the great money-making business of orange-growing, which
-is peculiarly adapted to the Florida soil and climate. Since I first
-visited the State (in 1873), this industry has gone far beyond the
-commercially experimental stage, and I have been an eye-witness to its
-undoubted success. It is particularly interesting and instructive to
-travel over districts now, and observe _bearing_ orange groves, the
-owners of which are securing handsome incomes, where ten years ago not
-a tree was planted. In Orange County, many emigrants who first went
-to Florida for their health, have improved sufficiently to earn their
-living and raise an orange grove in addition. Many of them took up one
-hundred and sixty acres of land under the Homestead Law, and selling
-off portions of it to later comers, have realised enough money to
-cultivate the balance retained. Others, who knew a trade, worked part
-of their time for their neighbours, and spent their unemployed hours
-in planting an orange-tree here or there for themselves, until they
-finally had a five or ten acre grove, of sixty trees to the acre, which
-when bearing would give them an annual income of from three hundred to
-one thousand pounds. Owing to recent railway and shipping facilities,
-a man nowadays may—if his land is well selected—grow early vegetables,
-&c., without interfering with his orange-trees, and ship them north to
-Baltimore, Philadelphia, or New York, and realise profit sufficient to
-enable him to pay his expenses whilst his grove is coming into bearing;
-for it must be borne in mind that the Floridians can grow any vegetable
-in winter which the Northerners grow in summer; and the Northern people
-are quite willing to pay a high price for such luxuries as peas,
-tomatoes, or strawberries at Christmas.
-
-These are some of the attractions Florida holds out to the man who has
-industry, perseverance, and ordinary intelligence.’
-
-
-
-
-ARSENIC IN DOMESTIC FABRICS.
-
-
-Chronic poisoning by arsenic in domestic fabrics is without doubt
-an important subject, affecting the public to such an extent as to
-render attention to the question essential. Serious illness frequently
-arises from this cause, in some cases even attended by fatal results.
-A very general effect is a lowered condition of the system, such as
-to render the individual more susceptible to the attacks of other
-diseases. Action has been taken by the Medical Society of London, the
-Society of Arts, and the National Health Society, on the question of
-the prohibition of arsenic in articles manufactured for domestic use,
-such as wall-papers, dyed furniture materials, paint, distemper, &c.
-The fact is remarkable, that although this question has been thus
-brought prominently before the public, those supposed to be interested
-in the sale and use of arsenic have hitherto maintained a judicious
-silence, manufacturers abandoning the use of arsenical colours to a
-very large extent, instead of defending it. This silence has, however,
-now been broken by Mr Galloway, M.R.I.A., who deals with the question
-from a chemical point of view, describing his own special mode of
-manufacturing emerald green in an article in the _Journal of Science_.
-Mr Galloway asks: ‘Has it ever been conclusively proved that persons
-who inhabit rooms stained with emerald green suffer from arsenical
-poisoning?’ Notwithstanding the fact that Mr Galloway leaves the
-question unanswered, as though it were unanswerable, the reply shall
-now be given—though in certain quarters it is still doubted—that it
-_has_ been proved, and that by the careful observation of medical men
-of eminence in all parts of the country.
-
-Proof of the injurious effect of arsenic in domestic fabrics is found
-in the development of certain symptoms in the patient exposed to an
-arsenical fabric, followed by recovery on removal of the fabric in
-question. The occurrence of these circumstances in a sufficient number
-of cases leads to the conviction that the arsenical fabric was the
-cause of the malady. We act on similar proof with regard to sewer-gas;
-no one has ever absolutely seen the injurious action, but the fact
-of various diseases of a particular character frequently following
-a discharge of sewer-gas into a residence, has convinced medical
-men that the gas, or some germ contained in the gas, is the cause of
-illness, and that it is therefore desirable to exclude it from our
-homes.
-
-As above stated, the same conclusion is arrived at, from the same
-line of argument, with regard to arsenic; and this proof alone would
-be sufficient. But with regard to arsenic, there are opportunities
-of observing what may be classed as experimental proofs, such as
-could not possibly occur in illness arising from sewer-gas. This
-further proof consists in the frequent alternate recurrence of illness
-and recovery—illness on exposure to, and recovery on removal from,
-arsenical surroundings, followed by final recovery on substitution of a
-non-arsenical fabric in place of that containing the poison.
-
-Change of air is in all probability often credited with the benefits
-arising from removal from some unsanitary condition of residence,
-office, or workshop.
-
-The effect on men employed in hanging or removing arsenical wall-papers
-is another proof of their injurious quality: men have frequently to
-leave their work unfinished, being too ill to continue under the
-poisonous influence.
-
-Arsenic in domestic fabrics is so easily dispensed with, that there
-is no valid reason for the continued use of these poisonous colours.
-Several paper-stainers have for years conscientiously excluded all
-arsenical colours from their works, yet have still maintained their
-position in the open market, thus deciding the question both as to cost
-and quality of non-arsenical wall-papers. It is an interesting question
-to medical men and chemists, how it is that these minute quantities of
-arsenic, or of some combination of arsenic with other ingredients, when
-breathed, should be so injurious, when larger quantities can be taken
-into the stomach as a medicine with advantage. This question, however,
-is of no consequence to the patient. His course is simple enough:
-having found out the cause of illness, get rid of it, and be thankful
-it can be got rid of at so small a cost.
-
-Arsenic also is found in the dust of rooms papered with arsenical
-papers, thus proving the presence of arsenic in the atmosphere.
-
-Mr Galloway alludes to a curious and interesting fact, namely, that men
-can be employed on arsenical works, some without being affected at all,
-others suffering much less than might be expected. The same singular
-fact of the immunity of those constantly exposed to evil influences
-is illustrated in the case of men employed in cleansing sewers; they
-work continually in the very atmosphere of the sewers, but do not
-suffer from those diseases which arise from the escape of sewer-gas
-into houses. No one, however, in consequence of this fact, doubts
-the importance of good sanitary arrangements, notwithstanding that
-these involve a considerable outlay. The exclusion of arsenic, on the
-contrary, costs nothing, and, moreover, there is nothing to be gained
-by the admission of these poisonous colours into our houses. The simple
-antidote for arsenic in domestic fabrics is therefore—exclusion.
-
-Those desiring to see further details, illustrative cases, and modes
-of testing for arsenic, will find them in the pamphlet _Our Domestic
-Poisons_ (Ridgway), or in the lecture under the same title, delivered
-at the International Health Exhibition, and published by the Executive
-Council. For more numerous cases of illness, especially in the families
-of medical men, see the Report of the Committee of the Medical Society
-of London.
-
-
-
-
-WASHING BY STEAM.
-
-
-It may interest many housewives to know that dirty clothes can be
-thoroughly and effectively washed by means of steam, with a much
-less expenditure of time and trouble than by the old way of boiling
-and rubbing. Anything that lessens the labour and discomfort of
-washing-day will be welcomed as a boon by every housewife. Numerous
-washing-machines have been before the public for many years, and
-have been used with more or less success, and we venture to describe
-one constructed on this principle which has given satisfaction to
-ourselves. The chief merits of the Steam-washers made by Fletcher of
-Warrington, and Fingland, Leeds, &c. are—rubbing and boiling of clothes
-are done away with, and with their method, no servant or housewife
-need spend more than three hours over a fair fortnight’s washing.
-Fingland’s Washer (Morton’s patent) consists of a fluted copper
-cylinder, made to revolve in a strong polished copper case or box.
-Into the cistern-shaped box, water is put to a depth of three inches,
-then caused to boil by means of a gas-fire below. The construction of
-the Washer is based upon the fact of the expansion of the water into
-steam. The water is continually throwing off a large quantity of steam,
-which forces its way through all parts of the clothes in the cylinder,
-and in so doing slackens and carries away the dirt. The articles, duly
-soaked in water overnight, are put into the cylinder; a few finely cut
-pieces of soap are laid between each layer; then the lids of cylinder
-and box are closed, and the handle is turned once or twice. It now
-stands until the water is boiling, when the handle may be slowly turned
-for ten or fifteen minutes, reversing the motion occasionally. The
-steam having permeated the clothes in the cylinder, they may be taken
-out and rinsed first in cold, and afterwards in blued cold water. The
-water in the cistern needs to be changed every fourth or fifth boiling.
-Prints, flannels, and woollens require slightly different treatment.
-The clothes come out pure and clean after rinsing, and an ordinary
-washing can be accomplished in one-third of the usual time, and at less
-expense. Attachment with an india-rubber tube to an ordinary gas-pipe
-will usually give sufficient gas; but sometimes it is better to have a
-thicker pipe than usual with a special connection.
-
-
-
-
-PARTING WORDS.
-
-
- Although my early dream is o’er,
- I ask no parting token;
- Nor would I clasp thy hand before
- My last farewell is spoken.
- How coldly fair, thy thrice-false face
- Dawns on my sad awaking;
- No anguish there mine eyes can trace,
- Though this fond heart is breaking.
-
- Be as thou wert before we met;
- Heave not one sigh, but leave me;
- Those studied looks, that feigned regret,
- Can nevermore deceive me.
- The faltering tones that mock me so,
- Betray the fears that move thee;
- Cease to degrade thy manhood.—Go!
- I scorn thee while I love thee.
-
- Shall I forget the rapturous hours
- Of my too radiant morning—
- The hand that culled the dewy flowers
- My girlish brow adorning?
- Ah, no! for she who scorns thee now,
- Will miss its dear caresses;
- And sorrow to remember how
- It decks another’s tresses.
-
- Alas! this tortured soul of mine,
- Though by thy treason riven,
- Can never cast thee from its shrine
- Unwept, or unforgiven.
- Nay, I, when youth and hope depart,
- The mournful willow wearing,
- Must still deplore that shallow heart
- That was not worth the sharing.
-
- And have I sold my peace for this?
- Or am I only dreaming?
- To wake beneath thy thrilling kiss
- From this most cruel seeming.
- Oh, bid my fainting heart rejoice;
- One word would make it stronger;
- Then wherefore mute, thou magic voice?
- Say, am I loved no longer?
-
- The world thou hast deceived so long
- May smile on thee to-morrow;
- While I alone must bear the wrong,
- The bitterness and sorrow!
- O cruel world! O world unjust!
- That passes by unheeding,
- Where love betrayed and blasted trust
- Low in the dust lies bleeding!
-
- Go thou thy way; deceive it still!
- (Its praise is false and hollow);
- Ascend to fortune’s loftiest hill,
- No ban of mine shall follow.
- The memory of these days will be
- To me a life’s regretting.
- Most faithless lover! what to thee?—
- Only an hour’s coquetting.
-
- Shame, shame! to look, to breathe, to live,
- To mock my loving madness!
- The thought alone that I forgive,
- Should fill thy soul with sadness.
- No wonder heaven should strike thee blind,
- To see me bowed before thee;
- Most shameless wretch of all mankind
- How, how could I adore thee?
-
- In haste to go! Oh, cruel one!
- Stay, stay, a moment only!
- How shall I face, when thou art gone,
- The world, so vast, so lonely?
- Thy words are like my passing knell:
- Ah me, and must we sever?
- Forget that I have loved thee well—
- Adieu! adieu for ever!
-
- * * * * *
-
-Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON,
-and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.
-
- * * * * *
-
-_All Rights Reserved._
-
- * * * * *
-
-[Transcriber’s note—the following changes have been made to this text.
-
-Page 799: arsensic to arsenic—“testing for arsenic”.]
-
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-<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 50, Vol. I, December 13, 1884, by Various</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
-at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
-are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
-country where you are located before using this eBook.
-</div>
-
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 50, Vol. I, December 13, 1884</p>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Various</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November 3, 2021 [eBook #66659]</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Susan Skinner, Eric Hutton and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</div>
-
-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, FIFTH SERIES, NO. 50, VOL. I, DECEMBER 13, 1884 ***</div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_785">{785}</span></p>
-
-<h1>CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL<br />
-OF<br />
-POPULAR<br />
-LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.</h1>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='center'>
-
-
-<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
-
-<a href="#A_GLACIER_GARDEN">A GLACIER GARDEN.</a><br />
-<a href="#ONE_WOMANS_HISTORY">ONE WOMAN’S HISTORY.</a><br />
-<a href="#RECOLLECTIONS_OF_AN_ANGLO-INDIAN">RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ANGLO-INDIAN CHAPLAIN.</a><br />
-<a href="#COLONEL_REDGRAVES_LEGACY">COLONEL REDGRAVE’S LEGACY.</a><br />
-<a href="#A_SAMPLE_OF_MARSALA">A SAMPLE OF MARSALA.</a><br />
-<a href="#CONCERNING_FLORIDA">CONCERNING FLORIDA.</a><br />
-<a href="#ARSENIC_IN_DOMESTIC_FABRICS">ARSENIC IN DOMESTIC FABRICS.</a><br />
-<a href="#WASHING_BY_STEAM">WASHING BY STEAM.</a><br />
-<a href="#PARTING_WORDS">PARTING WORDS.</a><br />
-
-<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
-
-</p>
-
-
-<hr class="full" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<div class="figcenter w100" id="header" style="max-width: 43.75em;">
- <img class="w100" src="images/header.jpg" alt="Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science,
-and Art. Fifth Series. Established by William and Robert Chambers, 1832. Conducted by R. Chambers (Secundus)." />
-</div>
-
-
-<hr class="full" />
-<div class="center">
-<div class="header">
-<p class="floatl"><span class="smcap">No. 50.—Vol. I.</span></p>
-<p class="floatr"><span class="smcap">Price</span> 1½<em>d.</em></p>
-<p class="floatc">SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1884.</p>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<hr class="full" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="A_GLACIER_GARDEN">A GLACIER GARDEN.</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> glacier garden lies far away on a steep hillside
-by the Lake of the Forest Cantons. Close
-to the picturesque town of Lucerne, a little path
-leads past the sandstone crag on which is hewn
-Thorwaldsen’s famous monument, to the small
-inclosed space, overshadowed by trees, where have
-recently been discovered vestiges of the most
-remote days in the youth of our old mother-earth.
-Hidden away amongst tangled fern and bright
-green grass, we see huge surfaces of native rock,
-some furrowed with parallel lines, others, with
-curious petrifactions of the sea; and giant boulders
-smoothed and polished that do not in the least
-resemble the surrounding rocks, but which are
-travellers from the Alps, left stranded here by
-the glaciers in the last great Ice Age. It is
-indeed a wonderful garden, with a wonderful
-history, and although, as unscientific observers, we
-cannot trace the different phases of its development
-in the dim geological past, still, standing
-by these gray old stones on which have been
-laid the softening and romantic influences of
-countless ages, it is as if we had pages of the
-world’s history unrolled before our eyes.</p>
-
-<p>The proofs of past glaciers are all around us
-in the grindings and scratchings on the rocks—in
-the ice-worn stones—and still more in the
-deep smooth circular hollows, which are perhaps
-the most perfect known specimens of the singular
-phenomena called glacier-mills. These erosions
-have been found also in Scandinavia and in
-the Jura Mountains, and are caused by the rapid
-whirling of a stone by a stream from the melting
-ice, which in the course of ages scoops out ever
-deeper and wider these cavities in the rock.
-But in this little garden we can trace the origin
-of the glacier-mills, from the tiny erosion just
-commenced, to the grand basin, twenty feet in
-diameter, and more than thirty feet deep, on
-whose smooth walls are clearly marked the spiral
-windings caused by the whirling of the stone
-perpetually from east to west. If you take up
-the glacier-stone that lies at the bottom of this
-mill, you will see not only how strangely round
-and polished it has become, but also that it is
-composed of totally different rock, and must have
-been transported hither by the great Reuss glacier
-from the granite slopes of the St Gothard.</p>
-
-<p>To look at these polished cavities, nobody
-would dream that they were the mere evidences
-of the eddying action of an ice-stream upon a
-small fragment of rock, and yet this is exactly
-what geology teaches us they really are; indeed,
-there is no rock or mineral, even the flint
-and agate, but what is permeable in some
-degree by the action of water; and like granite
-and marble, most stones are softer and more
-easily wrought before they are dried and
-hardened by air-seasoning. Are not similar
-effects of the action of torrents in the erosion
-of rock seen in almost every gorge through
-which rushes a mountain torrent? It seems
-all but incredible that to a little rippling rivulet
-is due the tremendous erosion of many alpine
-ravines, with their great height and precipitous
-walls. But science tells us very strange tales,
-even that the mountain streams in the present
-day are depressing the ridges of the Alps and
-the Apennines, raising the plains of Lombardy
-and Provence, and extending the coasts far into
-the waters of the Adriatic and the Mediterranean.
-Thus it is easy to understand how, at that remote
-period when a vast ice-sheet covered not only
-our garden but all Switzerland from the Alps
-to the Jura, the loose stones which had become
-detached from the moraine, and were met by
-some barrier in the ice whirled about by rushing
-water, ground down first the ice, then the rock,
-and in the wear and tear of unnumbered centuries
-grew round and smooth like the basins in which
-they revolved.</p>
-
-<p>It is very seldom that loose fragments of rock
-exercise a protective power upon the ice; but
-instances have been met with on the higher
-glaciers of large stones warding off the rain and
-the radiation of the sun from the ice immediately
-beneath them; so that as the glacier wastes
-and lowers in the course of time, these glacier-tables<span class="pagenum" id="Page_786">{786}</span>
-remain fixed upon elevated pillars of ice,
-which sometimes reach to a height of ten or
-twelve feet above the general level.</p>
-
-<p>At Lucerne, it is impossible to forget, as we
-wander about the paths in this archaic garden,
-that countless years before the great glaciers
-planed away the old flora from off the face of
-the land, there was a period of tropical heat and
-tropical vegetation which succeeded the earliest
-epoch in the existence of our globe. Petrifactions
-of the first stages of life are distinctly visible
-upon, the rocks—relics of a primeval ocean.</p>
-
-<p>But with the story of the rocks there is
-mingled no trace of human interest. For them
-Time has stood still and the seasons brought no
-change, until a few years ago, when the ground
-being excavated for the foundations of a new
-house, these unsuspected relics were brought to
-light from amongst the sand and pebbles and ice-worn
-boulders. These relics are unconnected even
-with the first traditions of the people of the
-Alps, and had remained in quiet slumber beneath
-the glacial débris for long ages before the earliest
-settlers raised their pile-dwellings above the blue
-waters of the lake. Evidence, indeed, has been
-afforded that the lacustrine dwelling-places were
-inhabited by generations of men two thousand,
-or, as some authorities affirm, six thousand
-years before the Christian era. Amongst the
-piles of oak, or beech, or fir wood, rising occasionally
-in three or four tiers, one above another,
-in the accumulated waste of animal and vegetable
-life found at the bottom of the lake,
-were stone celts and other implements of bone
-or flint, memorials of a people who perished
-at a period beyond the reach of the most distant
-annals; very old, in an historical point of view,
-although in a geological estimate they are but of
-yesterday. For what is the antiquity of the
-earliest of these relics compared with that of the
-latest records plainly written upon the smooth
-surface of the rocks?</p>
-
-<p>In the glacier garden we find not only the
-indefinable charm of a vast antiquity, but a
-suggestiveness of the strange contrast between
-the present and the past. On the one hand there
-is busy life, noise, warmth upon the winding
-shores of the placid lake, magnificent mountains
-girdled by forest trees, and woven in and out
-with verdant pastures and far-off snow—all things
-lovely of the earth present before our eyes; on
-the other hand, we have a glimpse into the
-remote and mysterious past, when the sun shone
-down upon an illimitable white world of snow
-and ice.</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="ONE_WOMANS_HISTORY">ONE WOMAN’S HISTORY.</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<h3>CHAPTER XII.</h3>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Miss Gaisford</span> had found a quiet nook in the
-lower grounds of the hotel, well out of view from
-the windows, where there was little likelihood
-of being disturbed by the ordinary run of visitors.
-Now and then, a newly married couple, or a pair
-of turtle-doves who were not yet married, but
-hoped to be before long, would invade her solitude;
-but such momentary interruptions served
-rather to amuse her than otherwise. ‘Here comes
-another peripatetic romance,’ she would remark
-to herself. ‘Now, if those two young people
-would only come and sit down beside me, and
-tell me all about it, first one telling me a bit
-and then the other, till I knew their story by
-heart, they would do me a real kindness, and
-save me a lot of invention. All newly married
-couples ought to be compelled to write their Love
-Memoirs, which should afterwards be bound in
-volumes (calf), and kept in a sort of Record
-Office, where we poor story-tellers could have
-access to them whenever we happened to be
-hard up for a plot.’</p>
-
-<p>To this sheltered nook a table and chair had
-been brought from the hotel, and here, on this
-Friday forenoon, Miss Gaisford was busy writing.
-But she laid down her pen more frequently than
-was usual with her when so employed, and had
-little fits of musing between times.</p>
-
-<p>‘I’m not i’ the mood this morning, that’s
-certain,’ she said at last. ‘My thoughts seem all
-in a muddle. I can’t get Mora out of my head.
-She puzzles me and makes me uneasy. It’s
-mental illness, not bodily, that keeps her to her
-room. Colonel Woodruffe had a long talk with
-her on Wednesday, and then drove her back to
-the hotel, which he would scarcely have done,
-I think, if he had been decisively and finally
-rejected. There’s a mystery somewhere; but Mora
-is a woman whom one cannot question. I have
-no doubt she will tell me all about it when she
-feels herself at liberty to do so. Meanwhile, it’s
-a good lesson in curbing that curiosity which
-certain cynical moralists of the inferior sex have
-had the unblushing effrontery to affirm to be
-the bane of ours.—But this is frivolity.’ She
-dipped her pen in the inkstand, and running her
-eyes over the few lines last written, read them
-half aloud:</p>
-
-<p>‘“Next moment, Montblazon’s equipage, which
-was drawn by six coal-black steeds, and preceded
-by two outriders in livery, drew up at
-the palace gates. As the Duc alighted from his
-chariot, a woman, young and beautiful, though
-in rags, pressed through the crowd till she was
-almost near enough to have touched him. ‘For
-the love of heaven, monseigneur!’ she cried in
-piteous accents. A gorgeously attired lackey would
-have thrust her back, but an imperious gesture
-of Montblazon’s jewelled hand arrested him.
-There was something in the expression of the
-woman’s face which struck him as though it
-were a face seen in a dream long ago. Montblazon,
-who knew not what it was to carry
-money about his person, extracted from the
-pocket of his embroidered vest a diamond—one
-of a handful which he was in the habit of carrying
-loose about him to give away as whim or
-charity dictated—and dropped it into the woman’s
-extended palm. Then without waiting for her
-thanks, he strode forward up the palace stairs,
-and a few moments later found himself in a
-saloon which was lighted by myriads of perfumed
-wax tapers set in sconces of burnished silver.
-Montblazon, who towered a head taller than<span class="pagenum" id="Page_787">{787}</span>
-any one there, gazed round him with a lurid
-smile.”’</p>
-
-<p>‘Yes, I think that will do,’ said Miss Pen as
-she took another dip of ink. ‘“Lurid smile” is
-not amiss.’</p>
-
-<p>She was interrupted by the sound of footsteps.
-She looked up, and as she did so, a shade of
-annoyance flitted across her face. ‘I thought
-that I was safe from her here. I wonder how
-she has found me out,’ she said to herself.</p>
-
-<p>The object of these remarks was none other
-than Lady Renshaw. It was quite by accident
-that she had discovered Miss Gaisford. The
-news told her by Mr Etheridge had excited her
-in no common degree; there was no one in the
-hotel that she cared to talk to; so, finding it
-impossible to stay indoors, she had sought relief
-in the open air. She was expecting Bella and
-Mr Golightly back every minute; meanwhile, she
-was wandering aimlessly about the grounds, and
-brightened up at the sight of Miss Penelope.
-Here at least was some one she knew—some one
-to talk to. She advanced smilingly. ‘What a
-number of correspondents you must have, dear
-Miss Gaisford,’ said her ladyship after a few words
-of greeting. ‘You seem to spend half your time
-in writing.’ She was glancing sharply at Miss
-Pen’s closely covered sheets of manuscript.</p>
-
-<p>‘Yes, I do write a good deal,’ answered the
-latter as she began to put her sheets in order.
-‘I rather like it. Between you and me, when
-Septimus is busy other ways, or is enjoying his
-holiday, I sometimes try my hand at writing a
-sermon for him.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Really now! And do the congregation never
-detect the difference between your discourses and
-his?’</p>
-
-<p>‘I don’t think they trouble their heads a bit
-about it. So long as we don’t make use of too
-many hard words, and get the sermon well over
-in twenty minutes, they are perfectly satisfied.’</p>
-
-<p>Lady Renshaw was in possession of a certain
-secret, and although she had given her word that
-she would not reveal it for the present, it was
-too much to expect of poor human nature that
-she should not make some allusion to it, if the
-opportunity were given her, especially in conversation
-with another of her own sex.</p>
-
-<p>‘I understand that we are likely to have one
-or two important arrivals at the hotel this
-evening,’ she remarked with studied indifference,
-as she shook a little dust off the flounces of her
-dress.</p>
-
-<p>‘Indeed. A Russian Prince, an Ambassador,
-an Emperor travelling incog., or whom?’</p>
-
-<p>‘Dear me, no!—nobody of that kind. But my
-lips are sealed. I must not say more.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Then why did you say anything?’ remarked
-Miss Pen to herself.</p>
-
-<p>‘Still, when you come to know, I feel sure
-that you will be surprised—very greatly surprised.
-Strange events may happen here before
-to-morrow. But I dare not say more, so you
-must not press me.’</p>
-
-<p>‘I won’t,’ responded Miss Pen emphatically.</p>
-
-<p>‘Why, I declare, yonder come my darling
-Bella and Mr Golightly! I’ve been looking
-out for them this hour or more.—You will
-excuse me, my dear Miss Gaisford, I’m sure.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Certainly,’ was the uncompromising reply.</p>
-
-<p>Her ladyship smiled and nodded, and then
-tripped away as lightly and gracefully as a youthful
-elephant might have done.</p>
-
-<p>‘Now, what <i>can</i> the old nincompoop mean?’
-asked Miss Pen of herself. ‘That there is some
-meaning in her words, I do not doubt. She is
-no friend of Mora, I feel sure. Can what she
-said have any reference to her? But I’m altogether
-in the dark, and it’s no use worrying.
-If there’s trouble in the wind, we shall know
-about it soon enough.’</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>‘He has proposed—I know it from his manner,’
-exclaimed Lady Renshaw to her niece as soon
-as they were alone in the hotel; ‘so it’s no use
-your telling me that he hasn’t.’</p>
-
-<p>‘I had no intention of telling you anything of
-the kind,’ answered the girl demurely.</p>
-
-<p>‘What did you say to him in reply?’</p>
-
-<p>‘Very little. You told me not to say much.
-Besides,’ added Bella slily, ‘he seemed to like to
-do most of the talking himself.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Men generally do at such times.—But didn’t
-the young man say anything about speaking to
-me?’</p>
-
-<p>‘O yes, aunt.’</p>
-
-<p>‘And very properly so, too. But you need
-not refer him to me just at present; I will give
-you a hint when the proper time arrives. Meanwhile,
-I hope you will not allow yourself to get
-entangled to such an extent that you won’t be
-able to extricate yourself, should it become necessary
-to do so.’</p>
-
-<p>Bella was taken with a sudden fit of sneezing.</p>
-
-<p>‘Mr Archie Ridsdale’s affair is by no means
-a <i>fait accompli</i>,’ continued her ladyship; ‘and we
-shall see what we shall see in the course of the
-next few hours.’ She nodded her head with an
-air of mystery and tried to look oracular.</p>
-
-<p>Presently Bella pleaded a headache and escaped
-to her own room.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Clarice was at the station at least twenty
-minutes before the train by which Archie was
-to travel could by any possibility arrive. It
-showed great remissness on the part of the railway
-people, considering how anxious she was
-for her sweetheart’s arrival, that this very train
-should be five minutes and fourteen seconds
-late. Such gross disregard of the feelings of
-young ladies in love ought to be severely dealt
-with.</p>
-
-<p>At length the train steamed slowly in, with
-Archie’s head and half his long body protruding
-from the window, to the annoyance of every other
-passenger in the compartment. He was out of
-the train before any one else, and as it glided
-slowly forward before coming to a stand, those
-inside were favoured with a sort of panoramic
-glimpse of a very pretty girl being seized,
-hugged, and unblushingly kissed by a young
-fellow, to whom, at that moment, the code of
-small social proprieties was evidently a dead
-letter.</p>
-
-<p>‘What about your father?’ asked Clarice as
-soon as she had recovered her breath in some
-measure and had given a tug or two to her
-disarranged attire.</p>
-
-<p>‘What about him?’ queried Archie, who was
-looking after his portmanteau.</p>
-
-<p>‘Of course he has not come down by this
-train, or you would have travelled together.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_788">{788}</span>
-But I suppose you know he’s expected at the
-<i>Palatine</i> to-night—at least so Mr Etheridge told
-me.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Etheridge! is he here?’</p>
-
-<p>‘Yes; didn’t you know? He reached here a
-few hours after you left for London. He brought
-a letter for you from your father all the way
-from Spa.’</p>
-
-<p>Archie scratched his head: even heroes go
-through that undignified process occasionally.
-‘Upon my word, I don’t know what to make
-of the governor,’ he said. ‘He seems to get more
-crotchety every day. Here, according to what
-you say, he sends poor Etheridge all the way
-from Spa as the bearer of a letter which any
-other man would have intrusted to the post; then
-he apparently changes his mind and telegraphs
-for me to meet him in London. To London I
-go, and there wait, dangling my heels; but no
-Mr Governor turns up. Then Blatchett receives
-a telegram from somewhere—by-the-bye, he never
-told me where he did receive it from—in which
-I am instructed to return to Windermere immediately,
-and am told that my long-lost papa will
-meet his boy there. It’s jolly aggravating, to
-say the least of it.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Mr Etheridge says that Sir William may
-perhaps want to see me. O Archie, I was never
-so frightened in my life!’</p>
-
-<p>He soothed and petted her after the fashion
-which young men are supposed to find effectual
-in such cases, and presently they drew up at the
-hotel.</p>
-
-<p>They went at once to the sitting-room, the
-only inmates of which they found to be Lady
-Renshaw, Bella, and Mr Golightly. The last
-had come to inquire whether Miss Wynter would
-go for a row on the lake after dinner. If she
-would, there was a particular boat which he
-would like to engage beforehand.</p>
-
-<p>Lady Renshaw was doubtful. She was inclined
-to think that Bella had caught cold on the lake
-in the morning. She had sneezed more than
-once. It would scarcely be advisable, her ladyship
-thought, for Miss Wynter to venture on the
-water again in the chill of the evening. Besides,
-the clouds looked threatening, and to be caught
-in a storm on the lake, she had been told, was
-dangerous.</p>
-
-<p>In short, without exactly wishing to discourage
-Mr Golightly, she was desirous of damping his
-ardour in some measure for the time being.
-Till she should be able to judge how events
-were likely to shape themselves, he must not be
-allowed too many opportunities of being alone
-with Bella; perhaps even, at the end, it might
-become necessary to give him the cold shoulder
-altogether.</p>
-
-<p>Lady Renshaw was in the midst of her platitudes
-when Archie and Clarice entered the room.
-On their way from the station Clarice had spoken
-of her sister’s indisposition, so that Archie was
-prepared not to find Madame De Vigne downstairs;
-but probably he had hardly counted upon
-coming so unexpectedly on her ladyship. As,
-however, she was there, the only possibility left
-him was to look as pleasant as possible.</p>
-
-<p>He greeted her with as much cordiality as he
-could summon up at a moment’s notice, and then
-he turned to Miss Wynter, whose pretty face
-he was really pleased to see again. There was
-a hidden meaning laughing out of his eyes as
-he shook hands with her. It was as though he
-had said: ‘You naughty girl, I should like to
-spoil your little game, just for the fun of the
-thing, but I won’t.’</p>
-
-<p>He did spoil it, however, a moment later, all
-unwittingly. Turning to Dick, who appeared
-to be gazing abstractedly out of one of the
-windows, he gave him a hearty slap on the
-shoulder. ‘Dulcimer, old chappie, how are you?
-Delighted to see you again.’</p>
-
-<p>Next moment he could have bitten his tongue
-out.</p>
-
-<p>‘Dulcimer!’ shrieked her ladyship, whose ears
-had caught the name.</p>
-
-<p>The young people turned and stared at each
-other in blank dismay. Dick shrugged his shoulders,
-and was the first to recover his <i>sang-froid</i>.
-The moment had come for him to take the bull
-by the horns.</p>
-
-<p>‘Dulcimer!’ again exclaimed her ladyship in
-a tone of hopeless bewilderment, that was at
-once both ludicrous and pathetic, as she glanced
-at the dismayed faces around her.</p>
-
-<p>‘Even so, Lady Renshaw. I am Richard
-Dulcimer, at your service.’ He spoke as quietly
-as though he were mentioning some fact of everyday
-occurrence.</p>
-
-<p>‘You, that Richard Dulcimer—that impudent
-pretender—that—that cockatrice, who used to
-follow my niece about in London wherever she
-went! No, no’—peering into his face—‘I cannot
-believe it. You are amusing yourself at my
-expense.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Nevertheless, unless I was changed at nurse,
-I am that cockatrice, Richard Dulcimer. As any
-further attempt at concealment would be useless,
-if your ladyship will permit me, I will enlighten
-you in a few words.’</p>
-
-<p>She only stared at him, breathing very hard,
-but otherwise showing by no sign that she heard
-what he was saying.</p>
-
-<p>‘I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Wynter
-on several occasions in London,’ resumed Dick.
-‘Whether your ladyship believes it or not, I fell
-in love with her, hopelessly and irremediably. I
-am a poor man, and you scouted my pretensions,
-and forbade your niece ever to speak to me again.
-It is not in my province to blame your ladyship
-for doing that which you deemed to be for Miss
-Wynter’s advantage; but it by no means followed
-that I should fall in with your views. I heard
-that you and Miss Wynter were coming to this
-place, and I determined to follow you. Had I
-not made some change in my appearance, you
-would at once have recognised me, and my plans
-would have been frustrated. I took off my beard
-and moustache, dyed my hair and eyebrows,
-donned a clerical costume which I happened to
-have by me for another purpose, and trusted to
-my good fortune to escape detection. The rest
-is known to your ladyship.’</p>
-
-<p>‘The rest—yes. You said that your name
-was Golightly, and you introduced yourself to
-me as the son of the Bishop of Melminster,
-which shows plainly what a wicked wretch you
-must be.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Your ladyship must excuse me if I set you
-right as regards the facts of the case. I said
-that my name was Golightly. So it is—Richard
-Golightly Dulcimer; but I never said, nor even<span class="pagenum" id="Page_789">{789}</span>
-hinted, that I was the son of Bishop Golightly.
-It was your ladyship who arrived at that conclusion
-by some process of reasoning best known
-to yourself.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Oh!’ was all that her ladyship could find to
-say at the moment.</p>
-
-<p>Archie and Clarice stole quietly out of the
-room.</p>
-
-<p>Lady Renshaw turned to her niece. ‘Am I
-to presume, Miss Wynter, that you have been a
-party to this vile fraud?’ she asked in her
-iciest tones. ‘Am I to understand that you have
-known all along that this person was Mr
-Dulcimer, and that you have been cognisant of
-this wicked conspiracy?’</p>
-
-<p>Bella hung her head.</p>
-
-<p>‘Your silence convicts you. It is even so,
-then. I have nourished a viper, and knew it not.
-But, understand me, from this time I discard
-you; I cast you off; I have done with you for
-ever!’</p>
-
-<p>Tears sprang to the girl’s eyes. ‘O aunt,
-forgive me!’ she exclaimed as she sprang forward
-and tried to clasp her ladyship’s hand.</p>
-
-<p>The latter drew back a step or two and waved
-her away. ‘Touch me not!’ she said. ‘Henceforth,
-you and I are strangers. You have chosen
-to sacrifice me for the sake of this impostor.
-Marry him—you can do no less now—and
-become a pauper’s wife for the rest of your days.
-That is your fate.’</p>
-
-<p>Lady Renshaw turned without another word,
-drew her skirts closer around her, and stalked
-slowly out of the room.</p>
-
-<p>The weeping girl would have hurried after
-her, had not Dick put his arm round her and
-held her fast.</p>
-
-<p>‘No,’ he said; ‘you shall not go just yet. She
-wants to make you believe that she is an ill-used
-victim, whereas it is you who have been the
-victim all along. Yes, the victim of her greed,
-her selfishness, and her willingness to sacrifice
-you for the sake of her own social advancement.
-What would she have cared whom you married,
-or whether you were happy or miserable, if only,
-by your means, she could have climbed one rung
-higher on the ladder of her ambition! Here is
-the proof: Now that she finds you are no longer
-of use to her for the furtherance of her schemes,
-she casts you off with as little compunction as
-she would an old glove. Dearest, she is not
-worth your tears!’</p>
-
-<p>But Bella’s tears were not so readily stanched,
-and for a time she refused to be comforted.</p>
-
-
-<h3>CHAPTER XIII.</h3>
-
-<p>Half an hour later, as Lady Renshaw was
-sitting alone in her room, musing in bitterness
-of spirit on the mutability of human affairs, a
-message was brought her. Sir William Ridsdale’s
-compliments to Lady Renshaw, and would her
-ladyship favour him with her company for a few
-minutes in his apartments?</p>
-
-<p>She rose with a sigh. Her anticipated triumph
-was shorn of half its glory. Archie Ridsdale
-might be a free man to-morrow, and it would
-matter nothing now, as far as she was concerned.
-Bella had made a fool of herself, and doubtless
-Archie had all along been a party to the deception.
-This thought coming suddenly, revived
-her like a stimulant. What would her disappointment
-be in comparison with his humiliation
-when he should learn that which his father
-had to tell him! Then there was that haughty
-Madame De Vigne. For her, too, the hour of
-humiliation was at hand. As she thought of
-these things, while on her way to Sir William’s
-room, Lady Renshaw’s spirits rose again. She
-felt that life had still some compensations for
-her.</p>
-
-<p>A staid-looking man-servant ushered her into
-the room. She gazed round; but there was no
-one to be seen save Colonel Woodruffe, who was
-a stranger to her, and Mr Etheridge. The
-latter rose and advanced with his thin, faint
-smile.</p>
-
-<p>‘I was given to understand that I should find
-Sir William Ridsdale here,’ said her ladyship in
-a somewhat aggrieved tone.</p>
-
-<p>‘I am Sir William Ridsdale, very much at
-your service,’ was the quiet reply of the smiling,
-white-haired gentleman before her.</p>
-
-<p>Probably in the whole course of her life Lady
-Renshaw had never been so much taken aback
-as she was at that moment. She literally gasped
-for words, but none came.</p>
-
-<p>‘Will you not be seated?’ said the baronet;
-and with that he led her to a chair, and then
-he drew up another for himself a little distance
-away.</p>
-
-<p>‘I will give your ladyship credit for at once
-appreciating the motives by which I was influenced
-in acting as I have acted. I came here
-incognito in order that I might be able to see
-and judge for myself respecting certain matters
-which might possibly very materially affect both
-my son’s future and my own. Archie was got
-out of the way for a day or two; and the only
-person who knew me not to be Mr Etheridge
-was my old friend here, Colonel Woodruffe, to
-whom, by-the-bye, I must introduce your ladyship.’</p>
-
-<p>‘It was really too bad of you, Sir William, to
-hoax us all in the way you have done,’ simpered
-her ladyship when the process of introduction to
-the colonel was over. She did not forget that
-elderly baronets have occasionally fallen victims to
-the wiles of good-looking widows. ‘But for my
-part, I must confess that from the first I had my
-suspicions that you were not the person you gave
-yourself out to be. There was about you a sort
-of <i>je ne sais quoi</i>, an impalpable something, which
-caused me more than once to say to myself:
-“Any one can see that that dear Mr Etheridge
-is a gentleman born and bred—one who has
-been in the habit of moving in superior circles.
-He must have known reverses. Evidently, at
-one period of his life, he has occupied a position
-very different from that of an amanuensis.”’</p>
-
-<p>‘Madam, you flatter me,’ replied the baronet
-with a grave inclination of the head. ‘As I
-have had occasion to remark before, your ladyship’s
-acumen is something phenomenal.’</p>
-
-<p>The widow was rather doubtful as to the
-meaning of ‘acumen;’ but she accepted it as a
-compliment. ‘And now, dear Sir William, that
-you have come and seen and judged for yourself,
-you will have no difficulty in making up your
-mind how to act.’</p>
-
-<p>‘My mind is already made up, Lady Renshaw.’</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_790">{790}</span></p>
-
-<p>‘Ah—just so. Under the painful circumstances
-of the case, you could have no hesitation
-as to the conclusion at which you ought to
-arrive. What a fortunate thing that I happened
-to find that scrap of paper in the way I did!’</p>
-
-<p>‘Very fortunate indeed, because, as I remarked
-this morning, it might have fallen into the hands
-of some one much less discreet than your ladyship.
-As it happened, however, although I did not
-say so to you at the time, it told me nothing
-that I did not know already.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Nothing that you did not know already!’
-gasped her ladyship.</p>
-
-<p>‘Nothing. Madame De Vigne, of her own
-free will, had already commissioned her friend,
-Colonel Woodruffe, to tell me without reservation
-the whole history of her most unhappy
-married life.’</p>
-
-<p>‘What an idiot the woman must be!’ was her
-ladyship’s unspoken comment; but she only
-stared into the baronet’s face in blank amazement.
-Recovering herself with an effort, she
-said with a cunning smile: ‘People sometimes
-make a merit of confessing that which they can
-no longer conceal. You will know how to
-appraise such a statement at its proper worth.
-You say that your mind is already made up,
-Sir William. I think that from the first there
-could be no doubt as to what the result would be.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Very little doubt, indeed,’ he answered drily.
-‘For instance, here is a proof of it.’</p>
-
-<p>He rose as he spoke, and crossed to the opposite
-side of the room, where was a window set in
-an alcove, which just at present was partially
-shrouded by a heavy curtain. With a quick
-movement of the hand, Sir William drew back
-the curtain, and revealed, to Lady Renshaw’s
-astonished gaze, Mr Archie Ridsdale sitting with
-a skein of silk on his uplifted hands in close
-proximity to Miss Loraine, who was in the act
-of winding the silk into a ball. The young
-people started to their feet in dismay as the
-curtain was drawn back. It was a pretty picture.
-‘There’s no need to disturb yourselves,’
-said Sir William smilingly; ‘I only wanted to
-give her ladyship a pleasant surprise.’ With
-that he let fall the curtain and went back to
-his chair.</p>
-
-<p>‘A pleasant surprise, indeed! You don’t
-mean to say, Sir William’—— Her ladyship
-choked and stopped.</p>
-
-<p>‘I mean to say, Lady Renshaw, that in Miss
-Loraine you behold my son’s future wife. He
-has chosen wisely and well; and that his married
-life will be a happy one, I do not doubt. In
-the assumed character of Mr Etheridge, I made
-the acquaintance of Miss Loraine, so that I am
-no stranger to her sweet temper and fine disposition.
-If anything, she is just a leetle too
-good for Master Archie.’</p>
-
-<p>Lady Renshaw felt as if the ground were heaving
-under her feet. In fact, at that moment an
-earthquake would hardly have astonished her.
-Most truly had Sir William been termed an
-eccentric man: he was more than eccentric—he
-was mad! She had only one shaft more left in
-her quiver, but that was tipped with venom.</p>
-
-<p>‘Then poor Archie, when he marries, will be
-brother-in-law to a person whose husband was
-or is a convict,’ she murmured presently, more
-as if communing sorrowfully with herself, than
-addressing Sir William. Her eyes were fixed
-on the cornice pole of one of the windows; and
-when she shook her head, which she did with
-an air of profound melancholy, she seemed to
-be shaking it at that useful piece of furniture.
-Sir William and Colonel Woodruffe exchanged
-glances. Then the baronet said: ‘Will you oblige
-me, Lady Renshaw?’</p>
-
-<p>He led the way to the opposite end of the
-room, where anything they might say would
-be less likely to be overheard by the young
-people behind the curtain. ‘Yes, as your ladyship
-very justly observes,’ said the baronet,
-‘when my son marries Miss Loraine, he will be
-brother-in-law to an ex-convict—for the fellow
-is alive—to a man whom I verily believe to be
-one of the biggest scoundrels on the face of the
-earth. It will be a great misfortune, I grant
-you, but one which, under the circumstances,
-can in nowise be helped.’</p>
-
-<p>‘It will be one that the world will never tire
-of talking about.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Poor Madame De Vigne! I pity her from the
-bottom of my heart; and you yourself, as a
-woman, Lady Renshaw, can hardly fail to do
-the same.’</p>
-
-<p>Lady Renshaw shrugged her shoulders, but was
-silent.</p>
-
-<p>‘What a misfortune for her, to be entrapped
-through a father’s selfishness, when a girl just
-fresh from school, into marriage with such a
-villain!’ resumed the baronet. ‘But in what
-way could she possibly have helped herself? Alas!
-in such a case there is no help for a woman.
-When—years after he had robbed and deserted
-her, and had fallen into the clutches of the law—she
-received the news of his death, it was impossible
-that she should feel anything but thankfulness
-for her release. Time went on, and she had
-no reason to doubt the fact of her widowhood,
-when suddenly, only three days ago, her husband
-turned up—here! I have told you all this,
-Lady Renshaw, in order that you may know the
-truth of the case as it now stands, and not
-be led away by any distorted version of it. Ah,
-poor Madame De Vigne! How was she to help
-herself?’</p>
-
-<p>‘That is not a question I am called upon to
-answer—it is not one that the world will even
-condescend to ask. The fact still remains that
-she is a convict’s wife, and as such the world
-will judge her.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Yes, yes; I know that what we term the
-world deals very hardly in such matters—that
-the innocent are too often confounded with the
-guilty. But in this case at least, the world need
-never be any wiser than it is now. The secret of
-Madame De Vigne’s life is known to three people
-only—to you, whom a singular accident put in
-possession of part of it; to Colonel Woodruffe;
-and to myself. Not even her sister is acquainted
-with the story of her married life. Such being
-the case, we three have only to keep our own
-counsel; we have only to determine that not one
-word of what we know respecting this most
-unhappy history shall ever pass our lips, and
-loyally and faithfully carry out that determination,
-and the world need never know more of
-the past life of Madame De Vigne than it knows
-at the present moment. As for the fellow himself,
-I shall know how to keep his tongue quiet.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_791">{791}</span>
-I am sure that you agree with me, dear Lady
-Renshaw.’</p>
-
-<p>A vindictive gleam came into her ladyship’s
-eyes. The time had come for her to show her
-claws. Such a moment compensated for much
-that had preceded it.</p>
-
-<p>She laughed a little discordant laugh. ‘Really,
-Sir William, who would have thought there was
-so much latent romance in your composition?
-Who would have dreamt of your setting up as the
-champion of Beauty in distress? To be sure, if
-you persevere in your present arrangements, this
-Madame De Vigne will become a connection of
-your own, and regarded from that point of view,
-I can quite understand your anxiety to hush up
-the particulars of her very ugly story. Family
-scandals are things always to be avoided, are they
-not, Sir William?’</p>
-
-<p>‘Always, Lady Renshaw—when practicable.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Just so. But as Madame De Vigne, thank
-heaven! will be no connection of mine either near
-or distant, you will pardon me if I hardly see
-the necessity for such extreme reticence on my
-part. The world will get to know that I have
-been mixed up to a certain extent in this affair—somehow,
-it always does get to know such
-things—and I shall be questioned on every side.
-What am I to say? What reply am I to make
-to such questions? Am I to tell an untruth,
-and say that I know nothing—that I am in absolute
-ignorance? Or am I to prevaricate, and
-insinuate, for instance, that Madame De Vigne is a
-lady of the highest respectability and of unblemished
-antecedents—a person, in short, whom any
-family might be proud to count as one of themselves?
-You will admit, Sir William, that the
-position in which I shall be placed will be a
-most embarrassing one?’</p>
-
-<p>‘Most embarrassing indeed, Lady Renshaw—almost
-as much so, in fact, as if some one were
-to say to you: “I was past your grandfather’s
-shop in Drury Lane the other day. The place
-looks precisely as it did forty years ago. Nothing
-is changed except the name over the door.” That
-might be rather embarrassing to you, might it
-not?’</p>
-
-<p>All at once Lady Renshaw looked as if she
-were about to faint. The rouge on her cheeks
-showed up in ghastly mockery of the death-like
-pallor which had overspread the rest of
-her face. Her lips twitched convulsively. She
-sat staring at Sir William, unable to utter a
-word.</p>
-
-<p>‘In most families, Lady Renshaw, nay, in most
-individual lives, there are certain secrets, certain
-private matters, which concern ourselves alone,
-and about which we would infinitely prefer that
-the world, and perhaps even our most intimate
-friends, should remain in happy ignorance. It
-could be no gratification to your ladyship, for
-instance, if the circle of your acquaintance were
-made aware that your grandfather started in life
-as a rag and bone merchant in the fashionable
-locality just named—“Solomon Izzard” was the
-name painted over his door—and that your ladyship
-first saw the light under the roof of that
-unsavoury emporium. No; certainly that could
-be no gratification to you. Your father at that
-time was just beginning to lay the foundation
-of the fortune which he subsequently accumulated
-as a speculative builder. My father owned
-certain house property in the neighbourhood, and
-he employed your father to look after the repairs.
-Hence it was that, on two occasions when little
-more than a youth, I was sent with business
-messages to the Lane, and it was on one of those
-occasions that I first had the distinguished
-pleasure of meeting your ladyship. You were
-a mere child at the time, and your father used
-to call you “Peggy,” if I mistake not. He
-was holding you in his arms, and you struggled
-to get down; but he would not let you go.
-“She wants to be off with the other children,”
-he said to me; “and then she gets playing in
-the gutter, and makes a nice mess of herself.”
-Those were his exact words. Your ladyship will
-pardon me for saying that you struck me at the
-time as being a remarkably pretty child, although
-it is possible that your face might with advantage
-have been a little cleaner than it was.’</p>
-
-<p>Never before in the whole course of her life
-had Lady Renshaw had the tables turned on her
-in such fashion. Scalding tears of rage and
-mortification sprang to her eyes, but she bit her
-lip hard and kept them back. At the moment,
-she felt as if she could willingly have stabbed
-Sir William to the heart.</p>
-
-<p>She sat without uttering a word. What,
-indeed, could she find to say?</p>
-
-<p>‘Come, come, Lady Renshaw,’ resumed Sir
-William smilingly; ‘there is no occasion for you
-to be downhearted. The best thing that you
-and I can do will be to draw up and sign—metaphorically—a
-treaty of peace, to which
-Woodruffe here shall act as witness. The terms
-of the treaty shall be these: you on your part
-shall promise to keep locked up in your bosom
-as a sacred secret, not even to be hinted at to
-your dearest friend, that knowledge respecting
-the married life of Madame De Vigne which has
-come so strangely into your possession; while I
-on my part will promise faithfully to keep
-undivulged those particulars concerning your
-ladyship’s early career of which I have just made
-mention—which, and others too that I could
-mention, although you could in nowise help
-them, I feel sure that you would not care to
-have published on the housetops. Come, what
-say you, shall it be a compact between us?’</p>
-
-<p>‘As you please,’ she answered sullenly as she
-rose from her chair, adding with a contemptuous
-shrug, ‘I have no wish to injure Madame De
-Vigne.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Nor I the slightest desire to humiliate Lady
-Renshaw.’</p>
-
-<p>Was it possible that this man, whose tongue
-knew how to stab so keenly, could really be the
-same individual as mild-mannered, soft-spoken
-Mr Etheridge, who had seemed as if he could
-hardly say Bo to a goose!</p>
-
-<p>Her ladyship seemed to hesitate for a moment
-or two; then she said: ‘I will see you again
-to-morrow—when you are alone,’ with a little
-vindictive glance at the impassive Colonel Woodruffe.</p>
-
-<p>‘I shall be at your ladyship’s command whenever
-and wherever may suit you best.’</p>
-
-<p>He crossed to the door, opened it, and made
-her one of his most stately bows as she walked
-slowly out, with head erect and eyes that stared
-straight before her, but with rage and bitter
-mortification gnawing at her heartstrings.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_792">{792}</span></p>
-
-<p>‘We have still that scoundrel of a Laroche to
-reckon with,’ said Sir William quietly to the
-colonel as he shut the door upon her ladyship.</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="RECOLLECTIONS_OF_AN_ANGLO-INDIAN">RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ANGLO-INDIAN
-CHAPLAIN.</h2>
-</div>
-<p class="ph3">BANGALORE—THE ENGLISH CANTONMENT.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">About</span> a mile distant from the old fort and
-city of Bangalore are the English cantonment
-and modern native town. Conceive a field or
-parade-ground a mile and a half in length and
-a quarter of a mile in breadth, lined on each
-side by avenues of large beautiful trees, overshadowing
-the encircling footpath and carriage-drive.
-Along the southern boundary of this
-parade-ground are the houses and shops of the
-Europeans and Eurasians; whilst to the north
-are lines of barracks for both European and
-native troops, from the midst of which rises
-prominently the tower of St Andrew’s Church,
-which is, or was, the finest and highest building
-in Bangalore. Many are the beautiful roads
-stretching away from this parade-ground into
-the country, where are the picturesque dwelling-houses
-of civilians and officers, whose encircling
-gardens all the year round are in perpetual
-bloom—for Bangalore, though in a tropical region,
-has an Italian climate. The fortunate Europeans
-who are stationed there are not scorched up by
-the terrible heat under which their unlucky
-countrymen must swelter at Madras and in the
-southern plains; and Christmas comes to them
-at Bangalore, not wreathed with snowflakes and
-pendent with icicles, as it does to us, but
-beautiful with roses and variegated garlands of
-flowers.</p>
-
-<p>It was rather a novel thing for my friends
-Dr Norman Macleod and Dr Watson to be taken
-on a New-year’s day, as I took them in 1868, to
-a magnificent show of flowers and fruits in the
-‘Lall-baugh’ Gardens of Bangalore. In his usual
-happy style, the celebrated Norman thus relates
-his visit: ‘The European quarter is as different
-from the Pettah as Belgravia is from the east
-end of London. Here the houses are in their
-own compounds with shrubs and flower-gardens
-quite fresh and blooming. Open park-like spaces
-meet the eye everywhere, with broad roads as
-smooth and beautiful as the most finished in
-England. Equipages whirl along, and ladies and
-gentlemen ride by on horseback. One catches a
-glimpse of a church tower or steeple; and these
-things, together with the genial air, make one
-feel once more at home; at all events, in a bit
-of territory which seems cut out of home and
-settled in India. There are delightful drives,
-one to the Lall-baugh laid out in the last century
-by Hyder Ali. Our home feeling was greatly
-intensified by attending a flower-show. There was
-the usual military band; and crowds of carriages
-conveyed fashionable parties to the entrance.
-Military officers and civil servants of every grade
-were there, up to Mr Bowring, Chief Commissioner
-of Mysore. The most remarkable and
-interesting spectacles to me were the splendid
-vegetables of every kind, including potatoes
-which would have delighted an Irishman; leeks
-and onions to be remembered, like those of
-Egypt; cabbages, turnips, cauliflowers, peas,
-beans, such as England could hardly equal;
-splendid fruit, apples, peaches, oranges, figs, and
-pomegranates; the display culminating in a
-magnificent array of flowers, none of which
-pleased me more than the beautiful roses, so
-redolent of home. Such were the sights of a
-winter’s day at Bangalore.’</p>
-
-<p>Around the English cantonment, more especially
-on the north side of it, is the modern town
-of Bangalore, containing about sixty or seventy
-thousand inhabitants, who are chiefly Tamulians,
-the descendants of those native camp-followers
-and adherents who accompanied the British
-forces from Madras and the plains of the Carnatic
-when they conquered and took possession of the
-land. There are likewise at Bangalore a goodly
-number of English and Irish pensioners, who
-have chosen rather to abide in India than come
-back to this country; and certainly, with scanty
-means, they are better off there in a warm and
-genial clime than they would be here, with our
-long and dreary cold and icy winters. And
-when those pensioners are sober and industrious,
-they have abundant opportunities in India to
-enable them to support themselves and their
-families in great comfort, and even to become
-what we Scotch people call ‘bein folk.’ I could
-give many pleasing instances from amongst them
-of ‘success in life.’ I knew three Scotch gentlemen
-who were highly respected bank agents, and
-who had gone to India as artillerymen in the
-Honourable East India Company’s service. But
-although it be thus a pleasant fact that many
-of our pensioned soldiers have done well and
-prospered in India, yet it is melancholy to relate
-that a goodly portion of them are sadly wanting
-in sobriety and industry, and consequently their
-continued stay in that country is not for good,
-but for evil. So impressed was I with this that,
-when asked by a high military official for my
-opinion as to whether the government ought to
-give greater encouragement to the time-served
-soldiers to settle permanently in India, I at once
-and decidedly said No; because, when freed
-from military discipline, their lives too frequently
-were such that they lowered the prestige of the
-English name, and helped to injure the salutary
-respect which the natives have hitherto had for
-their white-faced rulers.</p>
-
-<p>In a pretty little village near Madras, called
-Poonamalee, as well as in Bangalore, there dwell
-very many of those pensioners with their families.
-I was wont to pay periodical visits to this place
-on professional duty; and certainly I found it at
-first not only strange but grotesque to see young
-men and maidens and numerous children, with
-faces as black as a minister’s coat, but yet bearing
-some good old Scottish name, and speaking the
-English with an accent as if they had been born
-and bred in the wilds of Lochaber. My beadle,
-as sable a youth as could be, was a M‘Cormick,
-and proudly claimed to be an Inverness-shire man.
-I remember, towards the close of the Mutiny,
-of driving with my wife, on a moonlight evening
-through a beautiful ‘tope’ of palm-trees, when
-suddenly our ears caught the distant strain
-of the bagpipes. There was no mistaking it;
-faint though it was, we could distinguish it
-floating and wailing through the silent night as
-<i>M‘Clymont’s Lament</i>. Gradually the music became<span class="pagenum" id="Page_793">{793}</span>
-louder, until we were able to discover whence it
-emanated. I got out of the carriage before an
-opening in the trees, and winding my way by
-a narrow path, I came at last to a small bungalow
-where a man was strutting up and down the
-veranda playing on a genuine pair of Scottish
-bagpipes. His garments were white, but his face
-was perfectly black. He was astonished at my
-appearance, and so was I at his; and my astonishment
-was not diminished when in answer to a
-question as to his name, he replied to me in a
-pleasant Argyllshire accent: ‘My name is Coll
-M‘Gregor, sir; and my father was a piper in
-the forty-second Highlanders, and I believe he
-came from a place they called Inveraray.’ Poor
-M‘Gregor! from that night I knew him well.
-Black though he was, he was a most worthy man;
-and one of the last sad duties I performed ere
-leaving India was to visit him when dying in
-the hospital, and to bury him when dead amongst
-the sleeping Scotchmen in St Andrew’s churchyard.</p>
-
-<p>In the <i>Illustrated London News</i> there is a
-picture entitled ‘Recruits’ which gives a very
-faithful representation of the composition of
-the British army. A smart recruiting sergeant
-is leading away captive a batch of young men—the
-thoughtless, reckless shopboy, the clownish
-rustic, the discontented artisan, and the downcast
-‘young gentleman’ who has wasted his substance
-in riotous living. The picture rekindles in my
-memory several instances of the last-mentioned
-type. In the following stories, it will be seen,
-from obvious reasons, that where names are
-mentioned, these are fictitious.</p>
-
-<p>There is a clump of trees in the immediate
-vicinity of Bangalore which is known as ‘the
-Dead-man’s Tope.’ In it there is a solitary grave,
-that of a young Scotchman. For many years
-the natives alleged that his ‘ghost’ was to be
-seen walking mournfully amongst the trees, for
-they said he could not rest until his appointed
-years had been fulfilled. He had been a corporal
-in a Scotch regiment stationed in Bangalore,
-beloved by all his comrades, but unfortunately
-hated by the sergeant of his company. At last,
-goaded by the unjust treatment he received from
-this sergeant, he struck him down in a moment
-of passion. In those days, discipline was stern;
-the young corporal was tried, and condemned to
-be hanged in the presence of the whole garrison.
-The execution took place; but so great was the
-feeling against the sergeant, that he had to be
-sent away from the regiment down to Madras,
-protected by a military escort. The general
-officer who told me this story was a witness of
-this sad scene, and was the interpreter to the
-native soldiers of the reason of the execution.
-That young corporal belonged to Glasgow, and
-was connected with many respectable families in
-the city.</p>
-
-<p>Here is a happier tale. John Home, after
-many years’ service in the Honourable Company’s
-artillery, retired on a pension, and settled at
-Bangalore. He became editor of a small local
-paper, and so for a few years was a prominent
-member of the community. He married, and had
-an only son. This boy was but an infant when
-the father died, his death being hastened by
-intemperate living. On Home’s private writing-desk
-being opened, his relations found, to their
-amazement, a sheet of paper with the handwriting
-of the deceased telling his real name—for
-Home was a fictitious one he had assumed
-on his enlistment—and whence he came, and
-where his relatives were to be found. These disclosures
-were made, so the paper said, for the
-only reason that perhaps on some future day
-they might benefit his boy; and were it not
-for this hope, the secret would have gone down
-with him to the grave. Strange to say, not
-many months elapsed when an advertisement
-appeared in an Edinburgh paper signed by a
-legal firm, asking for information about this
-very man, giving his real name. Of course the
-Edinburgh gentlemen were at once communicated
-with; and after all the evidences were submitted,
-and no doubt well scrutinised, the claim of the
-widow and her child was acknowledged. The
-boy was brought home and educated; and I trust
-still is, what he was a few years ago, the proprietor
-of a ‘snug little estate.’ Such is some of
-the romance of the ‘rank and file’ of our army.</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="COLONEL_REDGRAVES_LEGACY">COLONEL REDGRAVE’S LEGACY.</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<h3 title="CHAPTER III.">IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER III.</h3>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> spinster sisters held a council of war on
-the day following the events we have described.
-They were not disappointed at the failure of the
-marriage proposals to Miss Fraser; for that young
-lady was by no means the kind of guardian
-they would select for their brother as a bulwark
-against the troubles and vexations of this mortal
-life. The way was now more clear than ever
-for the success of their original plan. Septimus
-had learned their ideas and wishes, and had
-gradually become more amenable to reason. The
-beauty and talent of the handsome widow had
-been fully descanted upon. Nor were her
-monetary qualifications lost sight of by the
-practical Penelope. The question of suitability
-as to age had been delicately but firmly touched
-upon by both the sisters.</p>
-
-<p>‘Mrs Fraser is only ten years your junior,
-Septimus, and that is the difference which should
-always exist between husband and wife. Indeed,
-I see no objection to even a greater disproportion,
-but that is the minimum necessary to conjugal
-happiness. I am certain that Mrs Fraser has a
-<i>tendresse</i> for you, and that any proposal from you
-would meet with every encouragement.’</p>
-
-<p>Septimus left the room considerably mollified,
-and immediately after he had done so, Penelope
-turned to her sister, and said: ‘I trust, Lavinia,
-you approve of all I have been saying to dear
-Septimus?’</p>
-
-<p>‘Entirely, my dear sister; but’—— Lavinia
-paused.</p>
-
-<p>‘You have always a “but,” Lavinia. Pray, speak
-out.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Well, I have a suspicion that Mrs Fraser has
-a lurking sentiment for Mr Lockwood.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Good gracious, Lavinia! you certainly conceive
-the most extraordinary notions.’</p>
-
-<p>‘I do not say for a single moment that the
-sentiment is reciprocated,’ replied Lavinia.</p>
-
-<p>‘Why, Frank Lockwood is young enough to
-be her son!’ indignantly exclaimed Penelope.</p>
-
-<p>‘Hardly, Penelope, unless Mrs Fraser was
-marriageable at the age of six,’ Lavinia continued.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_794">{794}</span>
-‘Then I cannot help thinking that Frank is in
-love with Blanche.’</p>
-
-<p>Penelope made a gesture of assent. ‘That is
-highly probable, and would account for her
-rejection of Septimus.’</p>
-
-<p>Finally, the sisters mutually agreed that it
-would be politic to prepare Mrs Fraser for the
-possible proposal of their brother.</p>
-
-<p>We trust the reader will not contemptuously
-label the spinster sisters as ‘matchmakers;’
-for surely matchmaking is a fitting task for the
-angels, if it be true, as we are often told, that
-marriages are made in heaven.</p>
-
-<p>At this moment the widow chanced to enter
-the drawing-room where the sisters were sitting.
-Her features still showed traces of the disappointment
-she had recently experienced.</p>
-
-<p>‘We have not seen you all the morning, Mrs
-Fraser.’</p>
-
-<p>‘I awoke with a slight headache, and sought
-the solitude of the Chine, my sole companion a
-book,’ replied the widow.</p>
-
-<p>‘I trust you are better?’ said Lavinia.</p>
-
-<p>‘Yes, thanks. I never enjoy Tennyson so much
-as when surrounded by murmuring foliage, and
-my ears filled with the sound of falling waters.’</p>
-
-<p>‘How charming to have preserved your sentiment
-till <i>now</i>,’ said Penelope in marked tones.</p>
-
-<p>This remark may seem ill calculated to put
-the widow in a good-tempered frame of mind.
-But Miss Redgrave had uttered it advisedly. The
-more fully Mrs Fraser was impressed with her
-own increasing years and fading charms, the
-more likely she was to listen to the suit of the
-elderly-looking Septimus.</p>
-
-<p>For a moment the widow coloured, as if in
-anger. ‘That is not exactly a complimentary
-remark, my dear Miss Redgrave.—Now, don’t
-apologise, for I am not in the least offended.
-How can I be, when I have a daughter, not
-only marriageable, but actually engaged to be
-married!’</p>
-
-<p>The sisters simultaneously left off their needlework,
-and gazing in astonishment at the speaker,
-sat as mute as the twin sisters carved in stone in
-the sandy Egyptian desert.</p>
-
-<p>‘Yes; Mr Lockwood has asked my consent
-to his marriage with Blanche, and I have graciously
-accorded the same. Heigh-ho! it will be
-a great trial for me, when the hour of parting
-comes.’</p>
-
-<p>‘I congratulate you most sincerely, my dear
-Mrs Fraser,’ exclaimed Penelope. ‘We have
-known Frank from a child. He is everything
-that a man should be, clever, accomplished, with
-good prospects, and of high moral principles.’</p>
-
-<p>The widow sighed. ‘I shall be very lonely. I
-have not an affectionate sister as you have; and
-when a woman has once known the happiness of
-married life, and the comfort and protection of
-an affectionate husband, life is indeed a blank
-when she is left utterly alone.’</p>
-
-<p>Like a second Wellington, Penelope saw her
-chances of a successful attack. In love and war,
-the occasion is everything. She gently laid her
-spare fingers on the plump hand of the widow,
-and softly whispered: ‘Why should you be
-utterly alone, dear friend?’</p>
-
-<p>Mrs Fraser directed an inquiring glance in
-response at the speaker.</p>
-
-<p>‘We know of one who would be only too
-happy to be your companion for life,’ pursued
-Penelope. ‘Of a suitable age, amiable, and
-rich.’</p>
-
-<p>The countenance of the widow was suffused
-with a soft blush as she said: ‘Where shall I
-find this earthly treasure?’</p>
-
-<p>‘In this house, Mrs Fraser. Our beloved
-brother, Septimus.’</p>
-
-<p>Mrs Fraser had much ado to avoid making
-a wry face, as she mentally contrasted the
-white-haired ‘brother’ with his vacuous expression
-of countenance, and the black-haired Frank
-Lockwood, with his bright intelligent glance
-and fascinating smile. But it was now quite
-as probable that she would marry the Emperor of
-China as the solicitor of the Redgrave family;
-so she softly murmured; ‘I had no suspicion of
-anything of the kind.’</p>
-
-<p>Rapidly the widow reviewed all the attendant
-circumstances of the case. Von Moltke himself
-would have envied her comprehensive glance at
-the pros and cons of an important conjuncture of
-events. Septimus was of good family, of suitable
-age, possessed of ample means, and last, but not
-least in the eyes of the widow, was not too
-clever; and therefore, in all probability easily
-manageable, that indispensable desideratum in
-a husband. We are not sure that Mrs Fraser
-was correct in her deduction on this point, for
-foolish people are frequently obstinate, under
-the false idea that they are thereby displaying
-firmness.</p>
-
-<p>‘If I were to accept Mr Redgrave on the
-instant, in consequence of your recommendation,
-my dear Penelope, neither he nor his
-sisters would respect me. I have always found
-great pleasure in the society of your brother,
-and have a great respect for his character. More,
-I am sure, my dear Penelope, you would neither
-expect, nor wish me to say.’</p>
-
-<p>Both the sisters cordially kissed the blushing
-widow, and expressed themselves as quite satisfied
-with the avowal, Penelope adding: ‘I have
-more than a presentiment that in a few weeks
-we shall be enabled to give you the kiss of a
-sister.’</p>
-
-<p>No more was said on the present occasion.</p>
-
-<p>The widow retired to her chamber, and as
-she contemplated her features in the glass, soliloquised:
-‘No—at forty, one must not be too particular;
-and there are twenty thousand excellent
-reasons why I should change my name from
-Fraser to that of Redgrave.’</p>
-
-<p>It is needless to say that the sisters did not
-allow the grass to grow under their feet with
-respect to the proposed alliance between the
-families of Redgrave and Fraser. Much stress
-was laid by them in their conversations with
-the widow as to the shyness of their brother,
-and the necessity of some encouragement being
-extended to him. At length Septimus screwed
-his courage to the sticking-place and resolved
-to learn his fate. By a singular coincidence, he
-found the widow seated on the identical bench
-occupied on a similar occasion by her youthful
-daughter. An involuntary sigh escaped him as
-he mentally instituted a comparison between the
-sylph-like figure of Blanche and the more portly
-form of her mother. As he sat down by her
-side in response to her invitation, he felt his
-courage oozing away. On the former occasion,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_795">{795}</span>
-he had been bold as a lion; but in the presence
-of the keen-witted woman of the world, he fully
-realised his mental inferiority. Some commonplaces
-ensued, and then Mrs Fraser, laying down
-the newspaper which she held in her hand,
-suddenly observed: ‘What is your opinion of
-thought-reading, Mr Redgrave? Do you believe
-in it?’</p>
-
-<p>‘I scarcely know whether I do or not,’ responded
-Septimus. ‘Do you?’</p>
-
-<p>‘Implicitly,’ replied the widow. ‘Shall I give
-you a specimen of my powers?’</p>
-
-<p>‘I should be delighted. Can you read my
-thoughts?’ said Septimus.</p>
-
-<p>‘I can. But you must promise two things:
-That you won’t be offended at my guess; and
-that you candidly admit whether I am correct
-in my guess.’</p>
-
-<p>‘I promise.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Give me your hand.’</p>
-
-<p>Septimus placed his trembling fingers in the
-strong grasp of the widow. ‘You are at this
-moment contemplating matrimony.’</p>
-
-<p>‘That is correct,’ said Septimus.</p>
-
-<p>‘The lady is a widow.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Wonderful!’ cried Septimus. ‘Can you tell
-me her name?’</p>
-
-<p>‘My powers do not extend so far,’ returned Mrs
-Fraser.</p>
-
-<p>‘Your successful guess, my dear Mrs Fraser,
-has helped me out of a great difficulty.’</p>
-
-<p>‘How so?’</p>
-
-<p>‘You have half-performed my task for me.
-Do you think a lady, handsome, rich, and well-bred,
-and still comparatively young, would consent
-to unite her fortunes with mine? I am
-some ten or a dozen years her senior. I have
-been a bachelor all my life, and may have thus
-acquired peculiar ways. But I would settle the
-whole of my cousin’s legacy upon her, if she
-would take pity on my solitary state. Dear
-Fanny, can you not guess, without thought-reading,
-the name of my enslaver?’</p>
-
-<p>The widow looked down and managed to blush
-becomingly, and impart a slight tremor to the
-hand which still held that of Septimus.</p>
-
-<p>‘I will not affect to misunderstand you, Mr
-Redgrave; you are making my unworthy self
-an offer of marriage.’</p>
-
-<p>‘And you accept it?’</p>
-
-<p>‘I do.’</p>
-
-<p>Septimus sealed the contract by a chaste kiss
-on the cheek of the widow, and felt a sensation
-of inexpressible relief that the Rubicon, for good
-or evil, was passed.</p>
-
-<p>‘I may now tell you, dear Septimus, that
-Blanche is also engaged.’</p>
-
-<p>‘I know it.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Impossible! I only knew it myself forty-eight
-hours ago!’</p>
-
-<p>‘Do not ask me at present, dear Fanny. I
-learned the fact by an accident.’</p>
-
-<p>The widow presently retired to her chamber,
-under the plea of nervous agitation, but in
-reality to inform her daughter of her engagement.
-But it was reserved for Septimus to perform that
-pleasant duty. Scarcely had Mrs Fraser retired,
-when Blanche appeared on the terrace. ‘Have
-you seen mamma, Mr Redgrave?’</p>
-
-<p>‘Mrs Fraser has this moment left me.—Blanche,
-I have a favour to ask of you.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Of me!’</p>
-
-<p>‘That you will not breathe a syllable to your
-mamma that I proposed to you three days ago;
-at least, not for the present.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Certainly, Mr Redgrave.’</p>
-
-<p>‘You will at once see the necessity for my
-request, when I tell you that I have this day
-proposed to another lady and been accepted.’</p>
-
-<p>Blanche indulged in a merry peal of laughter,
-which she found it impossible to repress. ‘Pray,
-forgive me, Mr Redgrave. I congratulate you
-that you have so speedily recovered from your
-late rejection.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Yes, Blanche, as I could not be your husband,
-I have resolved on being your father.’</p>
-
-<p>Blanche remained petrified with astonishment
-for a few seconds, then exclaiming: ‘I must go
-at once to dear mamma and congratulate her,’
-prepared to enter the house.</p>
-
-<p>But Septimus seized her hand and said: ‘Now,
-tell me the name of <i>your</i> future partner. Though
-I shrewdly suspect, yet I think in my new position
-as your father I am entitled to know for
-certain?’</p>
-
-<p>‘Mr Frank Lockwood,’ replied the blushing
-girl, as she broke away and ran into the house.</p>
-
-<p>There was not a happier circle round a dinner-table
-in the island than that assembled in Oswald
-Villa that evening. The engaged couples were
-mutually satisfied with their matrimonial prospects,
-while the spinster sisters saw the wish of
-their hearts gratified in the engagement of their
-beloved brother with so suitable a person as
-Mrs Fraser. But at that moment a cloud was
-forming on the horizon which was destined to
-effect a great change in the fortunes of the
-betrothed couples.</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="A_SAMPLE_OF_MARSALA">A SAMPLE OF MARSALA.</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Time</span> was, long ago, when certain of us thought
-that Spain was the place where the then despised
-Marsala wine was made. Struggling to obtain
-the favour and recognition of the public, and
-held as a kind of humble cousin of sherry,
-cheaper to buy and meaner in all its conditions,
-Marsala had no honour in England some
-thirty years or so ago. Those who gave it gave
-it for need; and for the most part tried to
-pawn it off as its more aristocratic relation,
-thinking that no one would suspect the truth
-when that silver label, shaped like a vine-leaf
-with ‘Sherry’ cut out in Roman capitals in the
-centre, was hung round the neck of the heavy
-cut-glass bottle. And as sherry was certainly a
-Spanish wine, the false reasoning born of association
-of ideas made one think that Marsala also
-was a Spanish wine.</p>
-
-<p>The way to Marsala from Palermo is exceedingly
-interesting. The country is beautiful with
-all the grand Sicilian beauty—broken foregrounds,
-noble mountain forms, the dark-blue sea,
-of which the splendour is enhanced by the gray
-green of the olives and the contrast of the golden
-hue given by the lemon-trees hanging thick
-with fruit. All the waysides along the railroad
-are rich in flowers, making the land look as if
-enamelled. Rugged capes and fertile plains,
-small smooth exquisite bays and inland mountains,
-orange-gardens and vineyards, fields of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_796">{796}</span>
-pale lilac flax, woods of beech and ilex, and
-rivers running down in song to the sea—there
-is not a feature of Southern scenery wanting on
-this lovely way. And the sea, where the white
-sails of passing ships gleam in the sunlight like
-the wings of birds, is as beautiful as the land,
-where here a ruined temple crowns a height,
-and there a modern mansion stands sheltered on
-the slopes. Among the beautiful things of the
-sea is the uninhabited rocky island called ‘The
-Island of Women’ (<i>L’isola delle femmine</i>). The
-legend is that in old times, when pirates
-abounded, the ‘Barbari’ used to seize such hapless
-Sicilian women as they found wandering by the
-shore, and lodge them on this island till they
-had finished their fighting on shore; when they
-would return and carry off their prey.</p>
-
-<p>In time the beauty of the lovely road fades
-away, and the country becomes utterly uninteresting.
-Still, even when there is no more
-flowery charm and no more golden colour, there
-is always association, and the way up to Segesta
-and Solinunto, with the ruined temple visible
-on the crest of the mountain, brings before the
-mind the long train of glorious images by which
-the ancient history of Sicily is thronged. For
-we are skirting the base of Mount Eryx, now
-Monte Giuliano, whence Acestes the king came
-down to meet Æneas when he landed on his
-return from Carthage; and where Æneas—so they
-say—founded the town of Acesta, which afterwards
-became Egesta, and is now Segesta. And
-all the well-known story repeats itself. ‘Selinus
-rich in palms,’ and ‘the shallow waters of Lilybæum’
-which were ‘left behind;’ the race, and
-the beauty of the contending youths; poor Dido’s
-sad story; the death and burial of Anchises, the
-father whom Æneas saved from burning Troy by
-carrying on his shoulders—it is all living and
-palpitating as in those youthful days when
-imagination touched the pages with light, and
-made the dead words breathe with love and
-sorrow and passion. It is worth coming here, if
-only to realise Virgil and his matchless poem!
-But we draw up at a station, and the present
-puts the past to flight—the real blots out the
-ideal born of imagination and poetry.</p>
-
-<p>Armed <i>carabinieri</i> are at every station. This
-is not usual either in Sicily or elsewhere in Italy,
-where soldiers keep order at the stations, but are
-not so numerous nor so heavily armed as these.
-The district about Trapani, however, in which
-we are, has not a good name; and the government
-knows what it is about when it takes
-extra measures of precaution for the safety of
-travellers. That it does take these extra measures
-insures the safety of the wayfarers. At Marsala
-itself, the whole train is taken possession of before
-it has well come to a stand, and long before the
-passengers have got out. The crowd swarms
-into all three classes indiscriminately; and there
-is much rough pushing and hustling, but no
-actual brutality. Still, it is sufficiently like the
-return of ’Arry from a Crystal Palace fête to
-be unpleasant; though for all that, the Italian
-’Arry is a good-natured soul, with no malice
-in him. What he wants in malice, however,
-he makes up in garlic. There has been an
-Easter-week procession here—it is ‘Holy Thursday’—and
-all the neighbourhood has sent its
-young men, each township and village its quota,
-till they have come in their hundreds, and have
-to be taken back again the best way they can.</p>
-
-<p>Near Marsala is one of the three promontories
-which give Sicily its name of Trinacria—Cape
-Lilybeo, the very Lilybæum whose ‘shallows
-blind,’ ‘dangerous through their hidden rocks,’
-caused Æneas to land on the ‘unlucky shore’ of
-Drepanum. Here in calm weather you can see
-the remains of houses beneath the sea, as at
-Pozzuoli, near Naples. But the point of the
-whole visit is the wine-stores of Ingham—the
-largest and most important of all the Marsala
-wine-factories. These stores seem to be interminable;
-and the perspective of arches, from
-each side of which branch out these huge
-above-ground cellars, is a sight at once strange
-and picturesque. The <i>balio</i> or inclosure wherein
-the whole concern stands—storehouses, workshops,
-dwelling-house, garden, fields, &amp;c.—is
-really like a fair-sized estate. To ‘walk in the
-grounds’ is quite enough exercise for any moderate-minded
-pedestrian. The oldest two stores
-date from 1812, and are the parents of all that
-have come after. They are picturesque little
-places now, covered with glossy dark-green ivy
-and flame-coloured bougainvillia; but, like the
-fathers and mothers of prosperous families, they
-are set aside as comparatively useless in the
-presence of their stalwart children.</p>
-
-<p>In going through the stores, one is struck not
-only with the number, but also with the enormous
-size of the wine-vats. Some are of huge proportions,
-not quite equalling the famous Tun of
-Heidelberg perhaps, but coming pretty close to
-it, and holding wine to the worth of an astounding
-figure. The value of one store alone comes
-up to a moderate fortune; and there are thirty
-in all. Once a boy went to sleep in one of those
-weird receptacles, and was not found till the
-next morning. The fumes had overpowered
-him, but he came out none the worse. Some of
-the wine given us to taste is fifty years old, and
-is delicious in proportion to its age and preciousness;
-and some of the finer sorts of younger date
-are unsurpassed in any wine-store extant. Then
-there is the huge vat of <i>vino cotto</i> or <i>vino madre</i>;
-and there is the distilling apparatus, which is
-very beautiful and dainty. The Custom House
-is jealous and exact. It seals up all with a letter-lock,
-waxen seals and silken threads; so that no
-tampering is possible with the retorts or the
-receivers. The cool obscurity of the cellars,
-where these immense vats are ranged like so
-many transformed giants, gives one a sense of
-restfulness and shelter; while out of doors, the
-sun, lying keen and bright on wall and pavement,
-casting shadows as sharply defined as if
-purple paper had been cut with a pair of scissors
-and thrown on the ground, has the sentiment of
-passionate vitality peculiar to Sicily. Men in
-coloured shirts, with blue or red sashes round
-their waists, add to the general picturesqueness of
-the scene; and the white wings of the pigeons
-shining like silver against the blue sky, complete
-a chord of colour to be seen only in the South—that
-fervid South where to live is sufficient
-enjoyment, and where artificial wants as we have
-them are neither known nor appreciated, being
-of the nature of encumbrances and superfluities.
-For what else is wanted than the sun and the
-sky, the fruits and the flowers, the charm and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_797">{797}</span>
-the glory of nature? Nevertheless, the material
-luxury of the North and West is invading the
-hitherto frugal and, in one way, ascetic South;
-and France and England both, are being imitated
-even so far as Marsala, where once the house
-was held as merely a place of refuge where
-tired Christians might sleep at noon and at
-night, but in nowise as a place of enjoyment
-worth the spending of thought or money to
-make beautiful.</p>
-
-<p>From the vats full of their golden treasure to
-the casks in process of making, the transition is
-natural. Here, again, light and colour give a
-certain charm, making a novelty of that which
-is so well known at home. For cask-making
-in Marsala is very much the same as cask-making
-in England; and only the men, with
-very minor details in the method of manipulation,
-are different. It is the same drying of the
-wood, the same setting of the staves, the same
-hammering on of the hoops in regular succession
-of blows, and we fancy the same kind of white
-oak, of which the staves are made, shipped from
-America for England as well as for Marsala.
-Hans Christian Andersen might have written a
-sprightly sketch of the oak as it stood in its virgin
-forest, with grizzlies and panthers, pretty woodchunks
-and sweet wild birds all about, till it
-was cut down by the forester; packed into a
-raft and started down the Big River by the
-lumberman; brought over to Europe by the
-huge steamship; made into casks, and filled with
-the golden juice of grapes beneath the glorious
-sky of Sicily—the wine to be drunk at the
-marriage of the bride, the birth of the heir, the
-death of the master. The place where they clean
-the barrels, some in the old-fashioned way of
-hand-rocking, with chains inside; the sheds where
-they cut the hoops and make the bolts—the drill
-and the circular saw going through iron and
-wood like so much butter or cheese; those where
-they steam the barrels and those where they
-mark them—these, too, come into the day’s work
-of visiting and inspection; as well as the cooking-place
-and the dining-shed for the three hundred
-men employed.</p>
-
-<p>These men are noticeably clean and smart in
-appearance; they are, too, as industrious as they
-look; for no loafers are allowed, and he who
-does not know how to work with a will soon
-receives his dismissal. The touch of English
-energy and English precision is plainly visible
-throughout—with one result, that, unlike
-Southern workmen, as generally found, these
-do not care to keep all the holidays which are
-so frequent in Roman Catholic countries. They
-work about ten and a half hours in the day; and
-each man is searched and numbered on coming
-in and going out.</p>
-
-<p>The word Marsala recalls the time when the
-Saracens ruled the land, just as Mongibello for
-Etna, Gibbel Rossa at Palermo, and all Sicilian
-agricultural and irrigatory terms recall them. It
-is really <i>Marsh-Allah</i>, ‘the port of God.’ Round
-about our <i>balio</i> are many interesting things, principally
-the caves where, not so long ago, a murderer
-hid in perfect safety, and where in lawless
-times brigands and outcasts took refuge and found
-security. They are interminable, and it is impossible
-to visit them all; but our guide takes us
-through some of the most practicable, where we
-have occasion for a little gymnastic exercise here
-and there among the broken rocks and steep sharp
-pitches. An army of brigands might hide away
-here undetected and unseen. Fortunately, at this
-time there are none to hide. No organised band
-of brigands exists anywhere in Sicily, and the
-stranger is absolutely safe.</p>
-
-<p>Besides these caves, there is a strange folly in
-the shape of a ballroom and banqueting-room cut
-out of the living rock. There are tables and the
-place for the musicians, benches and divisions,
-all made in the rock underground. These odd
-rooms have been used, and it is to be supposed
-enjoyed. When we see them, the only guests
-are black beetles, a couple of dirty little lads
-as unkempt as wild Highland cattle, and a half-maniacal
-shock-headed Dugald kind of creature,
-with an atmosphere of garlic, which makes us
-rejoice when we turn out once more into the
-fresh air blowing over the breezy flower-clad
-upland, with the blue sea in front and the
-bright sun overhead.</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONCERNING_FLORIDA">CONCERNING FLORIDA.</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">A contributor</span>, who is conversant with his
-subject, sends us the following important items,
-which we commend to young men who contemplate
-emigration.</p>
-
-<p>‘Heads of families,’ says our correspondent,
-‘with “little to earn and many to keep,” with
-several sons growing up and having a desire to
-go abroad and see the world, will be glad to know
-that there are ways for providing for the olive
-branches other than sending them to Australia
-or Manitoba to earn merely nominal wages as
-farm-labourers. Until recently, the United States
-depended almost wholly upon the enterprise of
-foreigners for their supply of oranges; but, as
-if by an inspiration, the discovery has been made
-that they can, amongst the numerous other industries
-for which they are remarkable, grow their
-own oranges, and that, too, of better quality,
-both in size and flavour, than those which are
-imported. The great and unequalled facilities
-for cheap and rapid transportation have opened
-up nearly the whole of the peninsula of Florida
-to settlement; and what was only recently very
-correctly described as a vast expanse of swamps,
-lakes, and sluggish rivers, is now a vast system
-of drainage-canals and railways.</p>
-
-<p>In Florida, four hundred pounds will buy
-forty acres of land, ten of which may be cleared,
-fenced, and planted with orange-trees. A house
-may be inexpensively erected at an average
-cost of ten pounds per room. The orange-tree
-will bear five years from the bud, or ten
-years from seed; but a man left in charge—say
-the son of the owner—would have no difficulty
-in supporting himself by the sale of small fruit,
-which, coming to perfection in the middle of
-winter, commands the best prices in the New
-York and other Northern markets. In ten
-years, oranges are handsomely remunerative, and
-the crop steadily increases in value with every
-succeeding year. For those who cannot wait
-so long, the lemon and lime may prove more
-attractive, as they bear much sooner. They are
-almost as profitable, though not quite so hardy.</p>
-
-<p>The list of things which can be grown profitably
-in Florida is so long and various as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_798">{798}</span>
-to include such dissimilar articles as potatoes,
-cocoa-nuts, plantains, guavas, mangoes, tomatoes,
-pine-apples, pumpkins, water-melons—which
-frequently weigh a hundredweight—grape-fruit,
-citron, cotton, sugar, strawberries, coffee, tea,
-tobacco, mulberries, pears, quinces, apples, Scuppernong
-grapes, &amp;c. The woods and forests which
-have been slumbering all these years are now
-alive with settlers, who are actively employed
-felling timber, clearing land, erecting fences,
-planting groves, building houses, and in numerous
-ways expending their energy on the improvement
-of the land. The old cry, “Go west,” has been
-changed to, “Go south;” and now thousands of
-families from the Northern States are there,
-having orange and lemon groves, with pretty
-cottages simply but comfortably furnished, situated
-on the banks of rivers and lakes.</p>
-
-<p>For the man who is fond of outdoor exercise
-and has a taste for gardening, the life in Florida
-has a charm all its own, for fruit-growing is
-nothing but gardening on an extensive scale.
-The soil in Florida has the most unpromising
-appearance, looking like nothing so much as
-silver sand. Yet what a charm it possesses!
-Seeds put in this apparently hopeless material
-spring up almost immediately; and cabbages,
-lettuces, radishes, and turnips may be eaten
-three weeks from sowing in the middle of
-January. Fish of large size, from ten pounds
-upwards, abound in the rivers and lakes, and
-being easily caught, make a very welcome addition
-to the larder. Deer, wild turkeys, quail,
-and numerous other kinds of game have not
-yet learned to shun the haunts of men.</p>
-
-<p>Extensive drainage-works have made available
-for settlement vast tracts of land which have
-probably been submerged for centuries, but which
-now, thanks to the remarkable system of drainage-canals,
-is as dry and firm and as healthy to
-live upon as the best land in the State. A
-pretty site judiciously chosen on the banks of a
-lake will eventually enormously enhance the value
-of the property when the surrounding country
-is settled up. The plan suggested for persons
-of small means is to take up forty acres. Having
-ten acres cleared and planted at once, the whole
-might be fenced in, and a comfortable house built
-in the middle of the allotment. The remaining
-thirty acres can be brought into cultivation by
-degrees, and in the meantime will serve to graze
-cattle and sheep, which, being turned into the
-grove at night, fertilise it in the most effectual
-and inexpensive manner.’</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Another correspondent has favoured us with
-the following notes:</p>
-
-<p>‘Upon landing at New York City in the beginning
-of April of the present year, the weather
-was particularly disagreeable—cold, rainy, and
-sleety, and I was only too glad to leave the
-inclement North for the bright sunny South.</p>
-
-<p>On the morning after landing at New York,
-I took my ticket for Jacksonville, Florida, and
-on the journey, stopped a few hours at Washington,
-and also spent a night at Savannah, Georgia;
-reaching Florida, the land of flowers, romance,
-and orange groves, in three days from the time
-of leaving New York.</p>
-
-<p>Florida was first discovered by Sebastian Cabot
-in 1497, and after various vicissitudes in its
-history, became one of the United States in 1845.
-It is gratifying to know that the undoubted
-advantages and attractions of this country are
-becoming better known, and more and more
-appreciated, by all classes both in the United
-States and England. A great amount of English
-capital and English energy is now being attracted
-to Florida, which is a country offering inducements
-to the capitalist, sport to the sportsman,
-novel and romantic scenery to the tourist, health
-to the invalid, and very considerable advantages
-to the intelligent emigrant. The area of Florida
-comprises sixty thousand square miles; and the
-soil is adapted to an infinite variety of products,
-such, for instance, as corn, oats, rice, beans, peas,
-potatoes, turnips, cabbages, strawberries, tomatoes,
-melons, cucumbers, oranges, lemons, limes, peaches,
-figs, &amp;c.; and in South Florida, cocoa-nuts, pine-apples,
-bananas, and other fruits and vegetables
-too numerous to mention. The climate is charming.
-In winter, the thermometer seldom goes
-below thirty degrees, or in summer above ninety;
-and although the State is the most southern
-of the United States, hot nights or oppressive
-days are comparatively rare. This is accounted
-for by its peculiar position, shape, and surroundings.
-The constant breezes, either from the
-Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico, purify
-the atmosphere, and render the Floridian climate
-enjoyable the whole year; and I may add, that
-after a four years’ residence in the State, I know
-of no disease that is indigenous or prevalent.</p>
-
-<p>Jacksonville is situated on the grand St John’s
-River, and is the largest and most important
-city in Florida. It has a population of over
-twenty thousand, and will ere long take rank
-with Savannah or Charleston in commercial
-importance. This is the point at which all
-Northern visitors enter the State, and from
-which they radiate in search of health, work,
-or sport. Here there are fine buildings, shops,
-churches, schools, and about one hundred and
-fifty boarding-houses and hotels, the latter being
-filled during the winter months with invalids,
-principally consumptives.</p>
-
-<p>The most absorbing question of interest to
-the greatest number now, however, is the great
-money-making business of orange-growing, which
-is peculiarly adapted to the Florida soil and
-climate. Since I first visited the State (in 1873),
-this industry has gone far beyond the commercially
-experimental stage, and I have been an
-eye-witness to its undoubted success. It is particularly
-interesting and instructive to travel over
-districts now, and observe <i>bearing</i> orange groves,
-the owners of which are securing handsome
-incomes, where ten years ago not a tree was
-planted. In Orange County, many emigrants
-who first went to Florida for their health, have
-improved sufficiently to earn their living and
-raise an orange grove in addition. Many of
-them took up one hundred and sixty acres of
-land under the Homestead Law, and selling off
-portions of it to later comers, have realised enough
-money to cultivate the balance retained. Others,
-who knew a trade, worked part of their time for
-their neighbours, and spent their unemployed
-hours in planting an orange-tree here or there
-for themselves, until they finally had a five or
-ten acre grove, of sixty trees to the acre, which
-when bearing would give them an annual income<span class="pagenum" id="Page_799">{799}</span>
-of from three hundred to one thousand pounds.
-Owing to recent railway and shipping facilities,
-a man nowadays may—if his land is well selected—grow
-early vegetables, &amp;c., without interfering
-with his orange-trees, and ship them north to
-Baltimore, Philadelphia, or New York, and realise
-profit sufficient to enable him to pay his expenses
-whilst his grove is coming into bearing; for
-it must be borne in mind that the Floridians
-can grow any vegetable in winter which the
-Northerners grow in summer; and the Northern
-people are quite willing to pay a high price for
-such luxuries as peas, tomatoes, or strawberries
-at Christmas.</p>
-
-<p>These are some of the attractions Florida holds
-out to the man who has industry, perseverance,
-and ordinary intelligence.’</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="ARSENIC_IN_DOMESTIC_FABRICS">ARSENIC IN DOMESTIC FABRICS.</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Chronic</span> poisoning by arsenic in domestic fabrics
-is without doubt an important subject, affecting
-the public to such an extent as to render
-attention to the question essential. Serious
-illness frequently arises from this cause, in
-some cases even attended by fatal results. A
-very general effect is a lowered condition of
-the system, such as to render the individual
-more susceptible to the attacks of other diseases.
-Action has been taken by the Medical Society of
-London, the Society of Arts, and the National
-Health Society, on the question of the prohibition
-of arsenic in articles manufactured for
-domestic use, such as wall-papers, dyed furniture
-materials, paint, distemper, &amp;c. The fact
-is remarkable, that although this question has
-been thus brought prominently before the public,
-those supposed to be interested in the sale and
-use of arsenic have hitherto maintained a judicious
-silence, manufacturers abandoning the use
-of arsenical colours to a very large extent, instead
-of defending it. This silence has, however, now
-been broken by Mr Galloway, M.R.I.A., who
-deals with the question from a chemical point of
-view, describing his own special mode of manufacturing
-emerald green in an article in the <i>Journal
-of Science</i>. Mr Galloway asks: ‘Has it ever been
-conclusively proved that persons who inhabit
-rooms stained with emerald green suffer from
-arsenical poisoning?’ Notwithstanding the fact
-that Mr Galloway leaves the question unanswered,
-as though it were unanswerable, the reply shall
-now be given—though in certain quarters it is
-still doubted—that it <i>has</i> been proved, and that
-by the careful observation of medical men of
-eminence in all parts of the country.</p>
-
-<p>Proof of the injurious effect of arsenic in
-domestic fabrics is found in the development
-of certain symptoms in the patient exposed to
-an arsenical fabric, followed by recovery on
-removal of the fabric in question. The occurrence
-of these circumstances in a sufficient number
-of cases leads to the conviction that the
-arsenical fabric was the cause of the malady.
-We act on similar proof with regard to sewer-gas;
-no one has ever absolutely seen the injurious
-action, but the fact of various diseases of a particular
-character frequently following a discharge
-of sewer-gas into a residence, has convinced
-medical men that the gas, or some germ contained
-in the gas, is the cause of illness, and
-that it is therefore desirable to exclude it from
-our homes.</p>
-
-<p>As above stated, the same conclusion is arrived
-at, from the same line of argument, with regard
-to arsenic; and this proof alone would be sufficient.
-But with regard to arsenic, there are
-opportunities of observing what may be classed
-as experimental proofs, such as could not possibly
-occur in illness arising from sewer-gas.
-This further proof consists in the frequent alternate
-recurrence of illness and recovery—illness
-on exposure to, and recovery on removal from,
-arsenical surroundings, followed by final recovery
-on substitution of a non-arsenical fabric in place
-of that containing the poison.</p>
-
-<p>Change of air is in all probability often credited
-with the benefits arising from removal from some
-unsanitary condition of residence, office, or workshop.</p>
-
-<p>The effect on men employed in hanging or
-removing arsenical wall-papers is another proof
-of their injurious quality: men have frequently
-to leave their work unfinished, being too ill to
-continue under the poisonous influence.</p>
-
-<p>Arsenic in domestic fabrics is so easily dispensed
-with, that there is no valid reason for
-the continued use of these poisonous colours.
-Several paper-stainers have for years conscientiously
-excluded all arsenical colours from their
-works, yet have still maintained their position in
-the open market, thus deciding the question both
-as to cost and quality of non-arsenical wall-papers.
-It is an interesting question to medical
-men and chemists, how it is that these minute
-quantities of arsenic, or of some combination of
-arsenic with other ingredients, when breathed,
-should be so injurious, when larger quantities
-can be taken into the stomach as a medicine
-with advantage. This question, however, is of no
-consequence to the patient. His course is simple
-enough: having found out the cause of illness,
-get rid of it, and be thankful it can be got rid
-of at so small a cost.</p>
-
-<p>Arsenic also is found in the dust of rooms
-papered with arsenical papers, thus proving the
-presence of arsenic in the atmosphere.</p>
-
-<p>Mr Galloway alludes to a curious and interesting
-fact, namely, that men can be employed on
-arsenical works, some without being affected at
-all, others suffering much less than might be
-expected. The same singular fact of the immunity
-of those constantly exposed to evil influences
-is illustrated in the case of men employed in
-cleansing sewers; they work continually in the
-very atmosphere of the sewers, but do not suffer
-from those diseases which arise from the escape
-of sewer-gas into houses. No one, however, in
-consequence of this fact, doubts the importance
-of good sanitary arrangements, notwithstanding
-that these involve a considerable outlay. The
-exclusion of arsenic, on the contrary, costs nothing,
-and, moreover, there is nothing to be gained
-by the admission of these poisonous colours into
-our houses. The simple antidote for arsenic in
-domestic fabrics is therefore—exclusion.</p>
-
-<p>Those desiring to see further details, illustrative
-cases, and modes of testing for arsenic,
-will find them in the pamphlet <i>Our Domestic
-Poisons</i> (Ridgway), or in the lecture under the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_800">{800}</span>
-same title, delivered at the International Health
-Exhibition, and published by the Executive
-Council. For more numerous cases of illness,
-especially in the families of medical men, see
-the Report of the Committee of the Medical
-Society of London.</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="WASHING_BY_STEAM">WASHING BY STEAM.</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>It may interest many housewives to know that
-dirty clothes can be thoroughly and effectively
-washed by means of steam, with a much less
-expenditure of time and trouble than by the
-old way of boiling and rubbing. Anything that
-lessens the labour and discomfort of washing-day
-will be welcomed as a boon by every housewife.
-Numerous washing-machines have been
-before the public for many years, and have
-been used with more or less success, and we
-venture to describe one constructed on this
-principle which has given satisfaction to ourselves.
-The chief merits of the Steam-washers
-made by Fletcher of Warrington, and Fingland,
-Leeds, &amp;c. are—rubbing and boiling of
-clothes are done away with, and with their
-method, no servant or housewife need spend
-more than three hours over a fair fortnight’s
-washing. Fingland’s Washer (Morton’s patent) consists
-of a fluted copper cylinder, made to revolve
-in a strong polished copper case or box. Into
-the cistern-shaped box, water is put to a depth
-of three inches, then caused to boil by means
-of a gas-fire below. The construction of the
-Washer is based upon the fact of the expansion
-of the water into steam. The water is continually
-throwing off a large quantity of steam, which
-forces its way through all parts of the clothes
-in the cylinder, and in so doing slackens and
-carries away the dirt. The articles, duly soaked
-in water overnight, are put into the cylinder;
-a few finely cut pieces of soap are laid between
-each layer; then the lids of cylinder and box
-are closed, and the handle is turned once or
-twice. It now stands until the water is boiling,
-when the handle may be slowly turned for ten
-or fifteen minutes, reversing the motion occasionally.
-The steam having permeated the clothes
-in the cylinder, they may be taken out and
-rinsed first in cold, and afterwards in blued
-cold water. The water in the cistern needs
-to be changed every fourth or fifth boiling.
-Prints, flannels, and woollens require slightly different
-treatment. The clothes come out pure and
-clean after rinsing, and an ordinary washing can
-be accomplished in one-third of the usual time,
-and at less expense. Attachment with an india-rubber
-tube to an ordinary gas-pipe will usually
-give sufficient gas; but sometimes it is better
-to have a thicker pipe than usual with a special
-connection.</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="PARTING_WORDS">PARTING WORDS.</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0"><span class="smcap">Although</span> my early dream is o’er,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">I ask no parting token;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Nor would I clasp thy hand before</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">My last farewell is spoken.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">How coldly fair, thy thrice-false face</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Dawns on my sad awaking;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">No anguish there mine eyes can trace,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Though this fond heart is breaking.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Be as thou wert before we met;</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Heave not one sigh, but leave me;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Those studied looks, that feigned regret,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Can nevermore deceive me.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The faltering tones that mock me so,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Betray the fears that move thee;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Cease to degrade thy manhood.—Go!</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">I scorn thee while I love thee.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Shall I forget the rapturous hours</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Of my too radiant morning—</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The hand that culled the dewy flowers</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">My girlish brow adorning?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Ah, no! for she who scorns thee now,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Will miss its dear caresses;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And sorrow to remember how</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">It decks another’s tresses.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Alas! this tortured soul of mine,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Though by thy treason riven,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Can never cast thee from its shrine</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Unwept, or unforgiven.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Nay, I, when youth and hope depart,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The mournful willow wearing,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Must still deplore that shallow heart</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">That was not worth the sharing.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">And have I sold my peace for this?</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Or am I only dreaming?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">To wake beneath thy thrilling kiss</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">From this most cruel seeming.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Oh, bid my fainting heart rejoice;</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">One word would make it stronger;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Then wherefore mute, thou magic voice?</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Say, am I loved no longer?</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">The world thou hast deceived so long</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">May smile on thee to-morrow;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">While I alone must bear the wrong,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The bitterness and sorrow!</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">O cruel world! O world unjust!</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">That passes by unheeding,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Where love betrayed and blasted trust</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Low in the dust lies bleeding!</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Go thou thy way; deceive it still!</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">(Its praise is false and hollow);</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Ascend to fortune’s loftiest hill,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">No ban of mine shall follow.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The memory of these days will be</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">To me a life’s regretting.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Most faithless lover! what to thee?—</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Only an hour’s coquetting.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Shame, shame! to look, to breathe, to live,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">To mock my loving madness!</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The thought alone that I forgive,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Should fill thy soul with sadness.</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">No wonder heaven should strike thee blind,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">To see me bowed before thee;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Most shameless wretch of all mankind</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">How, how could I adore thee?</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">In haste to go! Oh, cruel one!</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Stay, stay, a moment only!</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">How shall I face, when thou art gone,</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">The world, so vast, so lonely?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Thy words are like my passing knell:</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Ah me, and must we sever?</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Forget that I have loved thee well—</div>
- <div class="verse indent2">Adieu! adieu for ever!</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="full" />
-
-<p class="center">Printed and Published by <span class="smcap">W. &amp; R. Chambers</span>, 47 Paternoster
-Row, <span class="smcap">London</span>, and 339 High Street, <span class="smcap">Edinburgh</span>.</p>
-
-<hr class="full" />
-
-<p class="center"><i>All rights reserved.</i></p>
-
-<hr class="full" />
-
-<p>[Transcriber’s note—the following changes have been made to this text.</p>
-
-<p>Page 799: arsensic to arsenic—“testing for arsenic”.]</p>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, FIFTH SERIES, NO. 50, VOL. I, DECEMBER 13, 1884 ***</div>
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