The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Quiver, 2/1900, by Various

E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau, Julia Neufeld,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)

The Quiver 2/1900

PICTORIAL SERMONS.

With truth and beauty as the objects of his art, the painter, whatever be the subject he is endeavouring to depict, becomes a guide and helpmeet to his fellow-men. His art is "twice blessed," blessing "him that gives and him that takes." The contemplation of a beautiful and pure work of art acts as a charm upon the mind oppressed with care and trouble. A landscape on canvas, reflecting the sunshine of the countryside, suggesting its freedom of atmosphere, its "fair quiet and sweet rest," when seen in the midst of the toil and grime of a great city, is a sedative to the jaded nerves of the busy worker; it reminds him of the glories of nature which lie outside the boundaries of the man-made wilderness of houses, and brings him for the moment into close commune with Nature herself. A glimpse of blue sea, of clear running stream, or some sweet pastoral scene, carries with it a breath of fresh air, invigorating and refreshing, to those who gaze upon its brightness through the murky atmosphere of the city streets.

The painter, indeed, has a power which competes closely with the eloquence of the preacher, or the soothing rhythm of the poet; it raises the man who approaches his work with a receptive heart from his own petty self, enlarges his sympathies and his hopes, calms his troubles, and sends him back refreshed and invigorated to his struggle with the cares and troubles of his daily life.

A great picture is not so much one that displays the technical skill of the painter as his power to appeal to the emotions of those who look at it. Truth is at all times simple, and he who would expound it, either in sermon, poem, or picture, must do so in language which can be readily understood of the people. This[388] does not make his task any the lighter, for any straining after effects of simplicity betrays his own lack of truth; simplicity must be spontaneous—from the heart.

Judging a picture, then, by this standard of simplicity and truth, we look first of all for these qualities; we look to see if the artist is sincere in his representation of the scene he presents to us. If we find this to be so, then we receive the work as a contribution to the truth we are seeking. Some painters force us to recognise their skill as colourists, as draughtsmen, as archæologists—they have insisted upon their accuracy in these respects, but oftentimes at the sacrifice of all spirituality; their pictures are representations of costume, of architecture—what you will—but the true spirit of art is lacking; they are merely skilfully painted canvases.

In no direction is this more apparent than in pictures dealing with religious subjects. In such works we especially want to feel immediately we look at them, "Here is an honest effort to realise the true spirit of the subject: here is something which is helpful, inspiring, good." We do not want to be forced to admire the accessories before we realise this; that should follow in due course, and will, if the picture has been designed and executed in the right spirit. As in a spoken sermon we fail to grasp the teaching as we should if we see the framework upon which the preacher has built up the fabric of his oration, so in a pictorial sermon we lose the good that is in it if we are impressed first of all with the details of technique or composition. The appeal to the heart should come first—that to the head should be secondary.

The helpfulness and interest of Biblical pictures to young and old is acknowledged by all. The pictorial Bible is a never-ending source of delight, and its influence is extraordinary in its extent and power. Our ideas of Scriptural scenes and incidents have often been formed more by the illustrations than by the Biblical narrative itself, and we have often been almost pained in after-life on seeing the attempts of other artists to depict scenes which differ materially from those for which we acquired a fondness in our early days, although we recognise the fact then that many of these favourite pictures are in no wise[389] worthy of their subjects. After all, pictorial Bibles are, as a rule, unsatisfactory. More's the pity! The range of subjects is so vast, and the artists employed have seldom succeeded in impressing their representations with any degree of the dignity attaching to them. Even the versatile genius of Gustavo Doré could not respond successfully to the gigantic work, although of the few artists who have grappled with it, he creates the greatest amount of interest.

An interesting volume has recently been published in which are gathered together pictures, by modern artists of varied nationality, which illustrate the Bible story from Genesis to Revelation, and which affords an excellent opportunity of studying the manner in which Biblical subjects have impressed artists of different countries and temperaments.[1] Each has chosen to illustrate the portion of Scripture which appealed to his own particular inclination, and the result is a collection of pictures which cannot fail to interest all who examine it. There are reproductions of the vast conceptions of John Martin, which so impressed his contemporaries—"Belshazzar's Feast," "The Fall of Babylon," and "The Fall of Nineveh"—with their hundreds of figures struggling, writhing, fighting, and dying amid the gorgeous palaces and the buildings of those wonderful cities of old. The curiously eccentric genius of Turner is shown in his "Deluge" and "Destruction of Sodom"—in the one, the swirling rush of the destroying torrent sweeping away crowds of doomed humanity; in the other, the glare and smoke of the burning City of the Plain, the tottering columns of the buildings, and the wild hurryings of the affrighted citizens. Now the sensuous dancings and frivolities of "The World before the Flood," by William Etty, R.A.: and now the grim pictures of the Biblical tragedies from the brushes of the masters of the French School. Here the calm, peaceful creations of Burne-Jones and Rossetti—decoratively beautiful—and then the prettily human pictures of Dyce and Herbert. The modern German artists who delight in representing Christ living among and appealing to the people of our day—the school in which Herr Fritz von Uhde stands pre-eminent—are represented by "Christ's Call to the Sick and Weary," by Herr A. Dietrich.

From this series of pictures we have selected some typical works with which to illustrate this article, and these will serve to show the variety and interest of the whole.

The President of the Royal Academy, Sir Edward J. Poynter, delights in rendering classic scenes and stories on his canvases, and of late years has turned his attention almost entirely to such; but twenty or so years ago he painted several religious pictures, and was one of the artists chosen by Messrs. Dalziel to illustrate their great edition of the Bible. Egypt seems especially to have fascinated him, for, in addition to the picture of "Joseph Introducing Jacob to Pharaoh," he painted another large canvas dealing with the captivity, in which crowds of Israelites are dragging a great, clumsy trolley on which is placed an enormous stone lion for the decoration of a temple. In this picture, as in the one illustrated on page 387, the artist has exhibited his love for Egyptian architecture, with its massive pillars covered with mysterious symbols. But in the latter work Sir Edward Poynter has made the human element predominant; and the simple, pathetic figure of the patriarch, leaning heavily on his staff and on the shoulder of his long-lost son, stands out in contrast with the languorous splendour of the Pharaoh.

Vastly impressive and weird is Mr. Hacker's "And there was a great cry in Egypt." This artist has on more than one occasion exhibited works of a religious nature at the Royal Academy; but none better than the one before us and "The Annunciation," purchased for the Chantrey Collection, and now in the National Gallery of British Art. The picture reproduced on page 388 illustrates the passage in Exodus (xii. 30): "And there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead." It is in its suggestiveness that the picture tells: we see none of the horrors of the last plague; they are only suggested in the title. The silent, sorrowing figure of the Angel of Death, sweeping through the city with flaming sword in hand and trailing robe of black—symbol of the train of sorrow he leaves behind him—is noble and dignified. Carried along[391] on swift wings through the deserted streets of the stricken city, the destroyer touches in each household the doomed "first-born," and only that weird, heart-breaking cry rising on the night air tells of the sorrow and misery that mark his track.

The next illustration (page 389) deals with the incident of Moses' second descent from Sinai, bearing the re-written tables of the law, and is the work of J. R. Herbert, R.A. It forms one of the series of frescoes in the House of Lords.

"Ruth and Naomi" (page 393) is one of the best of the Scriptural subjects treated by the late P. H. Calderon, R.A., and hangs in the Walker Art Gallery at Liverpool. The passage illustrated is that in which Ruth makes her impassioned appeal: "Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God"; and the artist has imparted to the beautiful figure of Ruth all the intensity and passion to which the words give utterance.

We now pass on to the New Testament—the section most favoured by artists, for the attraction of its central Figure is as overpowering for the painter of to-day as it has been to those of the intervening ages. The picture on page 390 of "Christ in the House of His Parents," by the late Sir John Millais, is one of the earliest and most noted of the painter's works. When exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1850 (Millais was then but twenty years of age), it had for its inscription, "And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends" (Zechariah xiii. 6). The picture aroused a veritable storm of hostile criticism, scorn and contumely being poured on painting and painter alike. Charles Dickens, in his Household Words, pronounced it as "mean, odious, revolting, and repulsive," and other critics found fault with it in equally strong language. It was then that the title of "The Carpenter's Shop" was scornfully bestowed upon it, and by which it has since[392] been generally known: it has, however, long been recognised as one of the most wonderful contributions to modern British art, quite apart from any consideration of the age of the artist when he painted it. The perfect draughtsmanship, the wonderful colouring, the marvellous skill displayed in the whole composition, were all overlooked by the contemporary critics; all they considered was the—to them—execrable taste of the artist in representing Christ in an ordinary carpenter's shop! The beautiful allegories contained in the work were all ignored, and abuse for the conception alone given place.

And yet, when it is examined, what is there to find fault with in this respect? Absolutely nothing. The artist set himself to paint from nature; the work appeals directly to the observant eye by its simple force; even the symbols are not intricate when carefully considered. The Child, whilst playing with the pincers in His father's workshop, has injured His hand on a rusty nail protruding from the wood on the bench. Joseph draws back the fingers to examine the wound (the symbolism of which is obvious enough), and Mary, with grief and motherly anxiety portrayed on every line of her face, seeks to soothe the Boy, and with a piece of linen prepares to bind up the hand. St. John is coming with a bowl of water with which to bathe the injury, and St. Anne leans forward to remove the tool which contributed to the hurt. On the ladder against the wall rests a dove—the emblem of peace—and through the open doorway can be seen a flock of sheep huddled close to a fence, emblematical of the faithful, the Church of Christ. Farther out in the meadow is a well—the well of Truth.

The picture was painted on commission for Mr. Farrar, the well-known dealer,
[394] for the sum of £250—a large sum in those days for a work by a young man.

This picture will form the subject of one of the fine art plates offered to readers of The Quiver, on conditions which are stated elsewhere in this number. Lord Leighton's well-known painting "The Star in the East," and the masterpieces of four other eminent artists, will also be included; the whole forming a set of sacred pictures, suitable for framing, of permanent value and interest for every Christian home as well as every Sunday school and mission hall.

The other picture by Millais, which is reproduced as the frontispiece to this number, was based upon a drawing which the artist made for Messrs. Routledge, in 1853, for a series of "The Parables of our Lord." The painting, however, was not made until 1862, when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy. It was afterwards totally destroyed in a gas explosion at Baron Marochetti's house.

The picture "Faith," by the late E. Armitage, R.A. (see page 391), is an excellent illustration of the passage, "For she said within herself, If I may but touch His garment, I shall be whole."

The tragedy of the betrayal, and the perfidy of Judas, have been the subjects of innumerable pictures; and that of "Judas," by Henry Tidey, which we reproduce, is typical of many. The betrayer is represented here when leaving the house in which is being held the sacred feast on the night of the betrayal. The pose of the man reveals the shame which he is feeling; hesitating yet as to whether his fell purpose shall be accomplished.

The illustration on page 392 shows us the memorable scene when Pilate exclaims to the multitude surrounding the palace, "Behold the Man!" The work of a modern Italian artist, this picture is an admirable rendering of the tragic event, the subdued patience of the central Figure contrasting strongly with that of the subservient prefect.

FOR THE SAKE OF HER CHILD.

CHAPTER I.

Dependent upon Charity.

A tall, refined-looking girl, whose exquisitely fitting garb lent additional elegance to her graceful figure, came along the pavement, holding by the hand a pretty, fair-haired child of six, likewise beautifully dressed. At a confectioner's window the child suddenly stopped. "Oh, mummy, do buy me one of those dear little chocolate pigs! I haven't had any sweets for ever so long!"

"Why, mummy, you've got shillings, sovewins, great heaps of them, in your purse! I saw them!" she remonstrated. And, indeed, Mrs. Burnside's dainty, silver-mounted purse was literally bulging with coin.

"They all belong to auntie, and she wants them to pay her bills." And she turned resolutely from the enticing window, whereupon Doris, who was tired with the walk and the heat, burst into loud crying.

As her mortified mother strove to check her, a young man in a professional frock-coat and tall hat, who was passing, turned to see the cause of the uproar. Mrs. Burnside's fair face flushed. "My little girl is very naughty this morning, Dr. Inglis," she said, answering the inquiry in his grey eyes. They were but slightly acquainted, occasionally meeting in society.

"I want—a choc'late pig," wailed Doris. "Mummy won't buy me one—unkind mummy!"

"Hush, Doris," rebuked the young doctor. "A chocolate pig! If that's all the trouble——" and he fingered the few coins in his vest pocket. "May she have one, Mrs. Burnside?"

So Doris got her wish; and, once inside the confectioner's, she fancied so many things that very little remained to Dr. Inglis out of a shilling; and he needed all his shillings badly. But he loved children, and already May Burnside's blue eyes had begun to haunt him, She held out her beautifully gloved hand with a grateful smile; and he noticed how thoroughbred she looked as she went with the now happy Doris down the sunny street.

There was a shadow on the young man's face as he sped home to his scanty luncheon. He was too poor to take a house, so he rented three rooms in a sedate-looking villa in a side street. Doctors simply swarmed at Beachbourne, and sometimes Harold Inglis doubted the wisdom of trying to work up a connection there. The eldest son of an impoverished country squire, he had to depend upon his own exertions; and, after a brilliant college career, came to Beachbourne, hoping to work up a practice, as he was too poor to buy one. Could he have taken a fine house and kept a carriage, he might have succeeded; for he was a gentleman to the backbone, and had a pleasant face and manner. But he remained almost unknown, and, after a year of heart-breaking disappointments, found himself barely able to live.

Before sitting down to the bread and cheese awaiting him in the bare little sitting-room, he thriftily changed his frock-coat for an old boating blazer. Dress was a terribly heavy item in his expenditure; the well-cut clothes, the glossy hat, and the snowy linen prescribed by medical etiquette being only procured at the cost of semi-starvation. To the hungry labourer or vagrant many people will give a meal; but, to my mind, the gentleman who has to go hungry that he may be well-dressed is far more deserving of pity. And many a professional man has to go hungry in these sad days when "all the markets overflow."

Meanwhile May and Doris Burnside were bound for Victoria Square, the most fashionable locality in Beachbourne. Mrs. Burnside resided with her aunt, Miss Waller, a sprightly spinster of fifty, who lived at the very top of her handsome income, and was a leader of local fashion. A smart footman opened the door, and the beautiful drawing-room they entered was a great contrast to Dr. Inglis's bare sitting-room.

Miss Waller, a good-looking woman with white hair, and very richly dressed, turned round from a fine old Chippendale writing-table. "Oh! there you are." Then, as Doris began some childish babble about the chocolate pig, she added impatiently, "Ring for Mary to take that child upstairs. I wish you wouldn't bring her in here!"

Miss Waller had no love for children; and Doris was too well trained to defy her great-aunt. Still hugging her precious sweets, she was whisked away; whilst the spinster, producing a gilt-edged account-book, methodically entered the sums paid by her niece that morning out of a twenty-pound note. Every halfpenny was accounted for, and when May closed her purse just one solitary sixpence remained in it which she could really call her own. Sometimes she had not even that.

"I've ordered the carriage for three," announced Miss Waller. "We must call on Lady Lee, and the Amberys, and it's Mrs. Edgell's 'at home' day. Put on your grey dress and your new hat."

"And to-morrow you must unpick my green dinner-dress. I intend to have it dyed."

"Yes, aunt," repeated Mrs. Burnside, as she went to the door. "Yes, aunt," was what she was obliged to say all day long; to have said "No, aunt," would have been a complete reversal of all the Victoria Square traditions.

To do good by stealth is unfashionable nowadays, and when Miss Waller, to her great disgust, found herself obliged to offer a home to her widowed niece and her child, she took care that all Beachbourne should know and extol her generosity.

"How delightful for Mrs. Burnside to have such a luxurious home!" remarked many people who saw the aunt and niece that afternoon, gorgeously arrayed; for it was known that, but for Miss Waller, May would have been obliged to earn a living. Many a tired governess or poor shop-assistant looked enviously at the pretty girl dashing by in the smart carriage—the[397] pretty girl who was dressed in silk and chiffon, but had only sixpence in her pocket!

The daughter of a struggling country doctor, May had fallen in love at eighteen with a handsome but dissipated assistant of her father's, who persuaded her into a clandestine marriage. She knew Arthur Burnside was far from steady, but it seemed noble and heroic to marry him that she might undertake his reformation. Poor foolish child! she failed to realise that if a man is too weak to stand alone, without some woman to prop him up continually, the chances are that he will bring ruin upon both. May shuddered to recall those four miserable years of ill-treatment, disgrace, and privation, which ended in the death of her husband, and left her absolutely penniless. Her father was dead, his other children were scattered, and, but for Miss Waller, she and Doris might have starved.

Yet, despite the outward prosperity of her new life, she found the bread of dependence so bitter that, but for Doris, she would have tried to earn her living. She was not highly educated, and could only have hoped for a subordinate post; but it was so galling never to have a garment to wear or a coin to spend, save through her aunt's bounty, that she often thought she would be happier as a nurse or parlourmaid. She mixed as an equal with rich and fashionable people, and had to talk as if want of money were absolutely unknown, though she could not even afford to buy her child a few sweets. She dared not ask her aunt for pocket-money, for she well knew that, though Miss Waller supplied her with fashionable clothes, it was only because she could not bear to be disgraced by shabby relations, and she secretly grudged every penny spent on her niece. Yet she dared not quarrel with her aunt, who was her only hope for a good education for her child. May was resolved that Doris should be so accomplished that, if needful, she could earn her bread. "Oh, if only I had not been so idle at school! If I had practised, and talked to Fräulein more!" poor May thought to herself, with unavailing regret, as the country roads flitted by.

But she had little leisure for these sad thoughts. She had to brace herself to play her part in three crowded drawing-rooms, as if she had not a care in the world. Miss Waller was well pleased with the admiration her graceful niece always excited in society; and, thanks to May, the spinster received many invitations which might not otherwise have arrived. Miss Waller had a horror of being classed as a frump; instead, she prided herself on being exceedingly modern and up-to-date.

"Just fancy that plain little Daisy Edgell being engaged to a Liverpool man with heaps of money!" she remarked as they rolled homewards. "We met him at the Hubbards' last year, if you remember."

"Perhaps—but so rich! I wish you could be as lucky, May. What a pity there are so few really eligible men at Beachbourne!"

"And, pray, why not? You're only twenty-five; surely you are not going to mourn all your days for that precious husband of yours?" cried the spinster sharply.

"It is just because my first marriage was so unhappy that I never wish to marry again. As to marrying for money—I couldn't do it!"

"What nonsense! Isn't it done every day? It's all very fine to talk, May, but you know my income is only for my life, and I've hardly saved anything, so that when I die you'll be left without a home; and then what's to become of you and Doris? You must marry again—there's nothing else for it."

It was not the first time May had listened to such counsels; and she was well aware that, should her aunt die prematurely, she herself would again be homeless. Miss Waller was not the woman to deny herself in order to save money for her niece. She must have the fine house and carriage, the handsome dress, and the dinner-parties which her soul loved; and she found May very useful in arranging flowers, writing letters, and making not a few articles of personal adornment for her aunt with her clever fingers.

Their nearest way home lay through the quiet street in which Harold Inglis lived—or, rather, starved—and, as he chanced to be at the surgery window mixing a powder, he saw the carriage driving by. The sinking sun was burnishing May's golden-brown hair; and her profile, beneath her gauzy hat, looked very fair and sweet. He sighed, as he went back to his powder, for the contrast between her lot and his own seemed a little too glaring. He did not know that all the time she had only sixpence in her purse, while he could actually boast of half-a-crown!

CHAPTER II.

Two Heavy Hearts.

Doris was never allowed to partake of meals with Miss Waller, who disliked having to regulate her conversation according to inquisitive childish ears. The little girl lived in the upper regions with Mary, who divided the duties of lady's maid and nurse. After breakfast one morning,[398] May, having done what was required by Miss Waller, went upstairs to give Doris the lessons which, so far, formed her sole instruction. She found the child flushed and heated after a combat with Mary.

"She's that cross, I can't do anything with her," grumbled the maid, who dutifully imitated her mistress in hating children. "She wouldn't eat her nice egg at breakfast, and she's pulled all her dolly's hair off—see."

"I'm afraid she's not well," said the mother gravely, as the child buried her face in May's skirt, sobbing fretfully. Her little hands were burning, her cheeks flushed, and red spots showed on the peach-like skin. "Ask Miss Waller if Jane may go for the doctor," May continued, dreading lest she had taken measles.

Miss Waller gave permission to summon the family physician, Dr. Ellis, who was the most fashionable practitioner in Beachbourne, and drove his carriage and pair; but Jane returned to say that both the doctor and his partner were out.

"Then go and fetch the nearest doctor at once!" commanded Miss Waller. "I must know whether it's infectious or not, so that I may take precautions. How vexing it will be," she complained to her niece, "if Doris is laid up for weeks, and the house placed in quarantine, just as all the gaieties are beginning! There's the Mowbrays' dinner next week, and Lady Lee's picnic, and the Clares' musical party—oh, dear!"

Not a word of sympathy for the poor child! May clenched her hands passionately in her struggle to restrain an angry reply. It was in moments like this that her shackles seemed absolutely intolerable.

Presently Jane returned, followed by Harold Inglis, the first disengaged doctor she could find. May was glad not to behold an absolute stranger, and stood by anxiously until he had examined the little patient, whose malady he pronounced to be chicken-pox. He wrote a prescription, gave a few simple directions, and then followed May downstairs to reassure Miss Waller, who was eager "to know the worst," as she put it.

She was very gracious at being relieved from anxiety, and remarked blandly, "It was very kind of you to come so promptly, Dr. Inglis. Our usual medical attendant is Dr. Ellis, but he was out. As it's such a trifling matter, don't trouble to see Doris again. If you will be good enough to send in your account for this visit, I will settle it at once."

And she bowed him out, as if determined to quench any hope he might entertain of being privileged to attend in Victoria Square. Although, of course, medical etiquette forbade his interfering with Dr. Ellis's patients, he felt somewhat disappointed as he went away. He was so weary of waiting in his dingy sitting-room for the patients who never came!

May ventured a word to her aunt when they were alone. "I wish we could help Dr. Inglis to find a few patients, aunt! He seems so nice and kind."

"There are far too many doctors in Beachbourne!" pronounced the spinster. "I shall certainly not leave Dr. Ellis—he gives such delightful dinner-parties!"

Harold plodded dejectedly home, to learn, as usual, that nobody had called during his absence; and, after thriftily changing his coat, he entered his little surgery, to find a packet on the table which had come by post. It was the manuscript of an article on throat affections, which he had sent to a medical paper in the hope of earning a little money. It had entailed great labour and research, only to be rejected with the curt intimation that the editor had no opening for such a subject.

"What can I do?" he distractedly asked himself. "I've called on everybody I can scrape acquaintance with; I've joined the local clubs; I'm a Volunteer and a Freemason—what more can I do to bring myself into notice?"

He snatched it eagerly, hoping to find a summons; but, alas! it was only a bill from a jobbing-tailor whom he had employed to renovate various garments sub rosa. He had no money to pay it; although it went sorely against the grain to keep the poor man from his due. He paced in distress up and down the narrow room, wishing he dare start out for a long walk, to distract his thoughts. But he dreaded to leave, lest in his absence some desirable patient might send for him. And so, hanging about listlessly, unable to settle to anything, the dismal morning passed, like too many others; and Ann brought in his meal of bread and cheese, from which he rose nearly as hungry as he sat down. He looked at himself in the spotty pier-glass. His cheeks were falling in, and there were hollows beneath his eyes, due entirely to insufficient nourishment.

A card stuck in the frame reminded him that Mrs. Ormsby-Paulet was "at home" that afternoon. "It's a tennis party—shall I go?" he debated. It seemed a mockery to mingle in a scene of gaiety with such a leaden weight at his heart; but a prosaic consideration decided him. "There'll be a good tea, at least, and if I make myself very agreeable, perhaps they'll ask me to stay to dinner. Besides, I may get to know some people who'll employ me."

He dressed himself carefully, and sallied[399] forth; informing the servant of his destination, in case anybody should send for him. Despite his thin cheeks, there was not a better-looking man at "The Dene" that afternoon; for he looked a gentleman to the backbone, and as such, his hostess—who was very short of men—smiled upon him graciously.

"So glad you were able to come," she cooed. "Miss Waller," to the spinster, who had just arrived, "may I introduce my friend, Dr. Inglis?"

"I have already made his acquaintance," was the suave answer; and then Harold, to his surprise, was greeted by Mrs. Burnside, looking very fair and sweet in a cool white linen gown. He had not expected to meet her; he naturally supposed her place to be by the bedside of her sick child. In truth, she was only present at her aunt's urgent entreaty.

"I'm afraid she must be rather heartless," thought the young doctor, feeling oddly disappointed. He had not hitherto attributed want of feeling to the owner of those pathetic blue eyes. Nevertheless, as sets were being made up, he asked her to be his partner, she being famed in Beachbourne as a tennis-player.

She complied; but the set was not a success. He could not have believed that Mrs. Burnside could play so badly; they were beaten by six games to two.

"I am so sorry," she said humbly, as they quitted the court. "I know it was all my fault; but I really couldn't play—I was thinking of Doris all the time."

Her lips quivered, so that he could no longer imagine her heartless. "Your little girl will be well in a few days—there is really no cause for anxiety," he answered gently, angry with himself for having misjudged her.

"That is what Aunt Caroline says, and she insisted on my coming," plaintively returned May; but just then Miss Waller appeared, resplendent in mauve satin, with a stout, black-haired, middle-aged, and shrewd-looking man, very carefully dressed, in tow.

"I came to look for you, dear," she began very sweetly to her niece, merely giving a cold bow to Harold. "I want to introduce Mr. Lang to you. He knows our friends the Wingates in town."

With that, the excellent spinster turned away; and May, finding no resource save to accept the basket-chair in the shade proffered by the stranger—as Harold had prudently effaced himself—prepared for a tête-à-tête with a man she had never seen before in her life.

CHAPTER III.

"Manners Maketh Man."

"Do you mind my smoking?" began Mr. Lang, after a moment's keen scrutiny of the graceful figure beside him. Hardly waiting for permission, he produced a gold case and lighted a cigarette. "Been playing tennis, haven't you?" he continued in an off-hand way. "Stupid game, not half so good as golf—you should try golf."

"Beginners seldom do. It's a fine game,[400] for all that. You live with your aunt, don't you?"

"I suppose it's like all these provincial towns—heaps of gossip and scandal, eh? But you should be in London now, Mrs. Burnside. There hasn't been as gay a season for years. I shouldn't be here now, I can tell you, but I got a touch of fever last time I was at Johannesburg, and, as I can't quite shake it off, my doctor ordered me complete rest for a fortnight. So I came down here to stay with the Stevensons. I met them last year at Homburg, and ever since they've been pestering me with invitations to Beachbourne."

"Oh, have you been out in Africa?" returned May, thinking it best to ignore his flattering reference to his entertainers.

"Spent nearly twenty years there. I can remember when there wasn't a gold mine on the Randt. And, though I've come back to England for good now, I generally run over about twice a year. It's just a nice little trip to the Cape, and they really do you very well on the mail steamers," he condescendingly added, as he lighted another cigarette. "By-the-bye, this case is made of African gold—a nugget I found myself in the claim which was the beginning of the Springkloof Mine. You've heard of the Springkloof, of course?"

She shook her head, and he looked at her with evident pity for her ignorance. "I didn't think there was anybody nowadays who hadn't heard of the Springkloof!"

"I'm afraid you'll think us rather behind the times at Beachbourne," she said, as she rose, hoping to shake off her new acquaintance; but he rose, too, and kept by her side as she strolled through the beautiful grounds, speaking first to one friend and then to another.

"Not many pretty girls here, I must say," he observed disparagingly, as they approached the house, in quest of the tea-room.

"Are you an admirer of beauty?" asked May, with a rather sarcastic glance at his tubby figure.

"Quite so. I love the best of everything there is. As soon as I can find a girl pretty enough, I intend to marry," he replied with perfect gravity. "It's rather lonely all by myself in Palace Gardens. Do you like the Palace Gardens houses, Mrs. Burnside?"

"I've never been in one, and I don't even know where they are. I know very little about London, and very few people there—just the Wingates, and one or two others."

"Well, it's not much loss. I don't mean any disrespect to your aunt, but old Mother Wingate isn't a woman I should ever wish[401] to confide in, myself. She's always trying to catch me for one of her plain daughters—dear Maggie or dear Amy! By the way, what's your Christian name, Mrs. Burnside?"

"And, by Jove, it suits you! So often girls' names don't. You find Lily as black as a crow, and Rose as sallow as she can be, and Queenie a little, insignificant dowdy with a turned-up nose!"

He talked in this carping strain while he consumed a fair amount of refreshments, none of which, however, were good enough for his critical taste. He evidently thought a great deal about eating and drinking, for he incidentally mentioned that he gave his chef two hundred a year.

"What a waste!" was on the tip of May's tongue, as she thought how useful even a tenth of that sum would be to herself. The tea was cosily set out on a number of little tables in the spacious, old-fashioned dining-room. Gay groups were seated at each, and not far off was Harold Inglis, talking cheerfully with two of his host's daughters. May glanced from him to her companion, noticing how common and plebeian Mr. Lang looked when contrasted with him.

As she quitted the table Harold, who had apparently been lying in wait, crossed over to speak to her. "Would you like to play again, Mrs. Burnside? I can easily make up a set, if you wish."

But at this moment appeared Miss Waller, apparently from nowhere, to throw cold water on the proposal. "I think you had better not run about any more this hot afternoon, love. You really must not tempt her, Dr. Inglis."

And, though in general she detested croquet, May assented quite eagerly, only anxious to shake off Mr. Lang. Miss Waller could not well interfere again, and Mr. Lang did not play croquet, but he and the spinster sat on a garden seat close by till the game was finished, rendering it difficult for Harold to say a word which the watchful pair did not overhear. Divining from her erratic play that May's mind was still running upon her sick child, he seized the opportunity, when they were both searching for a ball which had rolled into the shrubbery, to say kindly: "Don't fret about Doris. I assure you there's no need. The malady must run its course, and she'll be all right afterwards. Only you must be careful she doesn't get a chill."

"I wish she could have you to attend her, instead of Dr. Ellis. She detests him because he once deceived her about a powder she had to take. But my aunt likes him——"

"I believe he is a very clever man," hurriedly interposed Harold, mindful of professional etiquette. "Doris will be quite safe with him; indeed, she hardly needs a doctor."

"My aunt is always at home on Tuesdays—I hope you will come to see us," responded May, grateful for his manifest sympathy. She knew he had few friends in Beachbourne, and resolved to do what she could to introduce him.

His face lighted up unmistakably. "Thank you so much, Mrs. Burnside! I shall be delighted to come, and I'll not forget Tuesday."

Miss Waller was in a most complacent frame of mind as they drove home through the beautiful June evening. "What a fortunate thing I forbade you to be so foolish as to stay at home to nurse Doris!" she began. "Mr. Lang is a man worth knowing; he made an enormous fortune in South Africa—a million at least—and Mrs. Stevenson says his house in Palace Gardens is simply lovely. I'll ask him to dinner, to meet some nice people."

"I daresay he was not of much extraction originally, but what does that matter nowadays? Money levels all distinctions; and I can see Mrs. Stevenson would be only too glad to catch him for Edith."

"My dear, that's because he's so run after in London; it always spoils a man to have dozens of girls angling for him. But he was undoubtedly struck by you; and I don't think you were very wise to go and play croquet with that Dr. Inglis as you did. He has agreeable manners, but he has not a penny-piece; and I don't believe he'll ever get a practice here."

"I'm sorry for him, aunt, and—and I thought it only civil to ask him to call——"

Miss Waller's brow contracted. "I think you might have consulted me first. At best he is only a detrimental, and there are far too many here already; but you always were quixotic, May!"

CHAPTER IV.

Lulu.

Whit Sunday—which was late that year—was simply glorious, the heat being tempered by a delicious sea breeze. A vivacious, dark-eyed girl, who accompanied Harold Inglis along the parade after morning service, stopped again and again to gloat over the sapphire sea, tumbling in, foam-crested. "How jolly for[402] you, Harold, living in this delicious place!" she exclaimed. "You ought to look better than you do; you are much thinner than you were."

He evaded the subject, not wishing to sadden his favourite sister, Lulu, with his shifts and privations. She had come down to Beachbourne to spend Whitsuntide with her brother, glad to escape from the stuffy London office in which she had to work hard for a living.

They had already passed many well-dressed groups of residents, but none presenting so imposing an appearance collectively as did stately Miss Waller, in heliotrope, May Burnside, in an exquisite costume of pale grey silk and chiffon, Doris, a vision of childish prettiness in white muslin, and two or three equally well-dressed men, conspicuous amongst whom was Mr. Lang. Harold's colour rose as he lifted his hat, whilst Lulu eagerly exclaimed, "Oh! who is that pretty girl in grey? She looks quite fit for the Park!"

He explained, secretly glad that his sister should admire his divinity; but it was fortunate he could not hear what Miss Waller was meanwhile saying to her niece: "Who is that common-looking girl with Dr. Inglis? She is most atrociously dressed."

It must be confessed that poor Lulu, who had little money for dress, fell far below the Victoria Square standard. "Looks like a little dressmaker," sneered one of the men.

"A dressmaker would have better clothes," observed Miss Waller. Her eyes dwelt complacently on her niece's graceful figure, as she spoke, and she was pleased to see how close Mr. Lang—who had overtaken them in coming out of church—kept to May's elbow, despite the black looks of Doris, who disliked him. The child was now quite well again, some days having elapsed since the garden party.

"What are you going to do this afternoon. Mrs. Burnside? Will you come for a drive?" presently asked Mr Lang.

But May did not approve of Sunday driving. "I promised to take Doris to the flower service, thank you."

"Why, you've been to church once already, Doris! You'd much better persuade your mother to bring you for a drive with me," cajoled he; but the child burst out, "No, I don't like you, and I don't want to drive with you!" so resolutely that he could not press it.

Miss Waller frowned angrily. "Really, May, the way you spoil Doris is beyond all reason. She is the rudest little girl I ever saw!" And, to soothe the plutocrat's wounded feelings, she insisted upon his coming home to luncheon with her. He was now a constant visitor in Victoria Square, for, having terminated his stay with the Stevensons, he had taken rooms at the principal hotel.

Whilst May, in her costly gown, sat chafing beneath Mr. Lang's glances of insolent admiration, at her aunt's luxuriously appointed table, Harold and Lulu Inglis were very merry and happy over the plainest fare in his bare sitting-room. They had not met for a long time, and a cheap Whitsuntide excursion was the reason of her presence now. As soon as they had finished, they started for the shore. Sitting on a big stone, beneath the shade of the cliffs, they had a delightful chat, until Lulu suddenly exclaimed: "Oh, Harold! Here's that pretty girl in grey we saw this morning!"

Doris, who loved the sea, had coaxed her mother to come down on the shore after the service, and, seeing his companion, May bowed to Harold, and would have passed on, but he detained her. "May I introduce my sister, Miss Lucy Inglis, Mrs. Burnside?"

There was something so frank and friendly about Lulu that very soon, as Doris announced she was tired and wanted to rest, they were all seated upon the big stone, upon which Miss Inglis insisted on spreading her jacket, to protect May's dainty dress. Whilst his sister expatiated on the delights of Beachbourne, and wondered why her raptures evoked so little response from the young widow, Harold sat pondering whether he dare invite Mrs. Burnside to come to tea in his bare and shabby rooms.

To his delight, she instantly accepted the invitation; eager, in truth, to escape from the hated society of Mr. Lang. Harold then turned to Doris, gaily asking whether she would come too.

"Yes, I will," she answered with childish bluntness. "I like you, but I don't like Dr. Ellis—nasty man!—and I hate Mr. Lang."

"But Mr. Lang calls me Little Crosspatch, and it's very rude of him to call me names, mummy."

"Bravo, Doris!" cried Lulu mischievously, as they turned to go. "Stick up for your rights—you'll be a 'New Woman' when you grow up."

"I hope so," said May, in a low voice, to the amazement of Miss Inglis, who exclaimed, with a glance at the costly equipment of the speaker: "I should never have expected you to utter such a wish, Mrs. Burnside!"

May smiled with quiet bitterness. "I have no wish to see Doris speak on a platform, or go in for a man's profession; but I do feel, more and more, that it is better for women to be independent, whether they marry or not."

"Why, that's just what I always say!"[403] cried Lulu delightedly. "All women can't marry nowadays—there are not enough men to go round. Besides, what is more contemptible than to see girls sitting idle, with their hands folded, waiting for somebody to come along and marry them? No, every girl ought to be able to earn her own living, and then she's safe, whatever happens!"

Needless to say, such maxims would have been entirely abhorrent to Miss Waller, who regarded working-girls with detestation, as May well knew.

CHAPTER V.

"A Beautiful Anomaly."

Arrived at his rooms, Harold did the honours; not without fears lest May should miss the luxuries of her home. But she enjoyed the change of surroundings with all the zest of a schoolgirl, and Doris, being made much of, was as good as gold. Harold himself had not spent such a delightful hour since he came to Beachbourne, but his hour of bliss was all too short; for soon a summons came from a patient, and, though it was only a greengrocer in the next street, patients were too precious to be slighted. So he departed, begging Mrs. Burnside to remain with Lulu until his return.

Left alone, the two girls settled down for a cosy chat; Doris being quite absorbed in an illustrated book Harold had produced picturing the wonders of the microscope.

"Dear old Harold!" began his sister. "Don't think me silly, Mrs. Burnside, but I'm proud of him, knowing how hard he worked for his degree. Will he ever get a good practice here, do you think?"

"I hope so; but it takes time," answered May, rather embarrassed. "Have you many brothers and sisters?"

"There are six of us altogether—a formidable number, isn't it? But, I'm glad to say, we're all doing something, and don't cost dear old dad a penny. I remind Esther of that—she's my eldest sister—when she grumbles, and wishes we were back at Mallowfield Hall."

"Yes, our ancestors lived there centuries ago. This is the house." And she produced a photograph of an imposing mansion standing in a spacious park, a residence which even Miss Waller would have acknowledged to be a magnificent property.

"Yes, my grandfather was dreadfully extravagant, and since father came into power the agricultural depression was the finishing stroke. It was cruelly hard to leave the dear old place, but the mortgagees foreclosed, and we all had to turn out. Dad and mother went to live in Cornwall, where she owns a tiny cottage. Harold passed as a doctor, Jack's at Johannesburg, and Ted's in Australia. Then Connie, my youngest sister, is companion to an old lady, and Esther and I share a cupboard of a flat with an old schoolfellow, Mabel Bryan, whose partner I am in a typewriting office. Esther, who's awfully clever, as well as handsome, and knows several languages, is[404] corresponding clerk to a firm of shippers. She gets a hundred a year, and I manage to make about a pound a week; but I'm not clever, and have to do the best I can. We work awfully hard, but I really think we are happier than if we had nothing to do."

"I'm sure you are," sighed May, as her eye fell upon her own dearly purchased finery. "I must say, I think it very plucky of you to take it as you do."

Lulu opened her eyes, for she was not accustomed to pity. "I'm proud to be a working-woman, and even if I were rich like you, Mrs. Burnside, I couldn't bear to sit with my hands folded."

"Rich like me!" May echoed drearily. "I'm not rich; I owe everything I possess to my aunt."

Just then Harold came hurrying in. "I was as quick as I could be, Mrs. Burnside," he began, manifestly pleased to find May still there. With an alarmed glance at the clock, she arose to go, and said cordially—

"I should be so pleased, Dr. Inglis, if you would bring your sister to see me on Tuesday afternoon."

"Many thanks, Mrs. Burnside, but I must return by the excursion train on Tuesday morning," returned Lulu; and May dared not urge the point. To invite the Inglises to any meal but afternoon tea was out of her power, for Miss Waller disapproved of promiscuous guests at luncheon and dinner. So, bidding a cordial farewell to Lulu, May set forth with Doris to Victoria Square, escorted by happy Harold.

"I call her a beautiful anomaly!" Lulu observed later on to her brother, when he asked what she thought of Mrs. Burnside. "At first, seeing how she was dressed, I concluded she was only a fashionable butterfly, caring for nothing but amusement. But from her talk I could see I had been unjust, and that there's nothing she would like better than being useful and independent. Poor thing! Her face is one of the saddest I ever saw."

"I believe she has a very uncomfortable time of it with Miss Waller, who is a Tartar, from all accounts."

An unpleasant quarter of an hour awaited May within her aunt's door, which she entered with a sinking heart. Doris was instantly bundled off to bed, after which Miss Waller—in thin, high tones, very different from her suave society accents—moralised on May's enormities in absenting herself without notice, whilst Mr. Lang vainly awaited her return. He had just gone, evidently vexed at her non-appearance.

"Mr. Lang has no jurisdiction over me!" May was irritated into retorting at last, whereupon her aunt's frown became portentous.

"Mr. Lang is my friend, and, as such, I insist that you treat him with respect! Pray, who are you, to set your will against mine? I paid for the very dress you have on, and every article you possess, and but for me you and Doris would be in the workhouse!"

May would not trust herself to reply, but went away to her own room, there to shed some very bitter tears. As she eyed her tall figure in the glass, arrayed in the beautiful garments for which she had to pay so dearly, she heartily envied the three happy girls in their flat, as described by Lulu. How fortunate they were, to be able to do as they pleased, and indebted to no living soul for anything! "Oh, to be free!—to be free!" she panted, realising her slavery as she had never realised it before.

CHAPTER VI.

Bijou's Mistress.

When bright-faced Lulu had returned home, brief though her visit had been, Harold missed her inexpressibly. To vary the monotony of his dreary rooms, he paid his promised call in Victoria Square, to find himself promptly relegated to the background by Miss Waller, who perfectly understood how to snub people without being unladylike. May, who made tea, hardly uttered a word; and the lion of the occasion was Mr. Lang, who expatiated on the riches of South Africa and his own importance on the Randt.

"Oh, but"—expostulated a meek little clergyman's wife, looking rather shocked, "surely culture goes for something—and descent—and——"

"Culture, descent, my dear madam! We haven't time to bother about such things at Johannesburg! They'd be no use to a man there!"

"I'm sorry to hear it," Harold was provoked into saying. "My brother Jack is out there, and I shouldn't like him to come back less of a gentleman than he went!"

"Ah! a good property that—not equal to the Springkloof, though. I know the Victorina manager; perhaps next time I go out, I may look your brother up."

"Well now, Miss Waller," said Mr. Lang, "it's time I was returning to London, and don't you think you ought to give Mrs. Burnside a little taste of dissipation before the season closes?"

"I should have taken her to London before, but dear May always says she doesn't like town," answered the spinster, who always posed as a most affectionate aunt in public. "I must leave you to try your persuasions." As she spoke, she darted a glance at her niece which plainly said, "Refuse to go, if you dare!"

"London is so hot now—and Doris——" faltered the girl in manifest dismay. The clergyman's wife took her departure, but Harold sat doggedly on, determined to hear the result.

"Doris could be left behind perfectly well," rejoined Mr. Lang, who disliked the child as much as she disliked him.

"We shall be very pleased to see a little of London under your auspices, Mr. Lang," interrupted Miss Waller, in a sub-acid tone. "I know of some nice rooms near Hyde Park, which will be quieter than a hotel, and I'll write about them to-night."

May said no more; but Harold perceived an expression of absolute despair flit over her features for a moment, and his heart swelled with pity for her.

He paced his lonely sitting-room many times that evening, lamenting his own impotence. A few patients, poor people to whom he was at home for an hour, mornings and evenings, came to consult him for a fee of one shilling, medicine included; but even these were few in number. He had the very deepest sympathy with the poor; but to be wasting his time here when, in a few days, Mrs. Burnside would be staying close to that man in Palace Gardens!

There was a ring at the bell, and the landlady entered, announcing, with a smile, "Miss Geare and Miss Pepper." A little, round-faced, white-haired lady, with curiously wandering light-blue eyes, then tripped into the[406] room, carrying something carefully in her arms; followed by a forbidding, tall, dark-haired female, to whom Harold took an instant and hearty dislike.

"Oh, doctor!" began the little lady, in a breathless, excited way, with hardly any stops, "I saw your plate on the door, and I've come to see if you can cure my darling little Bijon; a great cruel cabman has just driven over him, and I'm afraid his poor leg's broken. Will you look?"

"I told you it was no use coming here," growled Miss Pepper, the companion, in a voice as unamiable as her face.

With that Miss Geare burst into passionate tears and again entreated Harold's aid. To end the tiresome scene, he examined the dog, unprofessional though it might be, and, finding one of its legs was broken, improvised splints and set it carefully. Miss Geare's gratitude was excessive.

"And you will come and see Bijou, won't you?" implored the old lady. "He must have attention until he gets well, and I live at Lyndhurst Lodge, Murray Road."

"Then come to attend me," eagerly responded Miss Geare. "I'm often rather ailing; and you can give Bijou a look at the same time."

She looked at him so pleadingly that he could not find it in his heart to say no. She brightened up at his consent, and asked for a cab, in which to take home her injured darling, and then laid a sovereign and a shilling on the table.

"I don't think I am entitled to charge for attending the dog," said Harold, crimsoning. "Certainly, this is far too much."

"Watson, the veterinary surgeon, never would have charged a guinea," indignantly added Miss Pepper; but Miss Geare was resolute, and when she had departed, it was certainly pleasant to see the gold piece on the table, sovereigns being sadly scarce with him, poor fellow!

He instituted inquiries, and learnt that Miss Geare belonged to a good family, and was well-off, but somewhat "queer." In early youth she was engaged to an officer, who was killed at Delhi, and had become gradually more and more eccentric, until now she only lived for her dogs and cats. Miss Pepper, it was added, tyrannised over her shamefully, as though she were the mistress and Miss Geare the companion.

The old lady was warm-hearted, though rather fickle, and, having taken a fancy to Harold, contrived to secure him several fresh and welcome patients. Miss Geare herself was far from strong, and afforded a legitimate exercise for Harold's skill, which salved his conscience in the matter of Bijou. But Miss Pepper remained, from first to last, distinctly hostile.

CHILDISH MEMORIES OF LEWIS CARROLL.

By One of his Alices.

So many children will grieve over the sad event—the death that deprived them of one of the best and kindest friends that children ever came across—the children who have followed "Alice" through all the wonderful adventures of "Wonderland" will be saddened by the thought that the hand which held the pen that gave them such amusement is now still for ever; and the children now grown up who knew Lewis Carroll personally will look back into the years agone and remember his delightful stories, and his never-ceasing kindness towards them in their youthful days.

To my mind Oxford will never be quite the same again, now that so many of the dear old friends of one's childhood have "gone over to the great majority." My poor old father, though always wishing to go for little excursions back to the old University town where so many years of his life had been spent, came back to his country rectory in the Cotswold Hills bemoaning the loss of the "many who had gone before," and how the familiar forms of his old college friends were, alas! no more to be seen.

Often, in the twilight, when the flickering firelight danced on the old wainscoted wall, have we—father and I—chatted over the old Oxford days and friends, and the merry times we all had together in Long-Wall Street. I was a nervous, thin, remarkably ugly child, and, for some years, I might say, I was quite alone in the nursery, my small, fat baby-brother being much more appreciated than myself. I was left almost entirely to the kind and gentle mercy of Mary Pearson, my own particular attendant, and though father, of course, had commenced his friendship with Mr. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) long before, I only remember him first when I was about seven, and from that time until we went to live in Gloucestershire, he was one of my most delightful friends.

I shall never forget when, sitting on a rustic seat with Mr. Dodgson under a dear old tree in the Botanical Gardens, I heard for the first time the delightful and ever-entertaining story of Hans Andersen's "Ugly Duckling." I was devoted to books, and could read quite well for so small a child, but I cannot explain the delightful way in which Mr. Dodgson read and told his stories: as he read, the characters were real flesh and blood—living figures. This particular story made a great impression on me, and, being very sensitive about my ugly little self, it greatly interested me. I remember his impressing upon me that it was better to be good, truthful, and to try not to think of self, than to be a pretty, selfish child, spoilt and[408] disagreeable, and he, from that story, gave me the name of "Ducky," which name clung to me for many years; in fact, from that day Mary Pearson always called me "Miss Ducky."

Many a time has Mr. Dodgson said, "Never mind, little Ducky; perhaps some day you will turn out a swan."

I always attribute my love for animals to the teaching of Mr. Dodgson: his stories of animal life, his knowledge of their lives and histories, his enthusiasm about birds and butterflies, passed many a tiresome hour away. The monkeys in the Botanical Gardens were our special pets, and, oh! the nuts and biscuits we used to give them! He entered into the spirit of the fun as much as "Ducky" did.

Then there were the mornings spent in the Christ Church and Merton meadows: Mary and I took our daily walks abroad there. Years have passed since then, and I have travelled in many climes, but I always think that the recollections of the days of one's childhood never fade. One's views of life, persons, and things were so fresh, so different from the judgment of things in later years.

Those meadows were, to me, full of the loveliest field-flowers—daisies, the beautiful "snake-flower"—so rare, I understand now—the golden buttercups, the masses of dandelions with the added, never-failing fun of blowing the downy seeds away.

Nurse Mary always took thread and a needle in her pocket; these were for the making of daisy-chains, and, oh! the wreaths we strung as we sat in the soft grass, with the dear old Broad Walk quite close, and when we raised our eyes the lovely vision of Merton College, with its covered walls of Virginian creeper! It all comes back to me so vividly, though it is now far away in the past years. And how delighted we were to see the well-known figure in his cap and gown coming, so swiftly, with his kind smile ready to welcome the "Ugly Duckling" sitting in the grass! I knew, as he sat beside me, that a fairy-tale book was hidden in his pocket, or that I should hear something nice—perhaps a new game or a puzzle—and he would gravely accept a tiny daisy bouquet for his coat with as much courtesy as if it had been the finest hot-house boutonnière. I was very proud when, between us, we had made a chain of cuckoo-flowers and daisy heads long enough to twine round my hat.

These meadows and the walk along the wall were remarkable then for the quantity of snails of all kinds that, on fine days and damp days, came out to take the air, and to me they were objects of great dislike and horror. Mr. Dodgson so gently and patiently showed me how silly I was, how harmless the poor snails were, and told me so much about the shells they carried on their backs, and showed me how wonderfully they were made, that I soon got over the fright and made quite a collection of discarded shells; which collection finally took up its abode in a little crimson-paper trunk that Mr. Dodgson found at old Mrs. Green's toyshop and bought for me.

About this time also father had added to my nursery literature "Ministering Children," "Sandford and Merton," and "Rosamund; or, The Purple Jar." All these were shown in great glee to my kind friend, who (as I knew he would) read to me from them.

Two or three times I went fishing with him from the bank, near the Old Mill opposite Addison's Walk (Oxford), and he entered quite into my happiness when a small fish came wriggling up on the end of my crooked pin and line, just ready for the dinner of the little white kitten, "Lily," he had given me.

In those days Addison's Walk had, in season, its banks covered with pretty periwinkles—white and blue—and there were strict laws not to pick them. I, childlike, could not resist the temptation, and one day, Mary being seated at work near by, "Ducky," left to play alone, gathered a bunch of the coveted beauties, hid them under her little spencer (a small coat of those days), and trotted by Mary's side, half-frightened, to the lodge of the gruff old porter, who sat reading his paper, glancing always at the passers through his doorway. Nothing escaped his notice. Mary went through and[409] then I, half-trembling, with the periwinkles closely clasped to my side. The street gained, I was safe, but (alas! there is always a "but"), Mr. Dodgson, going to see a friend in the college, came up to me, saying, "Why so flushed, little Alice? And what is that hanging below your jacket?"

The flowers had not gained anything by their hot pressure under my jacket, and it was a very much ashamed, sad little girl who stood convicted of flower-theft!

"Ducky, come with me"; and, taking my unwilling hand, he led me back to the grim old custodian of the cloisters, to whom I had to deliver up the now faded periwinkles, and promise future goodness and "never to do so any more." Then Mary took me in hand, and the quiet little "weep" I indulged in while going home was much enhanced by the sound of Mary's voice telling me: "Miss Ducky, you are an awful naughty child; you have quite disgusted Mr. Dodgson, and you shall go to your bed without supper." This threat she carried out.

On Sunday afternoons father used to take me for a walk to St. John's College gardens, or, perhaps, New College gardens, and as they—father and Mr. Dodgson—were great friends, he often joined us. And how I enjoyed all the bright sunshine and the shade of the mulberry-trees! And then father, tired from his morning services, snatched a "forty-winks." I revelled in stories of small men and maidens, stories so entertaining that I thought I could never read "line upon line" any more; and then there were the stories of the other little Alice who bore the same initials as myself, and who was so pretty and behaved so well; who sat before the wonderful photographing machine and came out a pretty little beggar girl! I am afraid I was rather envious of this child and a tiny bit jealous, but I took the greatest interest in what she did and said. And I remember all this perfectly.

Before me, as I write, is a likeness of Mr. Dodgson; in fact, two photographs. These are just as I remember him. It was his sweet smile and face that endeared him so much to his youthful friends, his never-failing interest in their childlike joys and sorrows. Mr. Dodgson was a very quiet, reserved man, and cared little for society, such as large parties and receptions; but to come and go as he liked in the homes of those with whom he was intimate, these visits were some of the pleasures he allowed himself. He also made very welcome the visits of his child-friends, and it was a great treat to go to see him in his rooms in Christ Church College.

My dear father (the Rev. E. A. Litton, a very well known man in the old Oxford days of sixty years ago) was much attached to Mr. Dodgson, and they used to meet frequently to discuss points that interested them both. I was always allowed, if I bore a good record in the nursery, to join father when he went to Christ Church, and I knew that, sooner or later during the visit, something good would be for me. The delicious slices of cake and bread-and-butter, the glass of creamy milk; the soft pile of cushions on the sofa if I felt tired, and the glittering little glass balls of his wonderful game of "Solitaire," for me to play with; the lovely picture-books which I was so careful not to tear or hurt in any way; and then to be allowed to look at the portraits of other little friends who knew and visited him as I did!

Mr. Dodgson was a great admirer of photography and he inspired father with a like enthusiasm, and I am the happy possessor of a photograph (reproduced on page 407) that our dear friend took at Christ Church of father and me. Such a good likeness of father and me, such a lanky, long-legged,[410] shy child, with very short petticoats, low shoes, and a huge flap hat! More than forty years has this been taken—the two dear friends gone for ever and only the photograph remaining as souvenir of the dear old past—it is almost as fresh as the day it was taken!

Other likenesses were taken, but, though I have hunted about, I cannot find them. Also, to my great sorrow, I have lost several long, illustrated letters written to me with the hope of shaming me out of several bad habits and faults. One in particular was the sucking of my thumb, and this Mr. Dodgson always teased me about very much. One day I received a long letter with funny little pictures of a small family of birds who would suck their thumbs (claws). They looked so comical in a row, on a branch, with their claws in their beaks, and the father- and mother-birds below with a pot of bitter aloes, a birch-rod, and long muslin bags to tie up the claws in. The next picture showed the little birds weeping, with their claws in bags, the father and mother enjoying a good repast, and the naughty little birds "had none"! And so on all the way through this most interesting pictorial letter, till the little birds had no claws left. All sucked away! The story was quite as interesting as the pictures, and I think it did me good, as Mary Pearson always read this letter to me whenever I sucked my thumb more than usual, and protested my thumbs were disappearing as the birds' claws did, and I was terribly frightened; for Mr. Dodgson used to say Mary was quite right, and I should be spoken of as "the little girl without thumbs."

My hair was a great trouble to me as a child, for it would tangle and Mary was not over and above patient as I twisted and turned when she wished to dress it. So one day I received a long, blue envelope addressed to myself (letters are always so delightful to children—they raise them almost to the ranks of the "grown-ups"), and there was a story-letter, all full of drawings, from Mr Dodgson. The first picture was of a little girl—hat off and tumbled hair very much en évidence—asleep on a rustic bench under a big tree by the side of a river (supposed to be the dear old seat in the Botanical Gardens), and two birds holding an evidently most important conversation above in the branches, their heads on one side, eyeing the sleeping child. The next picture, the two birds, flying with twigs and straw, preparing to build a nest; the child still sleeping and the birds chirping and twittering with the delight of building their nest in the tangled hair of the child. Next came the awakening. The work complete, the mother-bird on her nest, the father-bird flying round the frightened child. And then, lastly, hundreds of birds—the air thick with them; the child fleeing; small boys with tin trumpets raised to their lips, and Nurse Mary, with a basket of brushes and combs, bringing up the rear! All this, with the well-drawn-out story, cured me of this fault, and Mary, in after-life, told me she "had no more trouble; just to open the letter and show the unhappy child in the picture, and I was 'passive as a lamb.'" Sometimes father would say, patting my head, "Any more nests to-day, Ducky? Birds would not have a chance now with this smooth little head."

I have grieved greatly that these picture-stories are no more, and, from several letters which I have seen from other little[411] girls—now grown up and far away in different parts of the world, their letters of a like kind have also gone astray and been lost amidst the movings, changings, and chances of life.

In after years my father often told me another story of Mr. Dodgson, which I, being so young, had forgotten. In the very early part of the time in which I knew him, he one day called in Long-Wall Street to fetch father to go with him to "The Union" to look into some particular subject together. Mr. Dodgson was anxious I should go as well, as, perhaps, we might all take a walk, and as I promised to be most obedient and good, I was told to go and get my hat. I trotted along, and, "The Union" reached, was put in a comfortable chair to wait till they were ready to go on the proposed walk. It was hot, and I was tired, and the crackling of papers turning over and the hum of voices lulled me to sleep. I slept on, oblivious of all, and, I suppose, the two friends, talking intently, forgot my existence and, in earnest conversation, left "The Union"—and me, sleeping quietly, quite alone.

Mr. Dodgson left father in Long-Wall Street, and then went to his rooms in Christ Church. Suddenly, so the story goes, he thought, "We went out three; we came back two; where is three?"

And then it flashed across him that there had been no "three" left in Long-Wall Street—only his friend—and so "three" must have been left somewhere on the road. Though it was just the hour of dinner, this good friend trudged back to "The Union," intent upon finding the lost lamb, and there I was still asleep, coiled up, as he expressed it, "like a dormouse." I was taken home tired and a little cross; it was past my supper-time; I was hungry, and quite ready for the white sheets and pillows that lead to dreamland. But, always thoughtful for others, Mr. Dodgson strayed into the ever-famous and delightful shop of Boffins in "The High," and a sugared Bath-bun and a glass of jelly revived my drooping spirits and raised my courage to meet Mary. I was soon given into her care, and my adventures, as told by Mr. Dodgson, made me quite a heroine, and I felt myself a person of some importance with a history.

I had a daily governess, a dear old soul, who used to come every morning to instruct my youthful mind. I disliked particularly the large-lettered copies in my writing-book, and, as I confided this to Mr. Dodgson, he came and set me some copies himself. I remember two were, "Patience and water-gruel cure gout." (I wondered what "gout" could be.) "Little girls should be seen and not heard." (This I thought unkind.) These were written many times over, and I had to present the pages at the end of the week to him without one blot or smudge.

Magdalen College always, to my childish mind, was a most lovely and beautiful place, and my favourite walking ground in hot weather because of the splendid trees. I also had a great admiration for the many and brilliant-flowered balconies of some of the Fellows of the College, which looked into High Street just before the Bridge of Magdalen commenced. One particularly was the show window of the set, flaming with the most varied colours—vivid geraniums, lobelias, mignonette, and two tiny mirrors, cleverly inserted amongst the flowers, so that the person inside could see who was passing, either way, up or down the street, without being seen himself.

I was quite at home in these rooms, as they also belonged to a friend of my father, a Mr. Saul; he was a Fellow of Magdalen, and I always admired him so much, and[412] thought he could never be unhappy living in such charming rooms. I can see him now, with his cheery laugh and white hair, and his very portly figure, and, oh! the musical instruments that were here, there, and everywhere! Mr. Dodgson and father and myself all went one afternoon to pay him a visit. At that time Mr. Saul was very much interested in the study of the big drum, and, with books before him and a much heated face, he was in full practice when we arrived. Nothing would do but that all the party must join in the concert. Father undertook the 'cello, Mr. Dodgson took a comb and paper, and, amidst much fun and laughter, the walls echoed with the finished roll, or shake, of the big drum—a roll that was Mr. Saul's delight. All this went on till some other Oxford Dons (mutual friends) came in to see "if everybody had gone suddenly cracked." I meanwhile, perched amongst the flowers and mirrors, joined in the fun by singing and clapping my hands with delight at the drum, comb, and 'cello. When all had quieted down, a large musical-box was wound up for my edification; such a treat it was for me to listen to the beautiful airs!

Music is, and always has been, the chief delight of my life, and father always greatly encouraged this taste in me. Many a time, in our walks amongst the Cotswolds in the long years after, father would say, "Ducky, do you remember poor old Saul and his big drum? And the fun we all had together, and how Dr. Bully thought we had all gone in for Littlemore Asylum? Oh, the dear old days, child! The dear old days!" And then we would walk on quite silently, father wrapped in the past, till we reached the ivy-covered rectory and the lights, and the daily routine of life was taken up once more.

One more story of my childhood, and then I shall have to write "Finis" to what to me is so delightful—the shutting of one's eyes in the twilight and the wandering back into the past with the many near and dear friends—some now scattered far and wide, others gone into the "weird unknown." Gone, but ever present in the loving memories of friends.

Not very far away from Wadham College (in my remembrance) was a road leading to "The Parks"; this was also a very nice walk, and the hedges, when I was a small girl, were full of "ragged robin," wild roses, and other field flowers. Yellow butterflies and, sometimes, "peacock" butterflies, could also be found there. So, to the mind of eight years old, it was a "happy hunting ground" for "eyes that could see and look for things," and my pockets were generally filled with great treasures on returning—which treasures, alas! Mary Pearson always dubbed "Miss Ducky's aggravating rubbish."

Now father had a great friend living near Park Crescent, and one of the bonds of sympathy (and a great one it was) between father, Mr. Dodgson, and the little old gentleman, was mathematics. This friend, whose name I have forgotten, lived in one of a row of houses at the top of Park Crescent, and many were the times we all three took this particular walk together to see the old scholar. My delight was resting in the pleasant little parlour of the housekeeper, into whose charge I was always given. She had very beady black eyes, a bunch of keys at her waist, and a most wonderful cap with bouquets of flowers intermixed with lace at each of her ears, and funny little grey curls and combs (like those of the present day) to fasten them back. I always was most polite to her and put on my very best manners. To me she was a most potential personage, and her coltsfoot wine and old-fashioned rock cakes, with which she always regaled me[413] with no sparing hand, were so delicious! Nowhere else did these particular dainties seem to me so good. Perhaps hunger (which is always the best sauce) had something to do with it; but I know I munched the cakes and gazed intently at the swaying grasses and flowers on her head, as she told me that she made all the cakes herself, and also could sometimes make, when little girls were "extra good," "almond toffee" of the most appetising description.

56. THE WALKING STICK OF DESTINY.

Ch. 6.

Hush! The Baron slumbers! Two men with stealthy steps are removing his strong-box.[2]

It is very heavy and their knees tremble, partly with the weight, partly with fear. He snores and they both start; the box rattles, not a moment is to be lost; they hasten from the room. It was very, very hard to get the box out of the window but they did it at last; though not without making noise enough to waken ten ordinary sleepers: the Baron, luckily for them, was an extraordinary sleeper.

At a safe distance from the castle, they sat down the box, and proceeded to force off the lid. Four mortal hours [3] did M^r Millon Smith and his mysterious companion labor thereat; at sun rise it flew off with a noise louder than the

A PAGE FROM THE "UMBRELLA BOOK."

(Written and Drawn by Lewis Carroll.)

I was always ready to go this walk with father, and I well remember one occasion on which we went. It must have been about July, for it was very hot, and the roses and other flowers were all out. Mr. Dodgson and father enjoyed a chat, while I—with a mind full of rock cakes, the bright sunshine and all the pretty things of nature in the hedges, and (oh! happy thought!) perhaps the wonderful toffee at the walk's end—danced along till the little garden gate was reached and we all passed through. I always shared my goodies with other people when I could, and I had promised to save some rock cakes for father and Mr. Dodgson, for upstairs they were always much too intent on conversation to think about "refreshments of life," and these things of which I am writing happened before "afternoon teas" of four o'clock were ever thought of.

The toffee was there—rather sticky, owing to the hot weather, but the almonds looked white and cool; and the green plate of cakes and the jug with a dog's face for a spout—all were there just ready for the flushed, tired, little girl. I quite remember the cap that day, for it had bunches of pink May with "Quaker" grass, and the old lady told me it was her best summer cap and had cost six shillings at Oliver's in Corn Market Street. I thought she must be a very rich woman indeed, and told Mr. Dodgson so[414] that afternoon, when we were once more together. I remember his laugh as he said, "The female mind is full of vanity." I wondered what a "female mind" meant, and father said little girls asked too many questions (he often told me this part of the story afterwards, when I was grown up), and that I should not know what it was, even if I were told. Mr. Dodgson said, "Alice, all things come to those who wait; some time, if God spares you to grow up, you you will learn many things."

But the pleasant hour spent with the old housekeeper came to an end, and the bell was rung, which meant that I had to gather myself together and go home. Two small parcels of toffee and cakes were given into my willing, open, little hands; a towel was hastily found to wipe away my general stickiness; and then I went away from this dear little home into "The Parks" with Mr. Dodgson and father, homewards.

It was hot, and I was tired: I am sorry to say that father said I was "very cross." My little blue shoes, fastened with straps and tiny pearl buttons, would come undone, and all the brightness and flowery hedges had lost their charm for the now overdone "Ducky."

Mr. Dodgson lagged behind, and I saw him looking intently in the hedges and all about, as if he were searching for something. This aroused my curiosity. At length, stooping down, he gathered up something in his handkerchief. I could not see what he had found, but I felt very much interested. Holding the tied-up handkerchief above my head, he said, "This is for my other little Alice; she is a brave girl, and does not cry like a baby at being a wee bit tired. Oh! such a curious, lovely little flower is tied up here!"

At this he waved the handkerchief above my head, and I, so anxious to see what was in it, skipped after him, forgetting the tears and the tired legs. "Tell me what it is," was my breathless request.

No answer. Mr. Dodgson danced on, and I followed, father laughing at the two of us. When we were near dear old Wadham College (not a great distance from Long-Wall Street), Mr. Dodgson said to me, with much solemnity, "Alice, did you ever hear of a 'Bella perennis,' most wonderfully and beautifully made?"

He nodded, and we went on again till the steps of our house came in view. By this time I was quiet and wondering, and hoping I should be allowed to see inside the handkerchief, and look at this wonderful, mysterious creation.

Inside our hall was an old oaken bench, and there Mr. Dodgson sat down; I in front of him, in my favourite attitude, with my long, skinny arms clasped behind my back. I dare not speak as the knots were very, very slowly untied, and—oh! only a tiny, withered, half-dead, little daisy appeared to my astonished view! "Where is the beautiful 'Bella something?'" I cried, with a half-sob rising in my throat; I was so bitterly disappointed.

"This is the 'Bella perennis,' child. See how beautifully and carefully it is made: one of God's fairest small field-flowers."

I took it in my hand, and, giving Mr. Dodgson a big hug, I passed through the baize door, leaving my dear, kind friend with father.

I never forgot that walk! It made a very deep impression on my childish mind, not easily effaced in the long after-years. If people only knew what the sympathy of a "real, grown-up friend" is to a shy child, what courage it gives to the trembling little heart! How few children would be set down as shy and stupid, and be thoroughly misunderstood (as some are now), if only there were more like Mr. Dodgson, who, though one of the cleverest of men, could yet stoop to win the love and confidence and enter into the joys and sorrows of his numerous child friends!

Perhaps I have wearied many who may read this, and it is time I should close these past chapters of my "childish memories," shut up the book, and lay down the pen; but it has been an inexpressible pleasure to recall, as far as I can, all Mr. Dodgson's kindness to me and father. Alas! alas! that life should change—on and on—all the dear, old, familiar places and faces disappear. "Old Tom" still chimes his daily hours; but the dear footsteps will never more be heard turning in at the door of the old staircase leading to his rooms in Christ Church College. Those cheerful rooms, where so many delightful hours were spent, will know him no more. All is gone now: only the memory, and the deep respect and love his child friends bore him, remain.

Father died on August 27th, 1897, and Mr. Dodgson on January 14th, 1898; and we, who are left behind, can only hope we may meet them once more in the realms that never change.

GREAT ANNIVERSARIES

By the Rev. A. R. Buckland, M.A., Morning Preacher at the Foundling Hospital.

The March calendar is rich in great names; let us take a selection in pairs, beginning with illustrious divines.

There died at Longleat on March 19th, 1710, Thomas Ken, some-time Bishop of Bath and Wells. The English-speaking world is not likely altogether to forget him, so long at least as his Morning and Evening Hymns are sung. He is one of the uncanonised saints of the English Church, as well as one of the prelates whose names enter into English history. For Ken was amongst the seven bishops sent to the Tower by James II., and one of the Non-jurors deprived under William of Orange. The goodness of the man in an age of sore temptation has been felt by every generation since his death. On March 2nd, 1791, John Wesley died. His life is one of the most astonishing in the religious history of the English people. In its contrasts (such, for example, as between his life as a College Don at Oxford and during his mission to Georgia), in its multitudinous labours, in its immediate influence upon religion in England, and in the far-reaching results of his work both in America and in Great Britain, it is without parallel. He is a figure in the religious history not so much of our own land as of the whole world, wherever the Anglo-Saxon race has set its foot.

From divines let us pass to men of science. Sir Isaac Newton, one of the most illustrious natural philosophers, and one of those for whom room must always be found in even the briefest list of the greatest Englishmen, died on March 20th, 1727. There is no more distinguished name amongst the sons of Cambridge University. It was by the choice of the University that he came into touch with the political life of the nation, for in 1688 he was sent by it to the Convention Parliament. Newton's name will never seem amiss in such company as that of Ken and Wesley, for he was a profound believer in the Christian faith and a diligent student of the Bible. Newton was Master of the Mint; and this office was also held by Sir John Herschel, who was born on March 7th, 1792. His fame is not dimmed in comparison with that of his father, Sir William Herschel. Although the son's career was not so striking as that of the "Hanoverian fiddler," his scientific acquirements were of singular breadth. At Cambridge, as a very young man, he agreed with two other undergraduates that they would "do their best to leave the world wiser than they found it." The compact seemed presumptuous, but in the case of Herschel it was well kept.

Two illustrious philanthropists belong to this month. Thomas Clarkson—still another Cambridge man—was born on March 26th, 1760. Whilst at the University he won the Vice-Chancellor's prize for a dissertation on the question, "Is it lawful to make slaves of men against their will?" Working at this essay, he became so impressed with the duty of fighting the slave-trade that he resolved[417] to give himself up to the work. He lived to see his ends attained as regards Great Britain. There is a natural link between Clarkson's work for the African, and the life-work of David Livingstone (born March 19th, 1813). Livingstone was very far from being merely an explorer, or an explorer with missionary instincts; he knew that to kill the slave-trade in Africa the country must be opened up, and he gave his life to another side of the same work which Clarkson had toiled for.

March is a great month in the independent history of the United States, and in the official lives of its Presidents. It has its sad memories, too, though memories that no longer appeal to passion. It was in March, 1861, that Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln found the North and the South just on the brink of open war. It was in March also, in the year 1852, that Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was first published. That is one of the few literary anniversaries that will always be connected with political history.

India offers us two memorable names. John Lawrence, Henry's younger brother, was born on March 24th, 1811. One of the wisest of Indian administrators, he would have been great had the Mutiny never occurred. As it is, other achievements are forgotten in the promptitude and skill which marked his conduct then. He is buried in Westminster Abbey, and near him lies Sir James Outram, "the Bayard of India," who died on March 11th, 1863.

So much for men; now for organisations. On March 8th, 1698-99, was founded the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. On March 13th, 1701, the Lower House of Canterbury Convocation appointed the committee to "inquire into ways and means for promoting the Christian religion in our foreign plantations," which led to the founding of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The British and Foreign Bible Society was founded on March 7th, 1804. On March 4th, 1824, at a meeting held at the London Tavern, under the presidency of Archbishop Manners-Sutton, "The Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Ship-wreck" was launched. Its present title, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, was adopted in 1854.

CHRISTABEL'S REBELLION.

AN EPISODE.

She did not like separating the twins, but one was as much as she could reasonably take to an afternoon tea party. They must learn some time to be divided, she thought sadly, after reflecting on the woes of the world.

"Shall you, dear? Yes, next time," Nora said, bending over the vivid little face, just the height of her dressing-table.

"If we're not back when father comes in," she went on, suggesting solace, "will you take care of him, Judy, and love him?"

"Yuv father," murmurously assented the baby, busy with a knot in her pink pinafore.

"Goin' out to tea," responded Judy. "Off!" releasing one little white serge shoulder from the enclosing cotton.

Nora moved about her room for a few more minutes before she went to the nursery to pick up her little son. Judy, trotting after, was kissed at the top of the staircase, and, with a sombre fire in her brilliant eyes, watched the descent of Christopher. His air of triumph as he stamped his booted feet on every stair was no doubt aggravating.

It was a cold March day, and, as she noted his gaitered legs, Judy glanced down at her own bare toes. At the sight of his hat, firmly set upon the soft fair curls, Judy lifted her chubby hands to her own bare head—bare but for its clustering brown waves with their tips of gold. A deep sense of unfair treatment, of unjust neglect, flitted across the baby's mind. A great determination filled it.

Nurse went through the open nursery door in a busy manner. It was Jane's afternoon out, and there was a good deal to tidy up. In two minutes Judy, after a fashion of her own, was at the bottom of the wide staircase, a lonely little figure, standing for a moment on the rug before the log fire. Finding the hall door shut and the drawing-room door open, the baby stepped into the conservatory, and was soon trotting down the drive. Her shoulders were set sturdily to a great effort. No one seeing her could possibly mistake their expression. She was going out to tea.

Outside the gates, left open for the exit of a carriage, Judy paused. Just before her, four roads crossed. Three she knew well—one led to the village, the other two were the routes of daily outings. The fourth was forbidden to the nurses because of a big public-house a quarter of a mile away—a rendezvous of trippers from London. Along this road the little figure turned.

A bicyclist rang his bell and startled her, whizzing close by her, as she did not move from the middle of the road. A man in a cart evaded her, pausing to look down with interest at the bare-headed little traveller.

"My! she's a little 'un to be about alone," he thought, turning in his seat to look after the purposeful little figure. He scratched his head and thought of his own baby, about the same size, and for a moment was tempted to turn his cart and go after her.

"She hadn't ought to have been let go out by herself," he thought, indignant with some neglectful guardian. "A little gipsy child, p'raps—never taught not to run in the middle of the road."

Unwitting of the kindly thought that followed her, Judy ran on—now and then pausing for a second to glance about her, her bare feet and uncovered head seeming to reck nothing of the cold spring wind. A timber waggon, drawn by three huge horses, and guided by a carter cracking his whip, made her flit in momentary tremor, with hunched shoulders, to the side of the road, from which security she, however, surveyed their passage with sparkling eyes. Holding out her arms in ecstatic approval, she urged shrilly. "Gee-gee—go,[419] go"; and the carter glanced at her bright face, under its touzled waves of hair, admiringly.

"She's a spirit of her own," he thought, bestowing a momentary wonder on her lone condition as he passed.

The dust from the grinding wheels settled, and Judy pursued her way. Who can tell what thoughts were directing her progress, or whether she ever wondered where the tea she was in search of was to come from? She went on.

Presently a wayside inn, withdrawn a little from the road, with its sign-post shaking and creaking in the wind before it, came into view. Judy stopped and put her finger in her mouth, considering. This was a house. Here was tea.

In a doorway stood a man, round and red-faced. He had no coat, and his waistcoat had seen better days, whilst a battered felt hat was on his head. He was gazing into space, with little sharp eyes set under overhanging, beetling brows.

Judy drew nearer. Something in his appearance fascinated her. Possibly its untidy dishevelment touched a fellow-feeling and appealed to her reckless mood. At that moment nothing was doing, and the potman was smoking a dirty pipe when Judy drew near and surveyed him. For a moment or so the two looked at each other in silence. Judy spoke first.

"Tea!" he repeated, amazed. And then he stooped and touched the velvet of her cheek softly with his hand, and lifted the waves of her overshadowing hair. "Who are you?" he asked.

"Tea," answered Judy, and a little appeal had crept into her tone and into the beautiful dark eyes. The potman's resemblance to her friend the gardener was not so great, on nearer acquaintance, as she had at first thought.

And, receiving a little nod and a charming smile, he lifted himself and scratched his head.

"There ain't no tea—but there's some milk" (his face suddenly brightening), "and one of them big buns. It's a bit stale—but if she's hungry."

He disappeared, and Judy, after a second's pause of indecision, elected not to follow him. The interior into which he had vanished was not inviting. There was a little porch to the closed front door, with wooden seats on either side, and these now caught Judy's vision. Trotting thither, she essayed to climb.

"Up," she demanded, when the potman returned, carrying a mug of milk and a very large scone.

Safely seated, with the mug beside her,[420] and the scone held carefully in both hands, she remarked in cheerful accents—"Out to tea," looking at him for corroboration.

"Out to tea? Yes, missy—where do you come from?" he answered. "What's yer mother thinking of to let yer out alone?" he asked.

Judy opened her mouth and fastened her little white teeth into the big stale bun, condescending no answer to inconvenient questions. The potman sat down opposite her and proceeded in his attempts.

"What's yer name, missy?" he asked again. "Ain't yer got one?" as Judy, disregarding him, seemed bent on demolishing the bun. She nibbled all round it, holding it with both hands, serenely callous to her companion's beguilements.

"Doody," at last she vouchsafed, in a pause for rest, looking interestedly at the pattern she had vandyked.

"Daddy's Kistabel," she murmured softly, removing her eyes from his face and considering another bite.

"An' yer daddy might do worse nor kiss you, I reckon," admiringly; "but it's a rummy one, too."

The flash of the dark eyes opposite was irresistible. It awoke good thoughts in the potman's mind.

Judy looked all over the ugly face thus presented to her immediate vision. Its corrugated surface fascinated her. Stretching one hand out, she softly touched the knobbly nose and laughed aloud, hunching her shoulders in glee.

"Lilies an' roses ain't in it with her," he murmured admiringly. "An' eyes as big as plums and as dark as—stout."

"D'ink," said Judy, occupied with the problem of what was to be done with the bun whilst she drank from the mug beside her. "'Old!" she commanded, holding out the bun, as she realised that her own dangling legs made a very unstable, insufficient knee.

Judy looked, bending her dainty face with keen interest above the members, encrusted with dirt and neglect, held out before her.

"Dirty!" she exclaimed delightedly, lifting sympathetic eyes to the equally dirty face, and she laughed again in keen enjoyment. Dirt always commanded Judy's suffrages.

"'Old!" she commanded again, undaunted by the sight presented to her; and with sweet and dainty curvings of her soft fingers she pressed the nibbled scone upon the greasy palms. Then the potman handed her the mug and Judy drank.

"Out to tea?" she said again, a little doubtfully, as, her draught finished, she recovered her scone.

But the rosy mouth paused half-open, and Judy's eyes fixed themselves observantly on an advancing figure.

"Man," she said, directing the potman's gaze to the road. It was a policeman passing by, and the potman stood up alertly.

"Here," he called, "here's a little gel." And the two men stood solemnly regarding Judy. "I 'xpect she's lost," he suggested slowly.

The policeman's eyes fixed themselves on the dainty embroidery of Judy's little petticoat, visible under her lifted skirt—a contrast to the bare and dusty ankles it enclosed. The dragged-aside cotton pinafore, from which one arm was freed, revealed the elaborate smocking with which nurse was wont to ornament the simple frock. Lastly, Judy's face came in for careful scrutiny.

"Then I'll take her back. Seems to me she is uncommon like one of a pair I sometimes see—beauties, both of them; though how the mischief——Come with me, missy," he wheedled, stooping and holding out his arms.

"Yes, so you are. You been out to tea, ain't you?" he sympathised. And Judy, satisfied, holding out her arms, allowed herself to be annexed.

In the policeman's arms a sudden recollection of her "manners" flashed across her mind.

"Bye, bye," she said, holding out one hand in a dignified fashion to the potman. With the other she still retained the bun.

"Bye, bye," Judy repeated; and then, her vivid face all dimpling into smiles, she flung herself forward and clasped her arms round his neck. What to Judy were dirt and knobbliness? Both were fascinating, both were associated with the delight of having her own way. With a fervid embrace and a wet kiss Judy bestowed her gratitude.

There was weeping and wringing of hands and the rush of petticoats up and down and in and out, and flying figures darting about, when the policeman, with Judy in charge, arrived at the gates of Mount Royal. Judy's father had just come from the train, and was trying to find out from his agitated household what was the matter, when the tall, dark figure with the little pink one in his arms appeared.

"Oh, Judy!" reproached nurse, pallid to her lips, snatching her charge from the policeman's arms and agitatedly examining all her limbs. "Such a disgrace!" she exclaimed, looking angrily at the policeman.

"I thought I knew her, miss," he said politely, grinning. Nurse had haughtily snubbed him once or twice in her walks.

"Out to tea," Judy said triumphantly, as she was caught up into her father's embrace.

Christopher, breaking away from nurse's attentions, on his return home, stamped loudly round the nursery floor to attract the envious attention of Judy.

Judy's attire had been remodelled throughout, as a prelude to the hour in the drawing-room before bed-time; and she was now sitting on the window seat in a mood of subdued and passive triumph. "Go agen," she had murmured softly two or three times to herself, too much occupied with the sweets of memory to heed, as she otherwise would have done, Punch's aggravations.

Stamping round being deprived of its attraction, Punch paused and approached his sister.

Judy's eyes flashed in the manner which always made Punch conscious of wonder that he had felt called upon to speak. He hastened to appease her.

"Doody don't want no boots," she said shrilly; "never don't want no boots, Doody don't."

"No," agreed Punch, in the tone of one who humours. "Ain't been out to tea," he suggested.

The blue eyes looked searchingly into the dark ones, and, with a qualm of disappointment, Punch felt the force of truth.

Judy shook her head violently, the violence intended to hide the mortification of having to confess the absence of the delicacy.

"Bun?" burst in Judy; and then it was Punch's turn to look disappointed. Buns had not been provided at his entertainment.

Christopher looked at her solemnly, as he dived into the recesses of his memory; not a man had graced his tea-party!

"Punch are goin' to muvver," the boy then announced cheerfully, freeing his legs from Judy's petticoats with a vigorous kick.

"Man!" shrieked Judy after his retreating figure, too much taken by surprise to lift herself so suddenly. Then she, too, got up, shook herself, and with a dash was through the nursery door.

But alas! for Judy. All the doors and gates were fast, and for a week they were kept carefully closed.

COUNTING NOT THE COST

There is a truth we have not anything like exhausted yet in the great words of Christ, "He who saves [or hoards] his life shall lose it." Parsimony, if we knew it, impoverishes as well as extravagance. If the prodigal had turned miser, he would have remained just as far from the father's house. We do not accuse the disciples for a moment of selfishness or greed. If they misconstrued Mary's motive, let us beware lest we misconstrue theirs. Say they were honest and genuine, but that they lacked insight and that emancipation from the commercial spirit which saves men from estimating all precious and lovely things at their market value.

We need the lesson. No century has needed it more. While love in self-forgetfulness and holy passion is spending itself in the tenderest offices that an overflowing heart has suggested, the disciples are engaged in problems of valuation, working out calculations in arithmetic—so much ointment at so much per pound. But that would have been condemned by many who would yet ask themselves seriously whether their main contention was not right. Their blunt and rude interruption showed lack of feeling; it was vulgar and inexcusable. Granted. But if they had quietly sympathised with the good intention, and yet afterwards had clearly represented that here love had loved "not wisely but too well," and had done better if it had selected some more practical method in which to exhibit its reality, would they not have commanded a very general assent? Would not nine out of every ten have said that she could have laid out the money to better advantage, and that it was a holier thing to clothe and feed the persons of the poor than even to anoint the person of the Christ?

Now let me say that I do not think we can[424] understand our Saviour's commendation of this deed of love, and this apparent disregard of principles of utility and practical philanthropy, unless we take at once a large and a deep view of life—its purpose and the methods of its education. The pressure of the material necessities is constant and urgent, I know; but God does not mean us to believe that the supreme questions of life are "What shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?"

When Christ propounded His query to the multitudes on the mount, "Is not the life more than meat, and the body than the raiment?" He demanded in reality their assent to the proposition that the spiritual life is the supremely important. The fact of the matter is, God has never treated man as if he were made to eat and drink because to-morrow he must die. The world is not designed simply to promote our physical well-being, and conducted on purely utilitarian principles, as if it were some sort of gigantic store in which all men were shareholders, and the sole business of which was to produce certain annual profits. That mode of regarding the universe is popular, but false.

Have you ever asked yourselves the question, "What do the spring flowers mean?" I have sometimes tried to fancy men gloomily riding to the city and sulkily pointing to the wealth of ephemeral beauty that has glorified the world, and demanding, "To what purpose is this waste?" There the flowers bloom, so fragile, so delicate, so short-lived; here to-day, and faded and gone to-morrow: to-day, a quivering point of beauty and fragrance, to-morrow touched by the withering finger of decay. And so "they bloom their hour and fade," and we say in wonder, "To what purpose was this waste?" What did it all mean? One sudden, genuine gush of sacred feeling; one burst of almost overpowering glory that shone steadfast for one brief hour and then faded into nothingness. Why lavish such wealth of colour and sweetness on fabrics so short-lived as the flowers of spring? Ah, why, indeed! Long years before man brake the first poor spikenard vessel of worship and adoring love at the feet of the Eternal, God poured His precious gifts of bloom and scent in bewildering profusion and prodigality upon the listless sons of earth.

I have sometimes wondered whether man might not have gone on conceiving of the world as no more than so much food, and clothing, and shelter, if God had not startled him by this annual miracle of spring to ask the question, "To what purpose is this waste?" Just so soon as man found himself appealed to in the higher faculties and senses, did he begin to suspect himself above the brute; did he begin to discover beneath the form of things a gracious and bountiful Spirit, whose attitude to him found voice in these tender and winsome words of Nature's lips.

Flowers "born to blush unseen and waste their sweetness on the desert air"—to what purpose are they? Surely, surely (as Mary's offering of sweet spikenard) they are God's approach to man, if only we would accept them as such. That is the inner meaning of this sudden gush of sacred feeling; that is the purpose of this "waste."

We are reaching, then, this conclusion, that if love is the soul of life, you must expect no mere dead level of respect, but occasional inevitable outbursts of feeling, love's sweet surprises; times when the ordinary prescribed channels through which habitual affection flows are inadequate, and when there must be room for the sweet extravagances of love. The strong, deep love of a father may no doubt be felt in the steadfast care that provides food and clothing, and shelter, and all things necessary for his child. But, after all, home would not be home if there were not room for the rarer gifts, and the moments of sublime abandon, when all the love of the heart breaks forth in unconstrained demonstration of affection.

Life that is love cannot be reduced to formalities; there must be a place in it for the spontaneous, the unpremeditated, the irresistible impulse. Love cannot live and thrive amid conventions merely. It has an etiquette of its own. It must be allowed to make its own proprieties. If you cannot appoint to it an object, and command one mortal to love another, neither can you prescribe the manner of its operation. You cannot control its whims, and freaks, and fancies. It has ten thousand devices that are all enigmas to the uninitiate.

Its sanities are stark madness to the matter-of-fact man of affairs. He curtly denominates nonsense what to love is inspiration. He stares in blank incredulity at the simple and magnificent prodigalities of love, and begins to wonder whether he is himself quite sane to-day, and to ask in sheer stupor, "To what purpose is this waste?"

It would not do, perhaps, to make too searching a scrutiny into private personal histories, or it might transpire that, after all, behind even the most stolid of demeanours there lay experiences which memory treasures still, and which are the vindication to them of Mary's sublime extravagance. Yes, perhaps those you least[425] suspect—the level-headed men who are feared for their hard thinking and steely, immovable stolidity, have secret drawers somewhere, with strangely unintelligible relics of a yesterday that was the greatest day of their life—and the least defensible day on any rationalistic view of it! On that day they lost either their head or their heart, or both, and love and reverence found expression; and the spikenard that they broke that day is the one precious memory in what people with unconscious irony are calling a successful career. Yes, the one thing they are proud to have done, the one thing they sometimes think may stand them in stead in a world where wealth and fame will be as nothing, is a thing which none could justify on commercial principles—which stands in conflict with the great aims and efforts of their lives—an action that sprang inevitably from a spendthrift love, and of which the world in which they move might well demand, "To what purpose is this waste?" I venture to say that by that very chapter of their history the possibility is proved that, some day, they may discover a more amazing loveliness and a more overpowering love; and may offer even nobler offerings of life and treasure at His feet, and go forth again, not in shame, but in holy pride and devout thanksgiving that at last they have learned to love with a love that counteth not the cost of sacrifice.

I have seen this exquisite story quoted as a defence of mere ritual. The method is obvious. The hardened lover of simplicity is represented as one of the disciples; and beholding the beauty of architecture, and the stateliness of the ceremonial, and listening to the superb eloquence of the liturgy and grandeur of the music, he asks, "To what purpose is this waste?"

There is a superficial justification for such teaching. But it is only superficial. For if from this incident it be attempted to establish a precedent for permanent elaborate ritual of worship, it must be said this incident goes to prove its impossibility. For ask yourselves, What gave this deed its peculiar and unrivalled power and influence? There is only one answer. It lies in its solitariness. It was spontaneous. It was unique. It could not bear repetition. To repeat it were to rob it of its bloom.

We repudiate, then, the idea that the form of this deed can become the basis of Christian worship. But we are now able to consider the truth that, when love realises itself thus in deeds of worship, it often receives assurances that it has done more than it knew. God interprets our poor intentions so liberally, so largely. He reads into our broken speech such divine meanings. It is ever so. We give a cup of cold water to a thirsty bairn; and lo! we have done it unto Him! We utter our coarse earthly strains of music; and, one day, He bids us hearken! Then there falls upon our ears ravishing heavenly music; and when we could fall down and worship, He tells us it is our own.

Heaven's great melodies are perhaps no more than earth's poor ones, composed in pure love and praise of God, redeemed from their limitations and imperfections in the home of all true worship. So Mary struck her trembling chord, and waited fearful; broke her spikenard, and then marvelled at her own daring; and while, when love had spent itself, a colder mood began to question the propriety, and to strike fear to her woman's heart, Jesus spake and said, "In that she hath poured this ointment on Me, she hath done it for My burial."

Would she ever have dreamed, think you, that she was doing what He said? Would she ever have dared to entertain the thought that He would bear to the grave the incense of her adoration, and that with the final victory of His resurrection her love and worship would have eternal association? Would she ever have dreamed, here in Simon's house, where she was esteemed so meanly and treated so basely—here, amid the splendour of a rich man's entertainment—that in the days when the world had no feasts for Him, but only a cross and a tomb, that then the perfume of her love, the fragrance of her offerings, would surround His form and sweeten His resting-place. Never; but so it was, for the Divine Love caught up the simple act of worship, and gave it eternal distinction. Yea, He who had come to seek the love of men deigned to associate with the time of His own immortal sacrifice this sacrifice of hers.

It were, perhaps, to require too much of this story to make it convey the great truth that in Christ's sacrifice all our sacrifices have a place. Yet, verily, every true sacrifice hath association with His. Every death to self is an anointing of the Holy One to His burial. He gathers up the perfume of all simple deeds of lowly sacrifice; for this is His reward. Only from the great Love does our love flow. We love because He loved. His sacrifice is the basis of all sacrifice; and all true sacrifice of ours hath this relation to His own. We did not think when we did it of anything but that we must do it unto Him; and in grace He showed us afterwards that we had indeed anointed Him—we had in our own poor way honoured the Divine sacrifice.

It would but mar the solemn influence of such a sacred reflection to deduce the obvious and inevitable lessons. I forbear to treat it thus. I can only say, let us pray and let us strive to love Him with the love that counteth not the cost of sacrifice.

THE GREEN FOLK

A Complete Story. By Ethel F. Heddle.

CHAPTER I.

ISHBEL.

One is pretty safe to address a man in Skye as Macdonald! If that fails, then try MacLeod, and if this produces no result, then there is still Nicolson to fall back on. An error in all three is next door to an impossibility! But Ishbel had not any of these three names, though she lived with her maternal grandfather, who was a MacLeod.

Ishbel was a changeling. Anyone would tell you so in Skye—if, perhaps, one or two smiled in the telling. Her grandmother, Catriona MacLeod, said so, and Catriona had the second sight, and saw more than most people. She was held in Skye to see, indeed, beyond that veil which mercifully hides the future. Catriona had early said the girl was a changeling. Her daughter, poor Kirstie, died at the baby's birth, her father Roderick McNeill, was drowned—tragedy and sorrow surrounded the baby, and then the little green folk stole it, and Ishbel was the changeling popularly supposed to be left in its place.

She was always an odd child, Catriona said, with ruddy tawny locks, and sloe-eyes, elfish and silent, doing queer, uncanny, unaccountable things, with moods of sadness and moods of mirth. She grew up in Skye, and would never leave it, though she had her chance to do so.

Ishbel lived with Catriona till she was nineteen, and helped her with her spinning and knitting; she also milked the cows, and worked about the house. The girl's head was full of her grandmother's teaching; she believed in the fairies, though she rarely spoke of them. Her cousin Duncan often found her seated in the fairy-ring on the knowe, above the sheiling, picking the green grass absently, and gazing "frae her."

Some day, she thought, she would hear the tap of fairy feet in their revels, hear a tiny voice which would beckon her to an entrancing world, very different even from lovely Skye. Very often she thought she had been on the brink of meeting the little green folk, and then someone had come and interrupted her. There was that night coming home over the muir from Portree—the stream, richly brown with the peat over which it gurgled, the air heather-scented, the mountains fading into the lovely purple of the night's embrace—everything hushed, save her own footfall. Ishbel had seemed to hear a voice calling her then, and had wandered up amongst the heather, her face eager and expectant. And there above her on the heather knoll, "the wee folks' knowe," seeming to float between the grey lichen-covered boulders—surely these were tiny white figures, beckoning to her?

She almost ran, in her eagerness, but, just as she approached, Duncan's voice hailed her from the high road. What was she doing there? And was that the way home?

Ishbel almost wept as she descended. For she could see nothing near the boulders then[427] but waving cotton-grass amongst the bog and heather. It was lovely September now, and the hill-sides were a glory of tawny colouring, the fading heather and bracken, purple and brown, and orange, and gold, and dusky indescribable grey. Sunset came early, and tinged and stained the loch, the Cuchillans stood out sharply in their lovely serrated outline, against a background of pure gold—they were almost friendly and neighbourly, and approachable; it was in winter that they lowered and sulked in the mist, or frowned blackly from amongst the lashing swirls of rain.

Ishbel had gone to fetch fodder for the cows, and the fodder was a great pile of pale yellow bracken, which she bound together and fastened on her back. Carrying this, she passed up the road, pausing now and then to lean her load on one of the rough dykes which bordered the muir. It was nearing evening, and shadows were creeping over the heather—the burn, amber-coloured under the sun, looked dark and sullen-brown now, and had begun its hoarse night-song, for it only sings in the dark. The deer hear and love this song as they creep down cautiously, light-footedly, turning startled graceful heads from side to side, and they pause a moment, poised with listening ear, before they bury thirsty soft noses into the cool rushing water. The deer did not mind Ishbel! But it was scarcely dark enough for the deer to come yet. There was still a chance of the passing tourist from Sligachan, coming from Coruisk, the far-famed. Ishbel, pausing to rest the high load of bracken on the dyke—the crushed yellow fern making a lovely setting to her tawny locks and black sloe-eyes—suddenly perceived two men approaching, and waited for their coming with something of the deer's startled look. One was Duncan MacLeod, her cousin, short, swarthy, black-browed, with a twinkle of cunning in his grey eyes, and a Highland sing-song voice; and the other? Yes, yes, she had seen the other at the Portree games, and he had tossed the caber further than even Colin MacNeil, and his name was Rory MacPhee! Ishbel remembered him very well, and a little smile melted over her red lips, and lurked in the depths of her lovely eyes as Duncan made him known to her. Rory had rented the small farm next to Catriona's, and he was coming to supper. It was time she, Ishbel, was home.

Duncan did not offer to take the fodder from her, though he thought he was in love with Ishbel, and meant to marry her. Women were used to burdens in Skye. But Rory MacPhee, saying nothing, began to untie the rope at the girl's waist, and he swung the mass lightly over his own shoulders.

"Och! that is not needful," Duncan said. And what he thought was "Amadan!" (stupid!)

That was all; but Rory and Ishbel did not meet each other's eyes, and they walked home silent through the creeping dusk.

By the red peat-glow in the cottage she looked lovelier than ever; MacPhee ate little, and his mind was in a curious turmoil. Catriona's remarks, and Duncan's slow efforts at conversation—for the Highlander is desperately cautious at making friends, and Rory came from as far away as above Portree, seven miles off—fell on strangely dull ears.

Rory asked himself the question all next day, for, amidst even the sordid duties of examining the new byres and out-houses, there floated before his mind only one picture—a girl's slim figure in a short faded green skirt, leaning against a dyke, with her small head crushed against a background of faded fern, and the shy lovely eyes looking into his face.

CHAPTER II.

ISHBEL'S PROMISE.

"It is no use at all to go against the lass. I hef said so before now. And there are many lasses in Skye, as good as she, and with, maybe, a cow or two, or a few pounds to bring with her. There is Sheila Macdonald—Sheila will hef as much as three hundred pounds!"

"As if I would look at a squinting woman"—and Duncan threw down the fishing-rod he held, furiously—"I will hef none but Ishbel, and if she will not hef me, I will do someone an injury!"

"Rory MacPhee is stronger and bigger than you," she remarked. "And he has the eye of a hawk, and his fist is like iron. You will never take Ishbel from him by force. But perhaps, now, there might be a little plan—chust a little plan."

He picked up the rod. His cunning eyes grew intent. Catriona resumed, in her high-pitched voice, speaking without a pause in her occupation: "The best thing would be that they would quarrel. And I will tell you a way. He does not like to hear that they are all saying she is a changeling; and he does not like her to talk of the good folk. When she told him the story of the kelpie that followed Ross MacRae over the muir, and[428] drowned him at last in the Rowan Pool, he was angry, and called it all nonsense, and said that she should not repeat such folly. And Ishbel did not like that. She was asking me about the Cave of Gold only yesterday, and when it was that anyone might see the fairies dancing, and if the tide would suit to go. So I told her it was on Midsummer's Night at twelve o'clock, and she is just mad to go! Chust as mad! But Rory was there, too, and I was listening at the door, after, and I heard him say that it was all just talk and folly, and that he would not have her go; that it was too late, and that squalls came on, and our boat was not good at all. She begged and prayed that he would take her, and he said, 'No'! Chust always, 'No'!"

"Very well, then," Duncan cried impatiently, as she paused, "I suppose she is so mad with love that she gave it up."

"She is pretty mad with the love," his mother agreed, "and so she gave in. 'And I am going to Portree, Ishbel,' I heard him say, 'to see what Mr. Campbell, the agent, is wishing to say to me, and you will promise not to go when I am away?—for it is not good for a lass like you to be out so late. And you will promise me?' And she promised. He said he would bring her a new brooch—like a claymore, that the man at Oban is making with the Iona pebbles—and they kissed, and he is gone."

"Very well, what then?" Duncan cried irately. "I hear they are to be married when he comes back. What else, mother?"

Catriona had dropped her potatoes into the pot, and she swung it over the open peats, glowing redly in the dark little cottage.

"Well, if I were you, Duncan, I would get out the boat, and I would offer to take her to the cave. And I will be telling her more stories to-night, when we are spinning. The lass is a changeling, sure enough, and she will go. When Rory comes back, he will hear, and he will be mad with her, and they will quarrel. You can go over to Uig that day" ("Discretion being the better part of valour," evidently, in Catriona's eyes). "They will quarrel, and will break it off, and she will come to you, in time."

Duncan considered the plan slowly. Yes, it suited him excellently well. He wanted no noisy quarrel, no measuring of strength. He, too, remembered Rory's muscles at the Portree games. But this secret working in the dark, in MacPhee's absence, was quite to his taste.

He made up his mind now that his mother was a woman of much wisdom. He graciously told her he approved, and she should have a little present on his next trip to Portree. Her stories to Ishbel of the cave were to be many and enticing!

CHAPTER III.

IN THE CAVE OF GOLD.

"Duncan, Duncan, but I hef promised!" It was the next night, and Ishbel stood before the cottage in her dark wincey skirt and green cotton jacket, her face turned up to her cousin's. All last night, all through the day, old Catriona's stories had haunted her. The old woman had gone cunningly to work. She began, in a rambling way, once they were both seated at the spinning-wheel, by remarking that to-morrow would be Midsummer's Night, and the fairies would be holding high frolic in the Cave of Gold. She herself was old, and frail, and feeble, else how gladly would she have gone! She had the second sight—she would perhaps see what no other could! For, with a branch of rowan—and she had a branch of dry rowan in her kist, ready for her burial—or a naked dagger—Duncan's big knife would do—there was no danger! To see the little green folk dancing! And—here her voice fell, and she glanced into all the dark shadows of the kitchen, and up by the oak settle near the window—perhaps to hear the faint and far-off skirl of Angus Macdonald's pipes! They said that sound was heard still. At first Ishbel had risen uneasily, saying she would go and see if there were enough oat-cakes for supper—or was that anyone in the barn?

But Catriona bade her be seated, sharply—the girl should not escape her thus—and then she asked if she (Catriona) had ever told Ishbel the story of Angus Macdonald and the Cave of Gold? No, Ishbel answered unwillingly, and sat down again, the wheel idle, the soft grey carded wool lying in her lap. Catriona, spinning fast—with the low dirl of the wheel acting as a sort of accompaniment to her voice—told the story. She spoke in Gaelic, of course, and it is difficult to put in English the creeping, insidious fear and mystery of the tale.

How the piper, Angus Macdonald, loved a MacLeod of Dunvegen, a follower of the great MacLeod, and how this lady-love's father would have none of him, but set him some of those foolish and impossible tasks so dear to the story-teller of all ages and climes and nationalities.

One task bade him enter the Cave of Gold at midnight, on Midsummer's Night, and play "MacLeod of Dunvegen," passing through the little dancing folk, and penetrating far into the mystery of the cave's windings, where no Skye man had ever been. Macdonald, of course, took up the challenge, and with his tartan ribbands waving wildly from the pipes, and the mouth-piece at his lips, he was seen standing at the shingly edge of the cave, his kilt tossing against his brown knees in the sudden gust of wind. The men who rowed[429] him up saw this, and heard the first wild pealing notes. Thus, playing proudly and happily, he entered the cave with his dog at his heels. They waited and watched, and listened, and at last heard one awful cry! Then there was silence. He had passed the fairies, but—

Then, changing her tone, Catriona told of the only woman who had ever caught sight of the wee green folk, and how, ever after, riches and wealth were hers, and she had never a wish unsatisfied! It was the going on into the inner caves that had undone the piper! The lass who had seen the fairies was a certain Eilidh Macdonald, and she married a chief, and went to live far away in Oban, and all her days she was clad in green silk. Yes, all her days!

"In a boat, with a man. It is easy, if the man is strong, and you hef the rowan with you. Last of all, Eilidh died, and she wished to be buried beside Flora Macdonald's granite cross at Kilmuir, and they granted her even that! She lies near the great Flora, who saved the Prince. And all through seeing the wee green folk in the Cave of Gold!"

"Grandmother, would you lend me the rowan branch if—if I were to go?" Ishbel whispered in the dusk. "Would you, grandmother?"

Her own voice seemed to terrify her then, and Rory's face rose up before her; but the old woman got up without a word, and, going to her kist, took something, rolled in a fine kerchief, from it, with the smell of bog-myrtle in its folds, and she laid the brown faded leaves and the red, dry berries on Ishbel's lap.

"There it is! But you will give it me back safe?—or else ill will befall us all!"

She had the rowan in her pocket as she stood with Duncan, tampering with her conscience and her promise now.

"It was a very foolish thing to promise," he said craftily. "Besides, Rory was afraid of the squalls, that is all—and there will be no squalls at all! You can come with me, and see if there is anything, and if my mother's stories are true. If not, there is no harm done. It is a lovely cave whateffer."

Ishbel yielded, as Catriona knew she would yield. Would she see anything? Would the wee folk be there?

She found herself in the little boat, and rowing towards the cave before she knew she had consented. The night seemed only a paler day. They rowed close into the shore, till they discovered a place where the rock-face was cleft, and showed a pale light within.[430] There was just space for the boat to float in, passing through a low, overhanging archway. Ishbel drew her breath sharply and clasped her hands, as Duncan paused, watching her face, once they were through it.

They were in a deep circular basin, the water, a lovely pale green, darker in the shadows. The rocky sides were cut, here and there, into long narrow openings, into one of which Catriona's piper must have wandered; here Ishbel saw the water lying dark and mysterious, shadow-haunted.

Bending over the edge of the boat, she could see the yellow sand far below; in bright sunshine her own fair face would have been reflected. Tiny jelly-fish edged with lilac spots, and with long white fringe, floated beside the seaweed, like strange jewels, and far above them they could see the pale opalescence of the summer sky, soft, exquisite, pearly. Fringing the opening were ferns and heather, and tall fox-gloves, but the fairy bells did not stir in the breathless air. Were the wee folk, the good folk, the green folk, lurking within? If she watched, would she see a tiny face peep out? She waited—watched—and waited—and the time passed.

"Duncan, I do not see anything!" Ishbel spoke at last, breathlessly, eagerly. She had forgotten Rory, she had forgotten everything but her desire. "Row me further in, Duncan."

He pushed the boat forward, and Ishbel sat with her dark blue eyes—they seemed black in the shadow—strained eagerly forward, listening, waiting. Nothing moved, except that now and then little waves would break with a plashing ripple against the boat. Far up on the rocks, a passing breath of wind now and then swayed the flowers and the grasses; but no fairy face peeped anywhere, there was no tap of dancing feet, no note of elfin music.

The note of bitter disappointment in her voice roused Duncan. Once or twice he had essayed to speak, having no desire for a silent adventure, but Ishbel had raised her little brown hand sharply. He might disturb the fairies. At last the silence had chilled even[431] her. It was all of no use. She could see and hear nothing.

"We will chust be going home then," he said practically, caring not at all for her disappointment, for, of course, it was all "foolishness." "Maybe they are not dancing to-night; we will better chust go home."

There was a sob in her voice; as he pushed the boat out, she crushed the rowans bitterly in her lap, and they fell into the bottom of the boat. She remembered Rory suddenly, as, once outside, she noticed that the weather had changed during her long waiting, that the light seemed obscured, that there were white horses leaping in the distance, and that the wind swept sharply in their faces as they looked seaward. It would be dangerous now to keep quite close to the rocks, for a heavy groundswell had risen. Duncan, glancing round, expended some forcible Gaelic, for he knew he would need all his muscles to row the clumsy boat, if they were to be safe, and he hated trouble. He would have to keep out to sea to avoid the rocks.

During the long pull home, through the now angry waters, Ishbel sat quite silent. When Duncan bade her "Bale!" almost furiously, the boat having an ugly leak, she did so almost mechanically.

Nothing seemed to matter. There were no fairies, and she would have to tell Rory she had broken her word!

They found a sandy, sheltered bay at last where they could land. Duncan alone knew how hard had been the struggle against wind and tide in the clumsy and leaky craft; but Ishbel did not see a tall waiting figure on the shore, till she was preparing to leap from the boat.

Then a strong hand took hers, and she glanced, with a startled cry, to see Rory himself, grim, grave, silent, with something new in his face which chilled her through and through. How was he there?

He helped Duncan to pull up the boat, almost disdainfully, looking at it when it lay out of the water with a kind of scornful rage.

"It is a pretty boat," he said then in Gaelic, "a pretty boat to take a lass out in, I will be saying that, Duncan MacLeod."

MacLeod called to Ishbel sharply, making no reply, and all three walked up to the cottage in heavy silence. The night, grown gusty and wet, seemed to have changed as suddenly and mysteriously as Ishbel's life.

At the door she paused and faced her lover; his silence galled and tormented her.

If she had pleaded with him—been penitent, sorrowful! Alas! it was no penitent face which met his, and jealousy and wrath broke forth fiercely, sweeping love aside.

"Are you asking what I am thinking, Ishbel?" he cried, "of the lass who promised me, and who broke her word, and went out with Duncan MacLeod? Well, I am thinking chust nothing at all of her! I hef warned her that the boat was not safe, and of the squalls, and that it was not the thing for a lass like her to go so late; and she had promised, and yet she went! And this was the claymore brooch made of Iona pebbles I hef bought for you; and it can go there!" He flung the little packet remorselessly into the heather. "And as for yourself, I think nothing of you at all, and everything is over. And I am sailing for New Zealand with Mr. Campbell to-morrow. He asked me, and I said 'No,' but I will go now, and will walk into Portree this very night! Beannachd leibh (good-bye)."

He had turned away then, furiously. It had all passed as suddenly, swept up as unexpectedly as had the squall outside the Cave of Gold. Ishbel stood as if dazed, staring straight before her. A Highlander's rage is like a Highland storm; one bends before it instinctively. Ishbel did so now.

Rory did not look back. Duncan, in the doorway, saw him stride on to the road, through the little patch of oats before the door. He set his face towards the high road for Portree. In a very few moments the sound of his footsteps died away and the night swallowed him. That was all right, Duncan thought. New Zealand! Capital!

CHAPTER IV.

Ishbel might have thought of these words, if she had known them, on the morrow and on many morrows that followed. For Rory MacPhee was not the man to come back, or to speak lightly. He sailed with the agent to Glasgow—was believed to have started for New Zealand within the week. There, as far as his Skye friends were concerned, he vanished. They were the days of rare and slow communication, and Rory never wrote.

But Ishbel did not marry her cousin, as everyone expected, including MacLeod. She answered him "No," listlessly, but quite doggedly, and nothing that he could say, or that Catriona could threaten, served to change her. Once the old woman muttered vengefully that she would never see the fairies, for she had lost her luck, and Ishbel turned on her almost fiercely.

"It is all false," she cried in Gaelic, "for there are no green folk at all, and I do not care!"

The mystery and the charm had fled; she[432] no longer dreamed on the green grass circle, no longer wondered at the night-song of the burn, no longer watched for the kelpies under the boulders in the burns or in the Rowan Pool. Belief in the fairies had faded on the night in which Rory left her. Except in the little bald, white kirk on the hill-side, Ishbel never sang. Song dies on the lips when care and sorrow lie heavy on the heart.

It was five years now since that fatal visit to the Gave of Gold—Ishbel never mentioned it—and she was returning, in the soft, golden haze of a September evening, from the castle. Catriona was growing feeble, and Ishbel did everything; the old woman only spinning a little, and wandering out to gather sticks and twigs for the fire. The girl had been taking up carded wool to the castle, and giving the great London ladies there a spinning lesson.

Before the cottage came in view, with its surrounding field of poor and thinly growing oats and yellow daisies (there being, indeed, a far more plentiful crop of the latter), she paused to look up the fairy knoll. There, on the top was the fairy ring. Something made Ishbel suddenly turn and mount the little hill.

The sea-loch lay beneath her, tinged with red; the sky was a wonder and a glory, but Ishbel was not looking at the sky, or at the loch. She was thinking how strange it was that she should go on living, and living much as usual, when all that was best and fairest in life was gone.

She sighed, looking down at the burn, plashing and leaping over the grey boulders. There was that story about the kelpies; her grandmother rarely spoke of them now. Were there really no kelpies—no brownies? And yet——

A step behind her made her start violently, and she gave a sharp cry. A man's tall figure was there, not ten yards off, and there flashed across Ishbel suddenly the thought that perhaps, after all, it was all true, for this was a ghost! And if there were ghosts, why not wee folk and kelpies?

He spoke in a new voice. The fluent Gaelic was gone, and the stiff, translated English; he spoke easily, with a strange accent. And yet, ah! she knew him at once! It was Rory! Rory, well-dressed, handsome, upright, with a different and more independent carriage, but Rory all the same!

Ishbel rose and stood quite wordless for a moment. And then—"You are a great stranger," she said. "It is a very long time, I believe, since you hef been in Skye."

He almost smiled. He was looking down at her earnestly, intently. Was it possible that she should be so little changed? Had the five years been a dream? Just as he remembered her—with the pale, clear skin, the deep sloe-eyes, the ruddy crisp hair, the little droop of the head! Ishbel! The girl he had turned his back on, and been furious with, and quite forgotten—oh, yes! quite forgotten, though he had come back to the Winged Island—well, just to see how all the old folks were!

"It is five years," he said deliberately, "five years! Are you—are you married, Ishbel?"

The girl raised her eyes and looked at him. It was getting dark, and the burn was beginning its night-song. Ishbel noticed that, and remembered just how the water used to sing, quite suddenly. The lovely, indescribable breath of the muir wind swept in their faces. How sweet it was—how entrancing! And oh! me, the velvety deeps of her eyes, the little half-sad, half-humorous mouth!

He repeated the question, but with a new and eager ring in his voice, and Ishbel shook her head.

"Though there will have been a good many marriages since you left. There was Mari MacLean and Dougal Nicolson, and there was Colin——"

"Who said that I would?" she cried, as if stung. "You knew better than that! Who said that I would?"

"He did; and that you would go with him that night, if he asked you. And you did, Ishbel! It was very cruel, but——" Rory paused then, and suddenly spoke in Gaelic, as if it all came back to him. "But I am beginning to think that I was cruel, too. Was I?"

Ishbel nodded gently. She also spoke in Gaelic, as if they had parted only yesterday.

"Yes, you were cruel, Rory, and you were very hasty. It is true that I was a foolish lass, but you might have given me another chance. I believed in my grandmother's stories. I wanted to see the good folk." She looked away, and sadness and disillusion crept over her face. "But I do not believe in them any more, not any more."

"But it does not matter," Ishbel said, rousing, "and now perhaps you will call and see my grandmother? Are you on your way to Uig?"

"Ishbel," he said, "I was very cruel, and[433] I was just as angry as a man could be, and for five years I have been mad and sore; but deep down, deep down, I never forgot you. I hated him, but I loved you. I will come and see your grandmother; but—first—first, will you give me a kiss, Ishbel, for the sake of the old days?"

Would she? Perhaps, after all, he did not wait for her consent. He had her in his arms, and they closed round her, and Isabel's head fell on his shoulder with a little sob that was an epitome of all the five years' sorrow and heartache.

"Muirnean (darling)," Rory whispered, "I love you; and when I leave Skye, you will come too, or I will be staying on here with you. You shall choose Ishbel—you shall choose; and to-morrow I will buy you something better than the claymore brooch that I was cruel enough to throw away!"

They walked down to the cottage, and Catriona, who was never surprised at anything, shook hands sourly with him; she heard his story in silence, and nodded consent when he told her that he and Ishbel were to be married, after all. He could look after the croft, she said, or buy Colin MacDougal's farm, just above, if he had money enough. Would he have money enough? For Duncan kept her very close now. Rory laid a packet smilingly in her lap, and said he thought he had money enough.

Next forenoon Catriona saw him coming up the road; Ishbel ran to meet him, and together they wandered off to the burn-side. They came back by-and-by, and Ishbel stood smiling in the cottage door, her arms full of rowan branches; Rory had a spray in his coat, and the red berries nestled under her chin.

"I have brought you back luck," the girl cried happily. "We found the rowans down by the pool. And Rory says that there are maybe good folk in the world, after all! Who knows, grandmother?"

Catriona's peat-brown old face was bent over her wheel. She allowed there might be one or two, with a half-grunt of satisfaction.

THE REAL EAST LONDON.

By the Lord Bishop of Stepney.

East London is a very different place from what many people expect it to be. There are not a few who still think that they will have their throats cut if they venture into it, and I remember one visitor who turned up very late for dinner one night at Oxford House, and gave as the reason for his lateness that his landlord had got one side of him and his landlady on the other, and had held him by his coat-tails to prevent him coming to be murdered in Bethnal Green.

As a matter of fact, East London is probably, by daylight or by night, one of the safest parts of London, except in a very few selected streets, well known to the police; and one of my predecessors, the much-lamented Bishop Billing, was quite right when he used to say to the West-End mother, anxious about her daughter's safety, if she came to work in East London, "See her as far as Temple Bar, and then she will be all right."

What strikes one at first is the extreme brightness and cheerfulness of the people, often under very adverse circumstances. I remember giving a series of garden-parties when I was Rector of Bethnal Green, in the little garden attached to the rectory. There was not much room for anything, and the only amusements were skittles and races, whilst tea and cake and bread-and-butter were the simple[435] refreshments; but not only—as you will see by the photograph—were the visitors very content with themselves, but one of them, from one of the poorest streets, met me the day after a "party" and said:

"Oh! You see, a man down our street, 'e said, 'Don't go—the Rector only wants to show you a few old gravestones.' But we tell 'im now we couldn't have enjoyed ourselves better if we'd been at Marlborough 'Ouse."

Then the children of East London are truly delightful. Poor little bairns! they often get pale enough spending the year in those crowded courts and alleys—and few things are doing better work in London than the Children's Country Holiday Fund, which sends about thirty-one thousand each year for a fortnight into the country—but still nothing daunts their spirits or dims their affection. Often have I been cheered through an afternoon's visiting by a group of children who would spend their half-holiday afternoon in waiting quite quietly outside a sick-room in order to knock at the door of the next sick case to which they were quite 'cute enough to know that I was going, and so on right down the street. Many of the clergy organise Band of Hope entertainments, and teach the children to act little plays of their own, and there are no quicker and apter pupils than the children of East London, as the prizes carried off yearly at the Crystal Palace will show.

The East-End boy, again, is quite a character; we had four hundred at Oxford House in one club, besides some hundreds of others in brigades. When[436] you told an East-End mother that fact, she would generally say, "My word, I find one quite enough!" And certainly, on a Whit Monday, when one had at least a hundred and fifty to convoy to London Bridge and get safely down to some friend's house and back again, they were a fine handful.

One day I noticed the express stopping pretty often, and wondered why, as it was not advertised to stop anywhere. At last the guard came to see me at a wayside station, with a very red face, and said he would hold me responsible for what my boys were doing; he said that they had pulled the danger connecting-rod three times. I went round to see what was happening, and asked whether any of them had done it. "Oh, yes," said a little chap at once; "it was me; I was only 'anging my 'at up on it!"

Few things abash the East-End boy. At the end of the journey, my friend, who lived near a very magnificent house, was showing us through the rooms, and I heard a little boy say confidentially to his neighbour, without meaning to be overheard, "'Em! just like our little back parlour at home!" The good result of all the trouble which such expeditions involved, was shown by the contempt they displayed—as they marched back crowned with flowers, with horses curveting round them, and cabs charging through them, in consequence of the inspiriting notes of the band—for the groups of drunken men and women we used to meet, who had spent their Bank Holiday in quite another way. Once implant in a boy the love of a "better way" of spending a holiday, and you have got a long way on the road to make him love "a better way" of spending his life altogether. Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do, but if those hands are employed in handling a musket, or playing a flute, or clinging on to a horizontal bar—they have ceased to be idle at all.

But space will soon fail me if I go through all the component parts of the population in detail. The young girls, with their limbs aching for active recreation after long confinement in factories or workshops, have been graphically depicted by Sir Walter Besant, and few people are doing more good in the district than those ladies who, at great trouble, often with real self-sacrifice, are running girls' clubs every evening for the girls after their work.

As, of course, is well known, it was one great object of the People's Palace to provide this sort of innocent recreation[437] for the people, and though it has thrown its strength lately rather into its excellent technical classes, it has not left out of sight its original mission.

The gymnastic instructor at the People's Palace told me a year or two ago that he had no better and more spirited class than a large factory girls' class; and I have seen the magnificent Queen's Hall filled to overflowing for a nigger entertainment on a Saturday night, and more than half-full for a sacred concert on Sunday afternoon.

When one is asked, then, what is the matter with East London, and what lies behind those great thoroughfares, which look so broad and inviting on a fine summer's afternoon, one can only reply by taking one's questioner away from the broad thoroughfares into the crowded streets and alleys which lie behind them and between. Here is a photograph of a crowded back street, which gives an idea of what is going on, say, of a Sunday morning during the Bird Fair in Slater Street, or the Dog Fair at the top of Bethnal Green Road, or the old clothes sale down by Petticoat Lane. We are too thick on the ground, that is what it is; the census does not rise, because it can't rise: we are crammed so full that we can take no more.

I remember once a young ladies' school used to send roses once a week from a pretty suburb of London; they used to bring them to school in the morning from their gardens, make them at twelve into bouquets, send them up by three, and they were in East London homes by five. As I used to take the bouquets of beautiful flowers round on trays—followed, I may say, by a mob of children yelling for a flower, for old and young have a touching love for flowers in East London—I always found that I required four bouquets for each house, for each house contained at least four families. This is a fact which escapes the notice of the casual visitor, who sees a harmless-looking house outside, but does not know what is inside.

We are overcrowded, and what overcrowding means from the point of view of health and morality only those who reside in the district and the local medical officer really know. I used to have sent me by the excellent Medical Officer for Bethnal Green—Dr. Bate—the death-rate each month compared with the death-rate for the whole of London, and there is no reason that I know of to account for the 22-27 per 1,000 registered for Bethnal Green compared with the 18 per 1,000 of the rest of London, except the overcrowded and sometimes insanitary conditions in which the people live.

Things, however, are much better than they used to be. The London County[438] Council has done a good deal in pulling down rookeries and rehousing large areas—as, for instance, the famous Boundary Street area between Shoreditch and Bethnal Green. The Mansion House Council for the Dwellings of the Poor has done much through its local committees to stimulate local effort; and the district authorities are far more active than they were, and alive to the responsibilities which fall upon them.

Many an afternoon have I spent with the Sanitary Committee of the Vestry of Bethnal Green, condemning insanitary property, and many are the sad sights which I have seen when I have been round with them.

I remember vividly one or two large houses abutting on a little court. As we went with difficulty through the narrow passages and looked into the different rooms, we found women sitting silent and patient, too busy to say much to us, pasting match-boxes together, for which they were to get twopence-farthing a gross. Needless to say that these houses had to be condemned; but the difficulty is by no means over when such dwellings are condemned. As a man said caustically and truly at a meeting held on the subject, "A rat in a hole is better than a rat out, any day"; and great consideration has to be shown in not turning out too quickly those who have found these poor tenements their home before provision has been made elsewhere for them.

If those in the West-End and other places who have property in the slums would only look after it themselves, and not be content with taking the rents without seeing that the places for which they take their money are fit to house men and women, and not mere animals, great progress would be made. We should be happy to show them the best models on which to rebuild their houses, or they may see for themselves by observing the pretty two-storeyed houses now built, which constitute Hart's Lane, abutting on the Bethnal Green Road, and which, being always in demand, pay, we hope, the intelligent landlord who built them.

But it is not merely that we are too thick on the ground; for a long time we were too much left to ourselves. Those that ate jam lived in one place and those that made it lived in another, and naturally therefore the "city of the poor," left to itself, generated standards, habits, and traditions of its own, some of which are the reverse of edifying.

Take, for instance, the prevalence of drink and gambling. A young man came to me one night in East London with a face as pale as death. I had known him as a boy, but he had dropped out of our club system on growing too old for the boys' club, and had got drawn into a drinking set. "Save me!" he cried, as he fell upon his knees and took my hand. He had, he said, been led in the public-house to put his money on horses of which he knew nothing, and had finally spent nine pounds belonging to a shop club, of which he was treasurer. He had to meet his mates next morning; he was only twenty-one, of respectable parents, and engaged to a respectable girl, and with only three months to run out of his apprenticeship. "If you don't help me, sir, I am ruined for life!"

I did lend him the money, to be repaid by instalments, but the story will show the dangers to our young population, and the need of strong and definite work among them from their earliest years. With a public-house at every corner, and a bookmaker's clerk waiting for them during dinner hour, what chance have the poor lads and girls unless someone will go down and live among them and teach them better things? I remember running-in a man who had the insolence to stand outside Oxford House and take money from boys and girls, as well as men and women, during dinner hour, and though he was fined five pounds at once, he had more than twenty pounds on him in coppers and small silver. The fine ought to be raised, as the present maximum—five pounds—is easily paid, and they think nothing of it, and go on again just the same next day.

It was no doubt the growing necessity of bringing a higher standard of life into the "city of the poor" and bridging over the gulf between rich and poor, establishing counter-attractions to the public-house and the gambling-hell, which led Canon Barnett, some fifteen years ago, to suggest the formation of settlements among the poor. His visit to Oxford in 1884, backed up by Bishop Walsham How and Miss Octavia Hill,
[440] led to the establishment of Toynbee Hall in Whitechapel, and later on in the same year of Oxford House in Bethnal Green. Of the former excellent institution, which still owes so much to its founder and present Warden, Canon Barnett, much has been written in past years, and, as space is limited even in The Quiver, I have only room to say a few words more about Oxford House. It was founded on a definite Church basis, and its workers were and are members of the Church of England, but it threw open its clubs and its doors to men of all creeds and all kinds.

When I was myself called to be Head of the House in 1880, it was situated in a back street in Bethnal Green, and consisted of a disused Church school knocked into rooms. As residents increased, we found so small a house quite inadequate, and the present Oxford House was built on a disused site in the next street, and opened by the Duke of Connaught five or six years ago. It has had a full complement of twenty men ever since, and the acquisition of the rectory of Bethnal Green when I became Rector of Bethnal Green in 1895, enabled us for some time to have thirty workers—all laymen with the exception of myself.

The residents do whatever work is entrusted to them by the Head, in the daytime working at the Charity Organisation offices, Children's Country Holiday Fund, Sanitary Aid Committee; in the evening running boys' clubs and men's clubs and Church Lads' Brigades, visiting in the London Hospital on Mondays, visiting the sick and others in the parish of St. Matthew's, now specially connected with the House, and doing innumerable odd jobs for the parish clergy round, with whom they are all on the most friendly footing.

And that brings me lastly to the definitely religious work of East London. It is here that the result of leaving for so long one million people to themselves shows itself in the most disastrous form. The habit of church-going or chapel-going has been almost entirely lost, and it is only after the most patient efforts on the part of the clergy and others that it can be brought again into the district. After sampling on several occasions eighty men (invited to the garden parties spoken of above) out of different streets taken in turn, I discovered that only about one in eighty went either to church or chapel, and out of a thousand boys of the age of fourteen or fifteen[441] who were questioned on entering one of our large boys' clubs, nine hundred were found to have "g.n." written after their names, which means "goes nowhere." Now, to the readers of The Quiver I know that this will seem a very appalling thing, and will show that we have what is practically, from a religious point of view, a pagan population at our very doors.

On whom, then, does the great stress and strain of converting this pagan population fall? Let us give all credit to the good work done by Nonconformists in the district, with whom we are on excellent terms: let us acknowledge the wonderful gatherings in Mr. Charrington's Hall: and in the Pavilion, under the preaching of Mr. George Nokes; the good work by Dr. Stephenson in his Children's Homes; and by Dr. Barnardo in his boys' work at Stepney Causeway; and by other workers scattered up and down the district; but I think all would admit that the great strain and stress of the work falls upon those who actually live in the very midst of the people, each of them with their seven thousand to ten thousand, and sometimes twenty thousand, souls to look after.

It is they whose door-bell rings continuously; it is they to whom everyone comes in the hour of distress, whether they attend the church or not; and it is they and the band of workers they have gathered round them who are laying deep the foundations of the future City of God, and who are working, with a few exceptions, day and night to bring wanderers into the fold.

The people are not irreligious, only non-religious, and all they need is patient and loving work in their midst. To attend a parish gathering is like going to a happy family party, on such excellent terms are the clergy and their workers with the people, and when in some churches you find five hundred East-End communicants in the early morning on Easter Day, no one can question the self-sacrifice and earnestness of those who have once been thoroughly converted.

The great need, of course, is more workers and it is to supply more workers that the East London Church Fund exists. It is spent wholly on workers, not on buildings at all; and it is my earnest desire, with the help of the Bishop of Islington, who is an experienced East-End worker himself, and who has now taken over the North London district, to raise that fund to £20,000 this year to meet the urgent appeals for more workers which come to us from the poorer parts of East and North London. The Fund covers an area of 1,800,000 people, most of whom are poor.

Such, then, so far as it can be described in a short article, is East London, with all its virtues and its vices, its aspirations, its hopes, its possibilities, and its failings. It is a land flowing with milk and honey, with the milk of human kindness and the honey of human love; but, like the old Canaan, it is not yet fully occupied by the host of God. When Christianity is, however, fully "in possession," we shall see a great deepening and ripening of all the good that lies there, and the East London Church of the future will have a character of its own, and will shed a new glory on the Christianity which has slowly converted the world.

PLEDGED

By Katharine Tynan, Author of "A Daughter of Erin," Etc.

CHAPTER XIII.

"ANTHONY MUST KNOW."

"I liked her amazingly," said Lady Kitty; "and, what is more surprising, she liked me."

"It would be surprising if she didn't, Kitty"—looking at her with brotherly fondness. "Do you know, Kitty, I used to like you because you were pretty, and couldn't help being charming?"

"But still there is some change in you of late. What is it? You have given up being smart and cynical and all that. You are ever so much lovelier now than I remember you."

Lady Kitty laughed up at him out of her chair, and her glance was at once shy and proud.

"It isn't Jack, Kitty? You don't mean to say it is Jack! Why—you deceitful little person!—Jack was just the one man you never tried to make captive to your bow and spear; at least, so far as I could see."

"But I am glad beyond measure," he went on. "There is, perhaps, only one thing could make me happier."

"You can tell Jack, Kitty," he said. "We are like sister and brother, aren't we?"

"I am very fond of you, Anthony. Next to your mother—excluding Jack, of course—I think I'm as fond of you as anyone."

"I've been trying to get up courage to tell her, Anthony. I hate to keep her in the dark."

"You're fond of her, Anthony?" said Lady Kitty, looking up at him with eyes of alarm. "Really fond of her?"

"I love her and she loves me. As soon as I have established Uncle Wilton comfortably with Knowles to look after him, I shall go to claim her."

The young fellow laughed happily, and there was no shadow of doubt or of apprehension in his eyes. He had begun to walk up and down the room now, impatiently, as if he wanted to be off.

"Why didn't you claim her before you went off to nurse your uncle, Anthony? Uncertainty of that kind is hard on a girl."

"I did write. Not, indeed, to her, but to her father, and gave him a broad hint of the state of the case. I have often wondered he never sent me a word: he was such a good sort."

"He was at death's door, but is out of danger; he must be getting strong again by this time."

"My poor little Pam—and all of them! They adore their father, and they had no one to help or comfort them!"

"My mother asked me not to till I came back. But now all that is over. I am going to her at once."

"You say you wrote to her father, Anthony? Do you know I have a kind of idea she said you had not written?"

"I wrote, Kitty, all right, and put it in the letter-box in the hall the night before I left. You must have mistaken what she said. Of course, her father's illness explains his not having written. And now there is no use in writing. I can be there almost as soon as a letter."

"You're quite sure you posted the letter, Anthony? Perhaps they didn't get it. Letters sometimes go wrong, don't they?"

"My poor old Anthony," she said, "there's something horribly wrong. I wish I hadn't to tell you. Pamela's engaged to a Lord Glengall."

"I have her word for it, Anthony. There is something wrong, I am sure. She has just written it to me."

She went to an escritoire in the corner of the room, found the letter, and brought it to him. He read it with staring eyes.

"An engagement is nothing. She was[444] engaged to me. She let me kiss her. He is a man with money—I remember now. Do women sell their souls for money, Kitty?"

"Some women might, Anthony, but I don't think Pamela would. There is something wrong, Anthony, I am sure of it."

He turned his angry, miserable young face upon her, and her heart was wrung for him.

"If I find that anything but her own will has come between us, I will do my best to win her back from him. I have the right, Kitty. I was the first, and she let me kiss her."

"Everything but formally. Ah! I wish I had settled it then—put a ring on her before them all. It was my mother. She made me promise to do nothing till I came back."

"I told her, Kitty, and she was bitterly angry. And I, mad that I was, I yielded to her will. Afterwards, when I heard she had found them out, and got Pam over here, I thought her heart had softened to me after all those years, and that she was helping me towards my happiness."

"I am ashamed to say it, Kitty—because she persuaded me you cared for me, and ought not to be told suddenly. I beg your pardon, Kitty; I was not ass enough to think it of myself!"

"Ah!" said Lady Kitty again, and her eyes were thoughtful, "and poor little Pam was miserable. I don't believe they ever had that letter, Anthony."

"If she was miserable for me"—and the lover's face lightened—"she loves me still, and she must give up the other man for me. If she loves me, he has no right to her. I am going to find out, Kitty."

"There are twenty things to be done. I have to see Uncle Wilton and tell him I am going. Knowles understands what to do for him, and to call Dr. Berners if he were ill."

"You've been a good little girl to me, Kitty," he said. "Afterwards I am going to fight for my love."

As the door closed behind him Lady Kitty went thoughtfully upstairs and knocked at Lady Jane's boudoir door.

Lady Jane looked up from her books with an air of expectation, as if there might be something pleasant to hear; but her expression changed immediately.

"A good deal. Anthony has been telling me that he is in love with Pamela Graydon."

"It only affects me in so far as it affects Anthony. Pamela is engaged to Lord Glengall."'

"I remember him. I saw him when I was there. He looked like a ploughman, and I thought he was one. I suppose she marries him for the title."

"She marries him—if she does—because she is in love with Anthony, and thinks he has played her false."

"It is the first time I have been called so. Forgive me for something I must ask you. Are you at the root of the mischief?"

"Not in the way you mean. He never cared for me, not in that way. It is no use trying to bring these things about."

"It has been my dream, Kitty, since you were quite a little girl. I never loved Anthony; but if you were his wife, I think I should begin to love him. I thought you cared for him always."

"I should not have let you think that. Some of all this trouble is my fault. It is better to be open all the way through. I kept it from you because I feared the sharp disappointment it would be to you."

"More than that, Auntie Janie, I loved someone else. I couldn't help it. I would have pleased you, if I could, but it did not seem to be in my hands. There is a fatality about such things. We might have cared for each other if we had not always known you wanted us to."

Lady Jane looked about her with a bewildered air, as though her world were crumbling.

"I have thought of it for so many years," she said at last, "that I cannot realise how, between you, you have destroyed the one solid hope of my life."

"I love you so much, Auntie Janie, that I think I would have married Anthony, without love, to please you, if there had not been someone else."

"I would not have wished that, Kitty. A marriage without love! You don't know what it is, child, especially if there has been—or might have been—someone else. I only wanted you to have the wish of your heart, and to bind you closer to me at the same time."

"Wait till your husband intervenes, Kitty. Who is it, by the way? I have seen no sign of such an one in our circle."

"Anthony's friend? Yes, I know you liked him, but I thought it was for Anthony's sake."

"I am so sorry," Lady Kitty said again. Then she went on, with a timidity foreign to her: "Anthony is very unhappy, Auntie Janie. Can nothing be done?"

"He is your own son, and he loves Pamela Graydon. She loves him too. Why, it was written on her face, if only I had had eyes to see. Yet she has engaged herself to another man! What is the meaning of it?"

"Anthony will unravel it—unless you will. Forgive me, Auntie Janie, but he had better know—that his letter to Mr. Graydon remained unposted. I do not know if there is anything else, but there is that."

"I couldn't help knowing it. A few days after Anthony had gone you sent me to the little inner drawer of your desk to find Madame Lefevre's address. Anthony's letter to Mr. Graydon lay on the top with the address uppermost. I never thought of it again till to-day."

"What do you want me to do, Kitty? It is quite true that I abstracted the letter from the hall-box before it was emptied for the night-post. If you go to my desk again you will find the letter there with its seal unbroken. I guessed what it might contain. Curiously enough, the habits of a lifetime kept me from opening the letter, though I had stolen it."

"I wrote myself to Mr. Graydon—a merely formal letter explaining Anthony's absence. Afterwards I made an excuse of the Verschoyles—people I had almost forgotten—to go myself and see for myself. They lived in a barbarous way, as I thought they would; and I mistook Miss Graydon's fiancé for an elderly mountain farmer. Then I asked the girl over here with the design—which you frustrated to some extent—of making her detest us. I also told her that you and Anthony were to be married, and that you had always been lovers."

"But how could you do it? I have always known you as a proud and honourable woman."

"I did it first of all for your sake, Kitty. I did think you cared for Anthony; and I thought that if this entanglement were out of the way he would care for you. I was mistaken all round."

"I ought to have spoken, Auntie Janie. Ah! I see now how much trouble can come from even a little deceit."

"I have given him no motherhood. All I had I gave to you—and I have lost you, too."

"You think that now. But we can never be the same. However, about Anthony. I daresay I can live without Anthony. What do you want me to do?"

"No, I will tell him myself. You had better keep out of it. I shall tell him as soon as he comes here. Where is he?"

Lady Kitty went to the door slowly, and, as she turned the handle, looked back at the tall figure standing in the middle of the room. Something in the attitude smote her. She went back impulsively, and flung her arms round Lady Jane.

"If you love me at all as you loved me yesterday, be comforted," she cried. "I know it all came through your love for me, and my wretched deceit, and I shall always love you, always."

"Things will come right," she whispered, "and Anthony will forget his anger. We have all need of forgiveness."

"I shall never ask Anthony's," said Lady Jane. "And I do not pretend to repent. But he will marry that man's daughter in spite of me, and I shall be punished. Go now, Kitty. If Anthony has come in, send him to me."

Lady Kitty went. As the door closed behind her, after a last glimpse of the erect figure, she had an odd fancy about a picture she remembered to have seen of a ship going down at sea with all its flags flying.

CHAPTER XIV.

"IT IS TOO LATE."

But as the days passed the happiness which Pamela had expected did not come. Perhaps at first the atmosphere of approval in which she lived made a species of false happiness; but in a very short space of time things became workaday, and the future, with a husband old enough to be her father, showed itself naked of glamour.

Her soul was loyal to her betrothed, though her heart betrayed her. She kept perpetually within her sight his unselfishness, his patience, his simple-mindedness, his devotion. And yet, if her bridegroom were to be no paladin at all, but a certain ordinary young gentleman of ordinary good looks and good qualities, instead of Lord Glengall, how wildly happy she could have been! It was something she dared not think upon—what might have been, instead of what was going to be.

It was another hot summer, and Pamela's step grew languid, and her eyes had heavy rings about them. Her white cheeks, that were so firm and full of health, lost something of their glow.

She spurred herself up to be brisk and cheerful, and apologised for her flagging energy with accusations against the weather. And all the time Lord Glengall watched her with the anxiety of a loving dog in his eyes.

They were to be married at the beginning of September, to have a month's honeymoon at Killarney, and then to take Mr. Graydon abroad, that so he might escape the damp of the Irish winter.

In August, Pamela was to go to Dublin to see about her frocks. They were not to be very many nor very magnificent. Afterwards, said her bridegroom, there would be a visit to Paris, and plenty of shopping.

Pamela loved pretty things as well as any girl, and none the less because they had never been within her reach. But now her interest in such matters seemed feeble. The times when she derived a certain quiet happiness from her engagement were when she talked with Lord Glengall about what was to be done for the others.

"Is there nothing for yourself, Pam?" he asked once; "you never ask for anything for yourself."

And then he stroked the soft pale cheek with a loving finger, and the concern in his eyes grew deeper.

Once he said to Pamela that he wished it were all done, and that he was free to take care of her; but as he said it, putting a protecting arm about her, he felt a quick shudder run through her.

"Don't talk about such things, child," he implored. "You have all your life, the life that I am going to endeavour to make so happy, before you. What have you to do with graves?"

And yet another time he said to her that he could almost wish that he might give her his love and his care and his fortune without marriage.

"I suppose I couldn't adopt you, Pam?" he said lightly, yet his mood was a serious one.

"Ah! don't talk about such things," said Pam, in her turn, and her heart was sore lest she had grieved him. "No girl could have a happier fate than to be your wife."

And since she felt what she said for the moment she contrived to set his fears at rest.

It was the most humdrum betrothal from the point of view of young and romantic persons. Lord Glengall was no ardent wooer. His manner was more the manner of a father than of a lover, and his moments of greatest contentment were only marked by a deeper quiet. While Pam and he were much together, their talk, unlike the talk of young lovers, was of everything but themselves. Lord Glengall had plans for the disposal of the great wealth he had brought from the gold-fields; but they were plans in which personal ambition had no share.

Mr. Graydon was still languid after his illness, and during those summer days a great quietness seemed to have descended upon Carrickmoyle.

"Sorra's in it!" said Bridget, complaining. "'Tis as if there wasn't a bit of young life about the place. 'Tis more like as if there was goin' to be a funeral thin a weddin'."

"I'll tell you what, Miss Sylvia," she protested to her prime favourite; "there's one-legged Grady the gardener, above at his Lordship's, an' his mouth is dry axin' me. I declare I'll take him, if only to make a bit av a stir. They say he used to bate the first wife wid the wooden leg, but he'll not look crooked at me, never fear."

Sylvia, too, shared in the depressing quiet, and even the dogs lay and blinked all day in the hot sun, and were too lazy to go out on the bog for a dip in the icy-cold water.

Sylvia had her troubles. Her friend Miss Spencer, to whom she was oddly attached, was failing. No illness of a violent kind, but simply a wasting away and decline had seized upon the poor little spinster; and it was a case in which doctor's prescriptions were of no use. Miss Spencer's time had come.

Sylvia visited her friend indefatigably, sitting with her long hours daily, within doors if the weather were bad, by her wheeled sofa on the lawn during the fine hot days. She took her grief with a certain bitterness of wrath against that man of long ago who had wronged the poor little lady so irreparably. It made her curt of speech, and little disposed to notice what was happening where other folk were concerned, and her engrossment made Pamela's lot more lonely.

Sylvia's court had in no way diminished its loyalty or its numbers, but just for the present the young men were put on one side, and accepted their position. They were able to sympathise with one another, for their lady had never bestowed a mark of preference on any one over the others, that jealousy could be excited. But their absence from Carrickmoyle, while it sensibly brightened other houses, made that more lonesome.

Pamela had not seen Miss Spencer for some time, when one day Sylvia announced to her that the old lady wished to see her.

"You must go, of course," she said, with the brusqueness of grief. "I shall come afterwards and relieve you, so that you will be at home in time for Glengall."

Pamela went over after lunch, and found Miss Spencer on the sofa on the open lawn of Dovercourt, with its delightful views of the distant hills.

"It is a fine world to be leaving," said the old lady, nodding at the distances, when she had made Pamela take the low chair beside her.

Pamela had noticed at once an indefinable change in Miss Spencer. The old, half-crazy, brooding look had disappeared, and though the face seemed vanishing and melting away in its wasting and fragility, the eyes were clear, as if a film had rolled off from them.

Pamela said nothing. The change in Miss Spencer, even since she had last seen her, shocked her.

"There, there, child!" said the little woman, patting her hand. "Why talk about gloomy things on such a day as this, and with your great day approaching? But what is the matter?"—scrutinising her closely—"you don't look very bride-like."

"It is the heat," said Pamela languidly; "I haven't felt very lively since it set in so hot."

"I remember the time I would have danced at my wedding in the crater of Vesuvius. Things are not the same nowadays. There, child," she went on kindly, "you will have some tea? I shall have more made for Minx, when she comes. She told you I wanted to see you?"

"Yes," said Pamela, "and I shall like the tea, Miss Spencer. It was hot crossing the bog. I shall go home through the woods."

The tea was brought, and when Pamela[448] had had hers, Miss Spencer, who had been watching her with kind intentness all the time, said suddenly—

"I have provided for Minx. I have left her this place, and a good deal of money. She will look after my poor for me."

"I've left you nothing, Pam. But I've given Mary what will start her in housekeeping. You are going to marry a rich man."

"It is easier to do now than if I had lived longer. Between my legacy and what Glengall will do she need not want."

"With that face, child! There was a woman once—perhaps you know her—whose lover went away and never came back. Perhaps he was dead; perhaps he had forgotten. You look as if your lover had never come back."

"There, child! I don't want to distress you, but I am in trouble about you. What if he came back, after all?"

"He looked as if he would. Anyhow, if he never did, it would be better to be like that woman—a little cracked, perhaps, and always expecting her lover, till she woke up one day dying, and in her right mind—it would be better to be like her than to marry without love."

"Tell me, Pam. You won't mind confiding in an old woman who has only a few days more to live. What did you do it for? It wasn't the money, and all it could bring, attracted you?"

"That's not enough, Pam, though it might serve if your heart were free. What is that to make you give up your life, your freedom to think, to hope, to pray? It will be one long struggle, Pamela. You will be like a creature in prison, for whom the free world were paradise enough."

"I know Glengall is good," she went on. "Another girl might come to love him, in spite of his grey hairs, but not you, Pam. One sees clearer when one is going to leave all this. Why did you do it, Pam?"

"Partly because my father must winter abroad and we had no money. Partly, too, because I was angry with—with someone I loved, and I thought I would get rid of the anger and the thought of him if I were married."

"Minx would have taken care of your father. It was a useless sacrifice, Pamela."

"My people, those of them who survive, are rich. I could take care of you, too, Pam."

"You don't know how good he is. And he has ordered his future life so that I shall always be the centre of it. I can't break his heart."

"Ah!" cried Pamela sobbing. "Don't try to turn me back. Because I am unhappy, and a burden to myself, would you forbid me making another person happy, and he one worthy of all happiness?"

"It is too late. And here is Sylvia. See how punctual she is. She grudges me this half-hour alone with you."

Sylvia looked curiously at her sister's haggard and tear-stained eyes, but made no comment. She had little sympathy with Pamela's languid looks this summer. She was one who had never felt a wound, and so had scant comprehension of the troubles of her sister, whose lot, indeed, she considered a highly desirable one.

She went by the shady paths through the woods, and Pat, who had accompanied her, scurried hither and thither in pursuit of many a pair of bright eyes and many a white scut. She was in no hurry to get home. After the disturbance of her conversation with Miss Spencer, she dreaded the meeting with her fiancé.

It had been a shock to her to learn that, if she had not been so precipitate, her father would still have been safe; for Miss Spencer's life was to be counted by weeks, and Sylvia's tenderness for him could be trusted.

The green glades of the wood were exquisite. She looked about her—at the roof of branches against the blue-and-white sky, at the green moss, dotted with harebells, and flecked by broad patches of sunlight on its velvety shade. The birds were singing their last love-songs, and the wood was full of the music of many waters.

Ah! With an overwhelming revulsion of feeling it came upon the girl that if she were only free, with her life in her hands, the beauty of the free world were, as Miss Spencer had said, paradise enough. If she were but free, if she were but free!

She had come to the Wishing Well in the wood. She put up her hand to her throat. Round it was a slender little chain of jewels and gold which Lord Glengall had given her. It was choking her.

She took it off stealthily, and laid it on the moss at her feet. Then she took a bracelet—his gift also—from her arm. Then she drew off her engagement ring of diamonds and emeralds, and added it to the glittering heap. If only she could remove those other bonds as easily! And all the time she hated herself for the wish.

Mechanically she stooped down, and, taking the water in her hand, drank of it. She wished she might forget what had happened here, and the poisoned sweetness of glances and words during those months of last winter.

"I must forget—I must forget," she wailed, half aloud. "It lasted such a little while. There was no time for it to take hold upon my life."

And then her hands fell to her side, for there was a quick step beside her, and, turning, she saw Anthony Trevithick.

CHAPTER XV.

THE WOOD OF STRANGE MEETINGS.

"Pamela! What have you done to yourself, my sweetheart? You are not the Pamela I left."

She had turned towards him as irresistibly as the needle to the pole. But at his words a quick shiver ran through her. Her eyes turned from him and darkened. Her head drooped.

"You have come too late," she said, almost under her breath; and her voice was cold.

"Look at me, Pam. I have so much to tell you that you must hear. You must not be angry with me. We have been cheated and tricked. I wrote to your father to say I would come and ask for you, Pam, the road being clear."

"It was not posted, Pamela. I must tell you, Pam, though it is hard. You have a right to know. My mother intercepted the letter."

"She detested me. I knew it from the first moment her cold eyes rested upon me."

"Ah!" said Pam, and her voice was almost a cry. "But we are parted. She could not do it, but I have done it by my own act."

"Give them to me," she implored. "They are mine. And you must go away, Sir Anthony, and never come again."

"Why, I see"—holding the jewels in his hand—"they are his gifts. But you have thrown them off!"

"It is an omen, Pam. Let him follow his jewels. What right has he to buy you? You had given yourself to me."

"Ah!" cried Pam, still stretching out her hands for the jewels. "You don't know what you are talking about. He is the best man in all the world; and our wedding-day is fixed, and my wedding-dress is ordered."

"There," he said, "let them lie where I found them. Why should we think of them? It is all a bad dream, Pamela, but not so bad as it might have been—not so bad as it might have been. Why, you are talking folly, Pam, about wedding-days and wedding-dresses. It is our wedding-day you must think of, and the wedding-dress you will wear for me."

He held out his arms to her imploringly, and for a moment, with a dazed look, she seemed as if she must come. Then she pushed him off with a gesture of her two hands.

"No," she said. "Love is not everything—love is not everything. There is honour, there is loyalty, there is faith. And you,—you have your cousin to think about. She is sweet and lovely. I felt it, though I——"

"Though you loved me and were jealous"; and he laughed masterfully. "All wrong, my Pam! I never cared for Kitty in that way, nor she for me. She is going to marry my chum, Jack Leslie. They have been in love with each other for years."

"Never, Pam? Ah! yes, it will. If I had come here and found that you loved this other man, I could have done nothing but leave you. I came full of anger and fury. All through the journey I had been goading myself to a jealous madness; but the minute I saw you here beside the well where I told[451] you I loved you, I knew you were mine. I can afford to forgive Lord Glengall."

"I shall go to the house and explain to your father about the missing letter. I was on my way there when I turned aside to the Wishing Well and found you."

"Oh, no, I don't, Pam! You are not the girl to love me seven months ago and love another man to-day. And your eyes betray you, darling!"

"Then I will tell him the choice does not rest with him. I will go to Lord Glengall himself."

She suddenly turned on him her beautiful, stormy eyes, and her face was full of tragedy.

"And I shall send you away," she said. "It is no question of loving. I shall not see you any more, Tony"—using the familiar name unconsciously—"never, I hope, after to-day. And I love you; I do love you, and if I might love you for ever I should be the happiest woman on earth. No, don't come near me, for I am saying good-bye to you. I decline to purchase my happiness, and even yours, at the cost of unhappiness to the best man I ever knew. Ah! go now, my love, and do not tempt me any more. You will soon forget me."

She turned as if to go, but before Anthony Trevithick could make any effort to detain her, a quiet voice spoke beside them.

"I came to meet you, Pamela. I expected to find you alone. Who is this gentleman?"

"I will take Miss Graydon home now," said Lord Glengall, drawing her hand through his arm. "I am grateful to you for having taken care of her."

The two stood looking at each other, and the air was as if charged with a storm.

"I am staying in the neighbourhood," said Sir Anthony stiffly. "I shall hope to see your lordship later on."

She stole one glance at the hot and angry face of her young lover. Then, without a word, she passed out of his sight down one[452] of the wood paths, still clinging to Lord Glengall's arm.

They walked in silence for a few minutes. Then she lifted her eyes to her companion's sad face.

"You heard what I said," she half-whispered. "I am not afraid of you; I was loyal."

"Yes, you were loyal, Pam, in the spirit, but loyalty without love is poor comfort. It is not enough for me."

"I believe you do, Pam, but there are different kinds of love. Is this that other you once told me about?"

"I thought so. You have had few opportunities for meeting men in your quiet life. This is the lad who was your father's pupil?"

"I ought to have met him when he was here. But I was finishing up in Australia. He is honest, Pam—is he?"

"He was called away to a sick uncle. He wrote to father to explain, but the letter never reached him."

"A frozen-looking woman, dressed like an empress, who came one day. She was so haughty to me that I very soon removed myself."

"My poor little Pam!—that was the woman you went to visit afterwards? I had not realised it. I never thought of her after that day."

"She made me very unhappy. From the first she had a quiet way of making me feel not of her world, and afterwards she was horrid—about papa. She told me—falsehoods, too."

"I wouldn't let them know that the visit had been so horrible. Papa was pleased for me to go. Then he fell ill, and I came away."

"She told me Sir Anthony was engaged to his cousin. It was she who intercepted his letter to papa, in which he said he would come back."

"Ah! there are such women. But why didn't he speak fully and frankly before he went?"

"I do not know. There was some reason. He spoke of something that stood in the way."

"Ah! no," cried Pamela, clinging to his arm. "Let it be. I have told him he must go away. I belong to you, and not to him."

"My little Pam! Still mine till I give you up of my own free will. You will trust me to do what is for the best?"

"Not unless I ought to, Pam. Not unless the lad is straight and can prove himself worthy of you. If I feel he can make you happier than I can, I will give you to him. If not, I will keep you in spite of yourself, and trust to my love to make you forget him."

"Don't make it hard for me, Pam, if I have to cede my right to another. Pamela"—she had lifted her hands to him in her emotion—"where is your ring?"

"Do not be angry with me," she entreated. "I took it off in the wood, there where you found me. It is there still."

"Forgive me, child—I ought to have known you better. But why did you take off the ring?"

She looked to left and right, as though seeking a way of escape, and answered nothing.

"I see," said Lord Glengall, and his face had a look of suffering. "You took it off because it irked you to wear it. You wanted to be free."

"A bad mood for me, child. Why could you not have trusted me, and have told me I had asked too much? It would have been kinder."

"I am going back for the ring, Pam. Run away home now, and I shall bring it. Run now—I can keep you in sight till I see you within the door of Carrickmoyle. I shall not be long."

"The ring is on the ground, by the well," said Pamela, her head hanging like the head[453] of a sensitive child caught in the act of wrongdoing. "You will find it there, and my necklet and bracelet also."

"Ah!" she said, "if you would only forget about it. There was never any man like you. If I do not love you now, it is only because he came first. I shall love you in time. I could not help it."

"I have done nothing but hurt you," she cried, conscience-stricken. Then she lifted her face for his kiss.

"And I have been hurting you, quite unconsciously, all the time. It is the old story of May and December. But, thank God! it is not too late."

He lifted his hat again, with the reverential gesture characteristic of him. As he stood bare-headed, a glint of the dying sun fell on his hair and forehead. It made him look old and dusty and tired.

Then Pamela went away slowly across the park to the house, while he stood watching her. When she had entered the house, he went back down the wood path.

As he went slowly and sadly, he felt something thrust against him. He looked down. It was Pamela's dog, Pat, who had remained behind, hunting an elusive rabbit, and had only just come up with their trail. The dog jumped about him with demonstrations of joy.

"She has gone home," said Lord Glengall in answer, "and I should be a bad substitute."

But Pat manifested very unmistakably that he was going to accompany this friend of his back into the woods.

"Ah! good little beast," said Lord Glengall, oddly comforted. "It is good to have a dog sorry for one, Pat."

Curious Charitable Gifts

Quite recently two mummified hands—one with the forearm attached—both authoritatively stated to be over 3,000 years old, were sent to the Church Army by a West-End physician, who brought them from Egypt, and they will doubtless be the means of an appreciable accession to the funds of the organisation when disposed of.

The Salvation Army also receives some curious articles at times. Jewellery of various kinds often finds its way to the Headquarters, and some little time ago a deaf-and-dumb convert presented a perfect model in cork of one of the barracks, showing the soldiers marching in and the roughs gathered around; whilst a travelling showman who recently joined the Army begged to be allowed to hand the officers his stock-in-trade, which included two remarkable-looking effigies used in his ventriloquial entertainments.

The most singular donations received by the Army, however, are presented at the harvest festivals. General Booth's followers are exceptionally energetic at such times, and it is no uncommon thing for the proceeds of the gifts collected for a festival service in a poor neighbourhood to amount to some seventy or eighty pounds, half of which is retained for the local funds, whilst the remainder is sent to Headquarters as a donation towards the general expenses. An impromptu barn is frequently erected in the meeting-room with the front open to the audience, and in this the gifts are displayed to the best advantage.

In addition to fruit, flowers, and vegetables, presents of live stock are often made which are not always acceptable. For instance, at one place a calf was given, and was accommodated in a temporary stall on the platform. But it did not appear to enjoy the service. Whenever[455] the band played, it made such a terrible noise that eventually it had to be escorted to a quiet corner outside. Birds of many descriptions have also joined in these services; and a Russian cat which was presented on such an occasion kept up harvest celebrations during the night, we are told, by devouring a pound of beef sausages, which represented another, though humbler, gift.

Many people will question the advisability of allowing live stock to be present at such services. The important fact remains, however, that gifts of this nature frequently serve to attract large crowds of the very people the Army officers wish to influence. But difficulties sometimes arise through the thoughtlessness of enthusiastic donors. At Chester recently a live donkey was led up four flights of stairs to the barracks, and handed over as a free-will offering. When the service concluded, it was discovered to be impossible for the animal to walk down again; and, to use the words of the officer, they "had to tie the thing up in a knot, wrap it up in a sack, and lower it gently and gracefully over the banisters!" We may hope that the patient animal did not suffer any ill effects from his attendance at the service.

Some most curious articles are also occasionally received by the Poor Clergy Relief Corporation, which, as is well-known, does a most useful work by making grants in money and clothing to clergymen in temporary distress, and to the widows and children of clergymen who are left insufficiently provided for. These articles comprise revolvers, respirators, artificial teeth and wigs, feeding-bottles, military and naval uniforms, silk-worm cocoons, and bicycles, and all are turned to account either by direct gift or by realisation at a jumble or auction sale. An amusing incident, the secretary states, recently occurred in the clothing department in connection with an involuntary gift. The matron was filling a large bag for a poor family whilst a carpenter was in the room engaged on some repairs. He had placed his cap—which was a good one—on the table, and the matron, thinking it part of the stock, promptly annexed it and despatched it with the other things. It was gratefully acknowledged! Of course, the carpenter had to be provided with[456] a new cap, which he has since been careful to place in his pocket when working in the building.

But the institution which receives the greatest number of gifts in kind is undoubtedly Dr. Barnardo's well-known Home for Waifs and Strays in Stepney Causeway. During last year alone 9,651 parcels were delivered from various supporters, containing in the aggregate over 97,000 articles of various kinds! When it is also stated that the sales of these goods realised, in the same twelve months, the grand total of £1,850, some idea will be gathered of the enormous number of articles dealt with every year, and the welcome addition which they bring to the income of the Homes.

The gifts come from all quarters of the globe. Even such far-distant countries as India, China, Corea, Burmah, and Japan contribute their quota, and many a pathetic history and much amazing romance is embodied in the articles received.

One of the most valuable, and certainly one of the most remarkable, of the donations which have found their way to Stepney Causeway was ex-King Theebaw's ivory throne, sent a year or two ago by a gentleman in Rangoon. The throne was somewhat in the form of a large armchair, and was ordered by the king in the palmy days of his despotism. According to his edict, only the very best craftsmen were employed to fulfil the commission, and only the finest and soundest tusks were used. The design was exceedingly elaborate, and both time and special talent were needed for the task, which it took years to accomplish. But, such is the irony of Fate, when the work was practically finished the king was deposed, and the completed throne never passed into his possession. After some little time it came into the hands of the Rangoon donor who so generously presented it to Dr. Barnardo. This interesting piece of furniture was estimated to be worth some £500. The detail of the work was exquisite, a delicate tracery covering nearly the whole, with some most[457] beautiful and elaborate carving in high relief lying behind it. The little figures inside appeared to be executed with the utmost thoroughness, and the chair was an eloquent testimony to the genius and patience of the native workmen.

From the same country a number of quaint silver goods are constantly received from a resident Englishman and his native wife, both of whom take a very keen interest in the work of saving the waifs of the slums. Owing to the extensive fluctuations in the value of the rupee, and to the low rate of exchange in England, they find it more advantageous to purchase native goods which will realise good prices in London than to send their donations in cash.

Dr. Barnardo has little difficulty in disposing of such gifts. There is a special trade department at Stepney Causeway, consisting of a show-room and several large and airy stores. These storage rooms, which are not open to the general public, contain a most extraordinary collection of gifts, including such articles as bedsteads, false hair and teeth, old pictures, jewellery, a microscopic cabinet, a three-manual organ, an oak lectern, boxes of geological and ornithological specimens, air pillows, sewing and sausage machines, a bottled snake, as well as a great variety of clothing both new and secondhand.

Amongst the more valuable of the articles which have recently been received may be mentioned a number of exceedingly dainty and costly Eastern shawls, and a cape constructed entirely from birds' feathers, which is supposed to be the only one of its kind in England.[458] This handsome cape originally belonged to a Spanish lady, and is now more than a hundred years old. Each feather was worked in separately, and the various colours are so beautifully blended that the worker must have possessed considerable artistic talent as well as great patience, for it contains some thousands of tiny feathers of various hues. Another piece of work that must have entailed an immense amount of time and care is a sample of Indian needlework, of which we give a photograph. The ground is coarse black cloth, but the design is so cleverly worked in gold and silver braid and sequins that the result is a most handsome example of native embroidery, which needs to be seen to be fully appreciated.

From India also come the two models of native types photographed in the group shown on the preceding page. They are most delicately moulded, every detail being scrupulously attended to. The figure on the left is ten inches in height, and represents a grass-cutter, whilst that on the right depicts an Indian water-carrier, and both bear the name of the modeller—Buckshar Paul of Krishnagar.

A different form of Indian work may be seen in the candlestick in the same illustration, which is moulded in brass in the form of a serpent, and forms a curious and certainly not inartistic ornament. Standing beside this is an ordinary-shaped box with a diamond design on the lid, and this article is specially interesting, owing to its having been constructed of sixteen different varieties of wood grown in New Zealand. It is a far cry from this fertile colony to the historic city of Ephesus, but we are carried thither in order to explain the presence of the two odd-looking pieces of ware (representing an ancient vase and lamp) to be seen in the forefront of the same photographic group. They were selected at random from a number of such articles which Dr. Barnardo has in his possession awaiting a remunerative purchaser. The extraordinary character of the gifts received at the institution is[459] well exemplified in these articles, which were actually discovered in the ruins of the Temple of Diana by the well-known antiquarian, the late Mr. F. Wood. Each piece is authenticated by the signature of the excavator, which is affixed, and they were presented to Dr. Barnardo by Mr. Wood's widow about three years ago.

A striking instance of the wonderful changes wrought by time is shown in the generous gifts in money and kind recently received from the descendants of the mutineers of the Bounty. Here is romance pure and unadulterated, and Dr. Barnardo may well have said that the following letter which recently came into his hands read like "something out of a book." It appears that the captain of a British vessel wrote to him from Australia as follows: "I called in our passage through the Pacific at Pitcairn Island. A number of the natives came off, and when they learned I was bound to Great Britain, they desired me to take some presents for you, consisting of a case full of fancy articles made by themselves. I have already despatched this case to you, and I now enclose postal orders for £5 10s. 8d., being the cash, less a spurious two-shilling piece, which the islanders had collected for your institution." The case contained six walking-sticks, eighty cocoanut-shell baskets, as well as a quantity of shells and a large number of bananas. These gifts form undoubted evidence of the Christian and philanthropic spirit of the present Pitcairn Islanders, and at the same time bear valuable testimony to the world-wide appreciation of Dr. Barnardo's life-work.

A walk through the storage rooms is amply repaid by the number and the limitless variety of the articles to be seen therein. Here is an organ constructed by an amateur after seven years of assiduous work. It is unique in its way, the pipes being made of cardboard; but whether the gift of the ingenious organ-builder was an altogether disinterested one is[460] not for me to state. I heard it whispered that the cleverly constructed instrument refused to work properly, and was somewhat of the nature of a white elephant to the present owners. Another example of tireless ingenuity is to be seen in the three large brass models of engines which adorn a corner of the same room. The mechanism of these engines is perfect in every way, and the models are of considerable value.

In close proximity to them is a dinner service of Worcester china, dated 1794, and consisting of 150 pieces. This will doubtless soon be "discovered" by a lover of old china, who will also see another "find" near by equally worthy of attention. I refer to a dessert service of seventeen pieces, which originally formed a wedding present before it found its way to Stepney Causeway. The service is more than fifty years old, and its chief value lies in the exquisite pictures to be found on each plate. The design is different in every case, and when it is added that the pictures are hand-painted the munificence of the kindly donor will be recognised.

But it is impossible to give an adequate idea of the curiously mixed contents of the stores. Cumbersome articles such as mail-carts, rocking-horses, Bath-chairs, and water-beds will be found adjacent to billiard balls, pipes, samples of inlaid ebony work and other "small" goods; whilst near at hand will be found piles upon piles of articles of dress of all sorts and conditions. It is not surprising that a number of assistants are kept constantly employed in receiving, listing, sorting, and selling these miscellaneous gifts, which are sent by a grateful public as a small donation to the good and beneficent work which has for so many years been carried on by means of the Homes.

His strange Repentance.

AN ADDRESS TO YOUNG MEN.

It was close upon midnight. I was alone in my study, busy clearing off a pile of letters that had been waiting all day for a "leisure moment." In the midst of my work a vigorous ring of the door-bell resounded through the house, followed by such a peremptory ran-tan at the knocker that I jumped to my feet and rushed to the door to see what was the matter. There I found two rough-looking men, who lost no time in stating their business. "We want your reverence," they said, "to come and see a poor young fellow who is dying; the doctor has given him up, and he is crying out for a minister to come and pray with him." I could not refuse such an appeal, and off I started with the men. They led me to a narrow street in my parish and into one of the most dingy houses in the street. After groping my way, by the aid of lighted matches, up a dark flight of stairs, I found the dying man in a dirty back bedroom.

He could not have been more than thirty years of age. He was propped up in bed, and the grey look of death was upon his face.

As I entered he turned eagerly to me, and, holding out his hand, said, "I'm dying, and I am not ready—not ready!"

Just as I was about to speak he suddenly gasped out, "John, John! hand me those things on the table." John came forward and laid upon the bed a sporting paper, a pack of cards, a set of dice, a bottle of whisky, and some race lists.

There was a deliberation about the whole business which convinced me that the matter had been talked over between the men. When all were spread out in due order, the dying man again turned to me and said, "Look, vicar, those things have been the ruin of me; and they have been a curse to me, and I want to turn my back upon them all—I want you to help me to do it." Again I was about to speak, when suddenly, stooping down, he gathered them all up and thrust them into my hands with the words "Shove them up my back." I was so staggered by the request that I stammered out "What—what do you mean?" "I want you," he said, "as God's minister to shove them up underneath my shirt. I want to put them behind my back. I want God to see that I have done with them for ever." I did not know whether to laugh or cry. It was all so absurd and yet so pathetic. The man was in dead earnest. He had evidently thought over it, and meant it as an "act" of true repentance. He was undoubtedly a man who had "come down in the world," and it was not all ignorance.

I said to him, "I will do what you wish, but I will kneel down first, and you will repeat a prayer after me." I knelt and he repeated after me these words: "Father, I have sinned against heaven[462] and before Thee. I renounce all my sins—from the bottom of my heart I renounce them all. Father, receive Thy prodigal son, and forgive me for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen."

I then rose from my knees and carried out his wishes. To us all in that chamber of death it was a most solemn sacramental rite. I, indeed, verily believed that it was the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace of a true repentance. There I held the things that had cursed his young manhood, ruined a promising career, and brought him down to poverty and a premature grave; and as I held those emblems of evil behind his back I told him of a Saviour who "carried our sins"—upon whom the Lord had laid the iniquities of us all.

Little by little he gasped out his tale of sin: the gambling, the betting, and the "horsey set" he had got amongst as a youth; then drinking and bad company; then "striding came ruin and poverty like a weaponed warrior." Deserted, degraded, he crawled into this wretched room, sick in mind and body, to die forsaken and forgotten by all his old boon companions except John.

The scene of that night has left an indelible impression upon my heart and mind. I believe the merciful God accepted that strange outward act as an evidence of sincere repentance. To the very last he would have us hold those instruments of sin between his shirt and his bare back, and as I held them there he died calling upon God.

When I passed out of that house of death into the streets and the morning light, I prayed, as I had never prayed before, that God in His mercy might deliver this fair England of ours from the deadly and degrading vice of gambling.

It is over ten years since my midnight visit to that gambler's death-bed. I remember still one sentence of the ruined man: "It doesn't pay, sir! It doesn't pay!" Aye! and even if it does pay some few, what then? Is it not ill-gotten gain? And if so, what shall it profit such a man, though he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?

The vice of gambling does not stand alone. It is the mother of sins; the sordid and the sensual too frequently go hand in hand. Lying, blasphemy, impurity, dishonesty, trickery, double-dealing, follow in its train.

The gambler who, by a stroke of "luck," becomes rich in an hour, is tempted to spend his winnings in riotous living. It is with him a case of "luxury" to-day, despair and drink to-morrow.

A general atmosphere of blackguardism seems ever to pervade the race-course. Here is a cutting from the daily press of August last:—

I have seen more than one young man of my acquaintance stand in the felon's dock, and I know they were brought there by betting. I have heard the wail of wife and children in the court as the culprit was hurried from the dock to his cell. And what was left for him to do when he was released from prison? Who will employ a man with the stigma of "imprisonment for dishonesty" resting upon him? He sinks lower and lower, dragging his poor wife and has little children down with him in his degrading descent—down to abject misery.

"In addition, too, to the frightful injustice to wives and children caused by betting and gambling, and the results on the home life," says a recent Report of the Convocation of York, "they have an injurious effect on those who are addicted to them, deadening their spiritual life, and making them indifferent to higher joys and nobler pursuits while the passion lasts. An example of this is afforded by Greville, who, in his memoirs, says: 'Thank God! the races are over. I have had all the excitement and worry, but have neither won nor lost. Nothing but the hope of gain would induce me to go through the demoralising drudgery,[463] which I am aware reduces me to a level of all that is most disreputable and despicable, for my thoughts are eternally absorbed in them. It is like dram-drinking; having once begun, you cannot leave it off, though I am disgusted all the time with my occupation.'"

And it is useless, my brother, to juggle with your conscience in this matter. Gambling is a vice, whether it be for penny points or for "ponies." The question of the amount of the bet has nothing to do with the sin of gambling. The principle is what we look at.

"The wrong of gambling lies not in the excessive indulgence in an intrinsically innocent practice, but in the surrender to chance of acts which ought to be controlled by reason alone, and decided by the will in accordance with the moral laws of justice or benevolence."

Brother men! shun this vice. It is the certain road to ruin. Do not be lured to your doom by this terrible fascination. Shake off its spell, renounce its tyranny: "It doesn't pay! It doesn't pay!"

It is an accursed thing. It degrades the mind, it demoralises the whole moral being, and, if not renounced, means everlasting ruin.

This is no time for smooth words. Gambling is a growing evil in the land. Women and children, as well as men, have become entangled within its meshes, and are being dragged down to perdition. It destroys all that is noble and unselfish in the human heart. It paralyses the will, stultifies the reason, and stifles every holy emotion in the soul. The man who "prepares a table for fortune and fills up mingled wine to destiny," who makes chance his idol and gain his god, will live to curse the day of his birth. Be wise, therefore, O ye sons of men and seek the Lord your God with all your hearts; for "the blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it."

THE PRINCE'S MESSAGE.

A Fairy Parable. By Roma White.

But surrounding the clover-fields and the bright gardens and the sunny meadows was a band of black darkness, and those who had passed into the darkness never came back. Everybody who sang and laughed and loved in the sunshine knew that some day their turn would come to step alone into the strange country of night that girdled the land like an impenetrable curtain; and sometimes one or another would come and look sadly and tearfully on the darkness, and then turn back with bowed head, and try to forget it. And sometimes a sound of low, sad singing would approach it, and men and women, with tears running down their faces, would accompany some dear one, whose time in the bright country was finished, to the edge of the silent darkness and watch him pass away into it, never to return; and though they held out beseeching hands after him, and strained their sight that they might perceive whither he had gone, the darkness never gave up its secret; only continued to lie, hushed and mysterious, round the land where the apple-blossom budded and the young lambs played.

Now the King of the country had seven daughters and an only son. The daughters were very beautiful, but the son was fairer than the day. His hair was as golden as the noontime of the South, and his eyes were blue and laughing as the summer sea, and his mother loved him better than life, from the day when he lay in a little white and silver cradle by her side.

The royal children played together in the gardens and courts of the palace, and sometimes the Queen gathered them about her and told them tales of the fairies and the dewy rings which they danced into greenness on summer nights; or she would tell them of brave kings who had done their duty, and loving queens whose names had been blessed by their subjects. And the children would ask questions about the dark belt that encircled the country, of which they had heard, but which they had never seen. And then the Queen would shake her head and fold her arms tightly about them one by one, but the child that she pressed most closely to her was her only boy.

But one day a great fear fell upon the kingdom, and all the palace was hushed and still. It was told that the little Prince's days were numbered, and that he must soon pass away. And a few hours later twilight fell over the land, and through the twilight came the solemn steps of mourners and the sound of tears. And the lilies bent their white heads, and the roses nestled sadly together[465] among their green leaves as the royal procession swept wailing by through the dusk. And for a few moments a child's voice spoke, and then it ceased as the little Prince went bravely away, alone, into the darkness, and those who had loved him were left behind.

They returned by-and-by to the palace, and the King took up his royal duties again, and the seven Princesses went back to their lessons and to their play. Sometimes they would talk, with sudden sobs, of their brother, and then they would forget him while tending to their flowers and watching the wild birds on the wing. The King, too, now and then, would rest his face upon his hands, and be very silent for a while. But his kingdom claimed him, and he had not the time always in which to mourn.

Only the Queen never forgot, for the little Prince had been her only son. Night after night she went alone to the edge of the darkness, and tried to pierce it with her longing eyes, and to beat it away with her mother's hands; but it was always motionless and impassable, and seemed to extend into endless night.

But one evening, as she knelt there, quiet for very weariness, there came a sweet smell through the dusk, as if the spices of wild thyme were crushed out by some approaching tread; and the sleeping flowers that had hung heavily under the weight of her falling tears, lifted their faces and unfolded their closed petals, as if they were dreaming of the morning sun. And then, all at once, fragrance and warmth and light were about the Queen; and, looking up, she saw the radiant figure of a wise, quiet man.

His voice spoke to her, and she heard many echoes in it, so that it stirred her memory strangely. It was as if she listened to the notes of a thrush on a dewy morning, or to the south wind among the summer trees by night.

"I am weeping for my only son, who has gone away from me into this darkness by which we stand."

For a moment the wise man was silent; his grave, tender eyes looked down into hers.

"You try to beat the darkness away with your hands," he said by-and-by, "and you feel only that it is like solid rock to your touch. You strain your sight to pierce it, and, as you gaze, you realise its blackness,[466] and it becomes deeper to your eyes. Why, then, do you stay upon its margin?"

"I stay because I hope and pray that, by dwelling near it, I may catch a glimpse of my only son; that I may hear his voice speak to me, or feel for a moment the warm, clinging touch of his little hands. I stay because I crave for a message from him, to tell me that he loves me still."

Then there was pity in the wise man's eyes, and it was the sweet pity of a mother who sees a child cry over a broken toy.

"Your son has many messages far you," he said, "but you cannot find or read them here; and, if you stay, your eyes will soon grow too dim to see, and the darkness will hold itself all about your heart. Turn your face and footsteps back to your people and your king, and seek there a message from your son which shall speak of consolation."

The Queen was silent then, and her feet and hands were still. She looked up at the wise, quiet man, and, as she looked, she saw that his eyes were like those of the child who had passed away, and she caught at the hem of his robe with trembling fingers.

"Who are you?" she cried. "Who are[467] you, with your wise words, and your eyes like those of my son, who was but a little, little child?"

Then into the face of the man came a wonderful look, so that the Queen, seeing it, bent her head and bowed her forehead upon her hands. And it seemed to her, for a moment, as if strange sweet scents blew to her, and the darkness broke away into long alleys of light and bloom. And then there was a hush, and when she looked up again the wise man was gone.

But she remembered that he had given her the sweetest promise in the world—the promise of a message from her only son; and, believing him, she went away from the belt of darkness, and turned again to the palace, to her children, and to her king.

And as she passed along the road she came across a poor cripple who had fallen and hurt himself by the way. His wounds bled, and he looked up at the Queen with wistful eyes. So she went, herself, to the nearest stream to fetch water for him, and she gave him some to drink, and bound up the poor bruises, and soothed him with gentle words. And as she tended him, she forgot for a moment the darkness into which her son had passed, and only remembered that the land, in spite of its beauty, was full of suffering and tears, and that she had her work to do among her people; and she looked with her shining mother's eyes into the cripple's face, and bade him be comforted.

And then, all at once, a wonderful thing happened. The cripple spoke, in faltering tones, to thank her; and his voice thrilled her, for it was the voice of her little son.

Wondering and grave, the Queen passed on. Some blue butterflies flew by, circling in the still air. As she looked at them her heart was suddenly stirred to reverence and gratitude and joy for the beauty of their silken burnished wings. And as the thrill of tenderness shook her, it seemed, all at once, as if a glow were across her path, and as if, through the glow, she heard the child-laughter of the little Prince who had passed away.

And so it happened, day after day, as the weeks sped by. Whenever the heart of the Queen was stirred to holiness by deeds and thoughts which were true and lovely and pure there came to her all the tender sweetness of memory and of communion, so that she knew that beyond the darkness her little son still sent his thoughts to her in love. But whenever she went to the belt of gloom to weep his voice was silent, and it seemed to her as if he had gone away for ever.

And one day there came a strange beggar to the palace gates, with wild, wicked eyes and hatred of all men in his heart; and he had sworn to injure the King because the King was great and good. He kept his vow, and struck at the kind King as he was passing through the gates. But the Queen saw the raised dagger, and sprang in front of her husband, so that she received the blow herself.

Then the Queen lay in strange silent illness, and the court met to judge the deed. The beggar crouched, terrified and trembling, before them; but, ere sentence could be given, a sweet woman's voice bade those who condemned him to pause, and the judges saw that the Queen had risen from her bed of sickness and stood among them.

Her voice rang out like a sweet silver trumpet in the court-room, and everybody was very still. Then, all at once, the beggar burst into tears.

But nobody else spoke or moved. Only the tears of the beggar flowed down until they made a tiny crystal pool, and the Queen, who bent over him, saw into the pool as into a mirror.

And she beheld the margin of the country and the deep black fog which lay beyond; and as she looked, the fog broke away into long gleaming alleys of flowers with shining mists above them, as if of a rising sun, and, among the bloom, the face of the little Prince smiled fully upon her once again.

Then, all at once, she heard the voice of the wise, quiet man, and she perceived that he stood again by her side.

The beggar, whose face was pressed to the hem of her robe; the court, who still remained hushed and motionless; and the King, whose eyes reverenced her, all waited for the wise man's reply. It came to them softly, like the murmur of pine needles in a south wind.

Our Roll of Heroic Deeds

We record this month a signal act of heroism which took place a few years ago in a coal-pit near Dalkeith. The mine was suddenly flooded, a vast volume of water rushed through the workings, and it was only after some hours of dangerous and most difficult work that the imprisoned miners were rescued. It was then discovered that Walker, a boy of twelve, had been left behind, and immediately James Nolans volunteered to save him. Nolans had to be forcibly pushed through the rushing torrent by some of his comrades; then he had to grope about under the water to find a rail which he used for the purpose of guidance, and, after narrowly escaping death from drowning, he eventually discovered the terrified lad. Even then it was doubtful whether they would escape alive; but after a plucky dash through the water, and by the help of some old ladders hastily fastened together, they managed to regain their comrades, who never expected to see them again.

Rise, Gracious God, and Shine.

Words by William Hurn, 1813. Music by H. Walford Davies, Mus.D.
(Organist of the Temple Church.)

TEMPERANCE NOTES AND NEWS.

By a Leading Temperance Advocate.

THE CARE OF THE INEBRIATE.

The present year has brought into operation a new Act of Parliament dealing with the habitual drunkard. The unfortunate men and women of the type of the notorious Jane Cakebread have been the despair of stipendiary magistrates for years past. At the time of writing the working of the new Act has not settled into shape, so it is all too early to forecast its probable results. Meanwhile we tender our congratulations to Dr. Norman Kerr, F.L.S., for it is to this humane and philanthropic physician we are indebted for anything like an intelligent treatment of the confirmed dipsomaniac. Dr. Kerr was born at Glasgow in 1834, and graduated at Glasgow University in 1861. While yet a student he took a keen interest in temperance and established a society for his fellow-students. From that time to the present, his active services to the reform have been steadily maintained. He takes a prominent part in the work of the Church of England Temperance Society, the United Kingdom Alliance, and the National Temperance League. It is, however, as an authority on dipsomania that he is best known. He is the founder and President of the Society for the Study and Cure of Inebriety, and it was at his instigation that a highly successful Colonial and International Congress on Inebriety was held in Westminster Town Hall in July, 1887. Dr. Kerr has written largely on the subject, and his learned work on "Inebriety: Its Etiology, Pathology, Treatment, and Jurisprudence," speedily passed into several editions. He is almost as well known in the United States as at home. The gist of Dr. Norman Kerr's views may be best indicated by the opening sentence of the volume referred to. He writes:—

"No disease is more common than inebriety, and yet none is so seldom recognised. No disease is more widespread. In the whole circle of even an extensive acquaintance it may happen that no member has been known to have suffered from any of the leading diseases which prevail in our islands, that no one has been laid low by phthisis or cancer. But there are very few families in the United Kingdom which have not had at least one relative who has been subject to inebriety."

ANOTHER GOOD IDEA.

The latest new effort to popularise temperance amongst women is a scheme prepared by the Durham and Northumberland County Union of the British Women's Temperance Association. It takes the form of a summer school to be opened at Barnard Castle, where ladies may study temperance in its scientific aspects, and receive various aids as to the methods of imparting this knowledge. The forenoons will be given to lectures, the afternoons to recreation, excursions, etc. Full particulars may be obtained from Mrs. Richardson, The Gables, Newcastle-on-Tyne.

BEER IN THE HAY AND HARVEST FIELDS.

This is an age of specialists, and Mr. John Abbey is certainly the specialist of the temperance propaganda in relation to agriculture. The son of a yeoman, he very early turned his attention to the importance of "soberising" our harvest fields. By his writings, his speeches, and the invention of teetotal drinks called Stokos, Hopkos, and Cokos, he has gradually produced a wonderful change in agricultural circles. It is Mr. Abbey's habit to go the round of the agricultural shows in their season, where he pitches[471] his tent, in which he dispenses his drinks, distributes his literature, and discusses "the why and because" of his movement with all and sundry. From the many letters received by him, we are permitted to quote one from a correspondent who farms seven hundred acres:—

"I am glad to tell you that we have done harvest without a drop of beer being given to the men, and they appear to like Stokos better this year than ever. They usually had eight gallons or more a day, and worked well with it, and throughout the excessive heat we had not a man ill. Years ago the men would get beer into the field, and there was a great deal of drunkenness among them, but now I am thankful to say that Stokos has, by virtue of its excellent qualities, practically driven the beer out of the field, and work goes on delightfully."

It may be mentioned that this agricultural work is only a detail of Mr. Abbey's life, for he is the Organising Secretary of the Church of England Temperance Society for Norwich Diocese, having previously held a similar appointment far many years in Oxford Diocese.

COMING EVENTS.

On April 13th a concert will be given at Stafford House, under the patronage of H.R.H. the Duchess of York, in aid of the Church of England Temperance Society Juvenile Union. On April 19th the annual meeting of the Guild of Hope will be held at Grosvenor House, the Duke of Westminster in the chair. On May 1st the annual meeting of the National Temperance League will be held in Exeter Hall, the Archbishop of Canterbury presiding. In July there will be two fêtes at the Crystal Palace—one on the 5th by the National Temperance Choral Society, and the other on the 29th, under the direction of the Church of England Temperance Society.

"GIVE THE BOY A CHANCE."

During the past decade the Church of England Temperance Society has developed[472] a wonderful leaning towards practical effort. Its Police Court Mission has been of incalculable service, and has received the hearty recognition of such able magistrates as the late Mr. Montagu Williams, Sir John Bridge, Mr. A. de Rutzen, and others. The Police Court Missionaries have for some time been gravely concerned as to what to do with young boys brought up for their first offences. Last June the Church of England Temperance Society established a Boys' Shelter Home at Gunnersbury. To this institution boys are now remitted instead of to prison. Here they have a chance of learning some useful industry, situations are found for them, and they are thus given a new start in life. The Bishop of London opened the Home, which is managed under the direction of a small sub-committee of the London Diocesan Church of England Temperance Society.

AMONG THE RAILWAY MEN.

One of the most interesting, and certainly one of the most useful, temperance organisations, specially catering for a distinct class of workers, is the United Kingdom Railway Temperance Union. It commenced in a very humble way in 1882, and in a sense owes its origin to Mr. S. Cutler, an earnest man employed by the Metropolitan Railway Company, who approached the Church of England Temperance Society to see if something could be done to bring together the different railway men who were in sympathy with temperance work. As the result of a conference, the Union was started, and it has remained in connection with the Church of England Temperance Society ever since. To-day it has branches on nearly every line of railway in the United Kingdom; and every grade of the service, from the influential director down to the humble bookstall lad, is represented in the membership. The railway men were fortunate in securing the interest of Mr. Robert Sawyer, Recorder of Maidenhead, at the commencement of their operations, for besides contributing very largely from his purse, Mr. Sawyer, as President of the Union, practically devotes his life to the interests of railway men. He is literally "in journeyings oft," and has a most able lieutenant in Mr. A. C. Thompson, the first and only Secretary of the Union. The railway men run a little temperance journal of their own, appropriately entitled On the Line. One has only to glance through its attractive pages to see that the Union is very much alive. For those who are employed on railways temperance is certainly an excellent thing, and there can be no doubt also that the safety of the travelling public is helped not a little by the hard work of Mr. Sawyer and his cheery comrades.

SCRIPTURE LESSONS FOR SCHOOL AND HOME

March 19th.—Christ the Good Shepherd.

I. Christ the Door of the Fold (1-10). Connection with healing of blind man.

The shepherds—God's ministers, feeding and leading the flock (1 Pet. v. 2) in the right way.

He comes to the sheep in the fold. He calls by name, and goes before to lead them. They recognise voice, trust Him, and follow.

Contrast between Christ and the Pharisees. They are robbers (St. Matt. xxiii. 14, etc.), blind guides, hypocrites, leading men to ruin. Now thirsting to kill Him. Christ is the way of salvation. Thief takes life; shepherds protect life. He gives life, here and hereafter.

Good, i.e. beautiful, noble, loving. He is perfect in contrast with imperfect ministers; true as opposed to false; good as giving His life. Mere hirelings desert the flock in danger.

His work. Knows each intimately—cares for wants. Dies that they may be saved. Seeks wanderers. Folds all safely in fold at last.

Christ the Door.

It is said that the ancient city of Troy had but one way of entrance. In whatever direction the traveller went, he would find no way into the city but the one which was legally appointed, and the only one which was used by those who went in and out. There is only one right way to the favour of God, to the family of God, to the presence of God in prayer, and, finally, to the City of God in eternity, and that one way is Christ. "I am the way," He declares, "and no man cometh unto the Father but by Me."

March 26th.—Review Lesson.

Christ's divine nature been seen in twelve lessons with the results ensuing therefrom.

I. True Light (i. 1-14). Showing Father's eternal glory, power, wisdom. Dwelling as man among men to lighten their souls.

II. First Disciples (i. 29-42). Divinity testified by God's voice at His baptism. Faith shown by new disciples who saw Lamb of God.

III. First Miracle (ii. 1-11). Divinity shown by almighty power and glory in sympathy.

IV. First Convert (iii. 1-17). Christ as Teacher unfolds divine mysteries. He knows for He has seen. Nicodemus, a Pharisee, believes.

V. First Samaritan (iv. 5-26). Divinity shown by omniscience. Gives water of life. Samaritan woman and others believe.

VI. First Child (iv. 46-54). Christ gives fresh life to sick child. Nobleman believes.

VII. Christ's Authority (v. 17-29). Shares Father's counsels. Appointed Judge. All men honour Him.

VIII. Multitude Fed (vi. 1-14). He Who made world, supplies His people's wants. As God, He multiplies food; as Man, cares for and sympathises.

IX. Feast of Tabernacles (vii. 14, 28-39). Christ as God, gives life, also refreshment (like water) to soul by Holy Ghost. Thus, Three Persons in Godhead share work of man's salvation.

X. Freeing from Sin (viii. 13, 31-36). Divine power alone can free from bondage of sin and Satan. This Christ gives. Many believed on Him.

XI. Healing Blind (ix. 1-11). Christ's divine light opens eyes and heart. Blind man saved.

XII. Good Shepherd. Christ, Himself God, the way to God. Gives life by laying down His life. One fold, one flock, one Shepherd.

April 2nd.—Raising of Lazarus.

Gospel began with miracle at joyful family gathering. To-day's lesson tells of sad gathering of family and friends at a funeral. He would again show divine power.

I. Death Triumphant (32-37). Scene of sorrow at Bethany, two miles from Jerusalem. Little family, Lazarus and two sisters. Had received Christ before (St. Luke x. 38). Now the breadwinner has been taken ill and dies. Sickness, death, bereavement, all causes of sorrow and sadness. Had sent for Christ, but He had delayed to come (ver. 6). At last He arrives, but body had been buried. Martha meets Him first (ver. 21), then Mary. Both utter same reproach—had He been in time, their brother need not have died. Their faith weak. Thought of Him as Good Physician—did not fully realise His almighty power. How did this affect Christ? He was troubled, He sighed, He wept. His best friends not yet learned Who He was and what His power. To them sorrow, suffering, death, seemed to have triumphed. Was it so?

II. Death Vanquished (38-44). Scene of joy. A Conqueror of death is there. See actions of the different people. Christ commands removal of stone. Martha remonstrates—the body begun to corrupt—four days dead (no coffin, only wrapped in linen). Showed unbelief, after Christ's words (ver. 23). Mary watches in silence, trusting in Christ to do right. Jews, expectant, roll away the stone as bidden. Then Christ speaks; thanks God for hearing His prayer; cries aloud to Lazarus. The dead man comes forth, is released from grave-clothes, and restored to his home. Death is swallowed up in victory.

Lessons. 1. Christ a loving Friend. Can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.

2. Christ a living Saviour. Taught Martha, comforted Mary, restored Lazarus. Gives eternal life.

April 9th.—The Anointing in Bethany.

Christ again at Bethany, preparing for His sufferings and death. Chief priests and Pharisees took counsel to kill Him (xi. 53). His friends gather in numbers to give Him a public welcome.

I. Christ's Friends (1-3, 7-9). The feast. Took place at Bethany, at house of Simon, once a leper. The family of Bethany all present—showed their regard for Christ in different ways. Lazarus, honoured guest, at the table with Him. Martha giving of her skill in house-keeping (St. Luke x. 38). Mary giving a costly present.

The anointing. Mary comes behind Christ—having fetched an alabaster box full of precious ointment—breaks the box, pours it on His head (St. Mark xiv. 3) and His feet (ver. 3), wiping them with her hair. The house is filled with sweet smell. Why did she do this? It was an act of love. Christ had done much for them—stayed with them, above all restored their brother to life. Another reason: Christ had lately spoken of His death as soon coming. This thought quickened her love to intensity. She must give it outward expression. She had kept it for His burial (ver. 7), but gives it now. It was an act of self-denial. Did not stay to count the cost, to think how little she need give. Gave the best gift she had. Would keep back nothing from Him. The act was approved and accepted. She did what she could.

Lessons. 1. Christ's death draws men's hearts (xii. 32). Therefore send the Gospel to all.

2. True love delights in self-denial. Deny self, take up cross and follow Christ.

3. Offerings accepted by God. Alms as well as prayers come before Him (Acts x. 4).

II. Christ's Enemies (4-6, 10, 11). Judas grudges the gift—calls it waste—professes zeal for the poor. What was his real motive? Covetousness. Had been made treasurer of monies given to and spent by Christ and apostles. Hoped to get something out of it for himself. Was it waste? Gifts given to Christ cannot be wasted. Others will take note and copy. This loving gift has led multitudes to do what they can. Missionaries to give up lives for Christ, many to give money, work, service, etc. Even cup of water only given for His sake rewarded.

Chief priests. Consult out of envy to kill Lazarus. His rising led many to believe in Christ. Their power became less.

Our New Waifs.

In accordance with the announcement in our December number, we left it entirely to our readers to select the new Quiver waifs. All the votes have now been received, and arranged, with the result that Rose Heelis heads the list of the candidates for Miss Sharman's Orphan Home, whilst John Harrison is the successful candidate for Dr. Barnardo's Home.

Our readers will doubtless be interested in the portrait of each to be found on this page, but it is unnecessary to repeat the particulars concerning these little ones which were given at the time we invited the votes. The support of the new waifs will involve a total annual expenditure of £31 (£15 for Rose Heelis and £16 for John Harrison), and for this amount we are relying upon the generosity of our readers. Contributions to the special Waifs' Fund will be gladly received, and duly acknowledged month by month in our pages. Such contributions should be addressed to the Editor of The Quiver, La Belle Sauvage, Ludgate Hill, London, E.C. A list of the donations to the fund during the month of January will be found on page 480.

Stooping to Conquer.

A peculiar feature connected with the Ancient and Honourable Artillery Company of Boston is that each officer, at the end of his term of command, which lasts a year, returns to the ranks as a private; thus there are something like a score of gentlemen who have had full control of the regiment, and who are now once more content to obey. Here is a lesson for those who serve in the Church Militant. We cannot all be colonels and generals—there must be a few private soldiers!—and it is certain that he who cannot obey is not fit to command. Much energy and temper is wasted by those who fight against sin and sorrow through unwillingness to take what is called a subordinate position. Surely this is to forget the Saviour's words—"If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all."

The "Welcome."

Sixteen years ago, the first restaurant for women in the City of London was started at 16, Jewin Street. The "Welcome" was opened in a five-storeyed house in the very midst of factories. It is now the centre of help of every kind for a class brought before the public in Sir Walter Besant's "Children of Gibeon." Hundreds of women frequent this place to refresh their jaded and chilled[476] bodies with soup and bread at three halfpence or excellent meat-puddings at twopence. In cases of distress and starvation free dinner tickets are granted. Who can tell how many women this aid has saved from crime when hunger has driven them to the verge of stealing? The work of the "Welcome" is not limited to care for the bodies of City toilers. Three rooms are used for dinner and tea, three others for evening classes of various kinds. From six to half-past nine clubs, musical drill, sewing and improvement classes, services of song, missionary or Gospel temperance meetings, attract an attendance averaging from 270 to 300. The largest number come on Thursday evening, which is devoted to Bible classes. To many whose days are spent in hot workrooms the shady gardens lent on Saturdays by kind friends are like a new world. One girl asked if she could see the strawberry trees; another, why the bunches of grapes were tied to the top of glass-houses. The revelation of a new world outside their own limited sphere helps to raise the ambition to live a new and higher life.

"Nobody's Own."

Many regiments in the British army are called after and said to be owned by this or that prince or princess. There is "The Princess of Wales's Own," "Princess Charlotte's Own," and so on. One regiment, however, rejoices in the nickname of "Nobody's Own," because it is not named after anybody. It is a grand thing to think that no Christian can be called "Nobody's Own," for we are all called after Christ and owned by our Father in heaven.

New Books.

Elsewhere in this number will be found an illustrated article on "Childish Memories of Lewis Carroll," and we venture to think that readers of those reminiscences will require no pressing to turn to the biography of this universally favourite author, just published by Mr. Fisher Unwin under the title "The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll." Mr. S. D. Collingwood, who is responsible for the work, frankly admits that it is impossible to give a really adequate presentation of the extraordinarily complex character of his late uncle. He has, however, produced a most able and interesting sketch, which includes many characteristic letters, and is profusely illustrated. Quite a different life-story is also before us in the form of the Rev. George Adam Smith's biography of his friend, the late Professor Henry Drummond (Hodder and Stoughton). No one could lay down this book without feeling that Drummond was in every sense a great man—with a great intellect, a great heart, and a constant, burning desire to be about his Father's business. It is true that he made mistakes, that he put forth certain theories not generally acceptable, and which he himself modified in later years, but throughout his life his honesty of purpose was unquestionable. His influence and[477] power as a preacher and teacher were remarkable, and many of those whom he reached through his addresses and books will feel indebted to Dr. Smith for this critical and comprehensive story of his life.—From Messrs. Smith, Elder and Company comes a new story from our own contributor, Katharine Tynan, entitled "The Dear Irish Girl," of which we need say no more than that it is the love story of a most winning Irish lassie, written in the bright, entertaining style so well-known to our readers.—"Helps to Godly Living" (Elliot Stock) is the happy title of an excellent little work which consists of helpful and comforting extracts from the writings and addresses of the present Archbishop of Canterbury, selected and arranged by the Rev. J. H. Burn, B.D.—A pathetic interest attaches to the two dainty volumes of poems by the late Dr. J. R. Macduff, entitled "Matin and Vesper Bells" (Cassell), in that the author did not live to see their completion. Many of the poems have been already published independently in various forms, but we believe that this collected edition of Dr. Macduff's tender and inspiring verse will be heartily welcomed.—We have also to acknowledge the receipt of a tastefully produced volume entitled "The More Excellent Way" (Henry Frowde), in which the Hon. Mrs. Lyttelton Gell has carefully arranged the choicest extracts from the works of ancient and modern authors on "The Life of Love"; a collection of addresses on the Beatitudes by the Rev. J. R. Miller, D.D., entitled "The Master's Blesseds" (Hodder and Stoughton); an interesting and instructive work on medical missionary work amongst the blind in India, entitled "They Shall See His Face" (Bocardo Press, Oxford); "Aids to Belief" (Elliot Stock), a series of studies on the divine origin of Christianity by the Rev. W. H. Langthorne; and a volume of sermons by the late Charles H. Spurgeon, which have been published by Messrs. Passmore and Alabaster under the title "The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit."

A Wolf-Boy.

What was to be done with such a boy! The magistrate sahib of Bulandshahr had heard of Romulus and Remus, but rational people rejected the legend of their infancy. Yet here was a child of five or six years of age, crawling on the ground before him, and the statement of several witnesses that he had been smoked out of a wolf's den could not be disputed. These men were natives of India. Whilst travelling in a jungle of the Bulandshahr district, they saw a queer though undoubted specimen of humanity crawl into a hole. By the magistrate's order a fire was lighted at the mouth. Out sprang a snarling and indignant mother-wolf, which, after scattering the bystanders, fled for life. Behind her ran on all fours a little boy, who was speedily secured and conveyed to the magistrate. He was imbecile. He[478] would eat no food but raw meat, and he tore any clothing placed on him into shreds. The magistrate sent him to the Church Missionary Orphanage at Secundra, a refuge for between four and five hundred children, nearly all infants picked up in the streets or by the roadside. There this child, who was found on Saturday, February 4th, 1867, grew up into manhood. On the same principle that Robinson Crusoe called his man Friday, the wolf-boy was named Sanichar, or Saturday. By degrees a certain amount of intelligence and a decided religious instinct developed. He became gentle and sociable, and ready with cheerful unselfishness to share the many little presents he received with his companions. He attached himself with great affection to one of the caretakers. On the death of this man, Sanichar in dumb sorrow and bewilderment looked from one to another of his friends for an explanation. They pointed to the grave, and then to the sky. The boy was deeply impressed, and ever afterwards, if he felt ill, he would feign sleep, and point first to the ground and then to the sky. He never learnt to speak, but perhaps he was trying to convey the impression that he looked forward to following his dear friend. Two other wolf-boys and one wolf-girl were brought to the Secundra orphanage, but they died soon afterwards. Whether they had been cast out by their parents or kidnapped by the inveterate robber-wolves of the district could not be discovered. They were a witness that tenderness, too often lost in heathenism, may be found in one of the most rapacious beasts. With hundreds of little outcasts under Christian care, they tell of a Father above who remembers even though parents may forget their children.

Memorial to a Medical Missionary.

Medical missions have come into deservedly increasing prominence of late years; and a few months ago a beautiful tablet was erected in Lewisham Congregational Church to the memory of Dr. Lockhart, the first Protestant medical missionary to China, who went out about the year 1838. The tablet is a beautiful piece of work in alabaster and marble, and is carved in the form of a triptych, i.e. in three panels, the medallion portrait occupying the centre. On the left hand panel appears the following inscription:—"In affectionate memory of Dr. Lockhart, first medical missionary to China, founder of hospitals at Macao, Shanghai and Pekin, who served the London Missionary Society with untiring zeal for twenty-six years in the mission field, and with unabated devotion in England to the last day of his life. Member of this church for thirty-seven years. Deacon and Church Secretary. Born October 3rd, 1811. Died April 29th, 1896." The following inscription appears on the right hand panel:—"This memorial is erected by those who admired him as a strong man, loved him as a friend, hold his services in grateful memory, and who pray that his zeal for missions and his devotion to the Church may inspire all who shall ever worship within these walls." The tablet is placed on the wall of the church near the vestry door, where Dr. Lockhart used often to stand before the service, watching the people enter.

Self-control.

A man who lately came over from America told the writer that on board the steamer one of the passengers went up to another in the smoking-room and asked him to have a drink with him. The man thus invited continued reading a newspaper and made no reply. The other man again asked him to drink with him. No answer again. A third invitation was then given in these words: "Sir, I have asked you in as friendly a way as possible to drink with me, and each time you went on with your reading, and had not the civility to answer me. Now I ask you for the third time if you will drink wine, whisky, or anything else with me?" The man then put aside his paper and answered very quietly: "Do you see that glass, sir? Well, if I were to take even a quarter of it, I could not leave off until I had drunk all the liquor on board. This is why I would not drink with you." All present admired the man's self-control, and learned a striking lesson on the danger of putting temptation in a brother's way.

An Ever-Recurring Question.

Two friends of the writer were sitting in a close carriage, discussing the problems of life—where we came from and whither we are going. The driver of the carriage went rather too near another vehicle. "Where are you going to?" shouted the driver of the latter. The occupants of the carriage looked at each other and remarked,[479] "That is just what we were wanting to know." So it is that the great problems of life cannot be ignored, for they are reflected in the small incidents of daily existence. Particularly is this the case with the question whence we came and whither we are going. This can never be shelved.

The Circulation of the Bible.

Few people have any idea of the enormous number of Bibles published annually in this country. Mere figures of so many millions mean little to most folks. But it may give some more adequate idea of the vast number to put it as follows: The British and Foreign Bible Society, of Queen Victoria Street, alone publish above a million and a half of Bibles every year, or more than 4,100 every day. Now, if each of these 4,100 Bibles was of the average thickness of one and a half inches, they would, if piled upon one another, reach to a height of 6,159 inches. As the top of St. Paul's cross is about 364 feet or so above the level of St. Paul's Churchyard, this huge pile of Bibles would reach to a height nearly one and a half times as great as the top of the famous cross! Or we might represent the whole lot by one immense Bible, which would be 66 feet by 47 feet by 14 feet, and would reach from the steps leading to St. Paul's right to the top of the pillars there! And this would but represent the output for a single day of only one of the great Bible circulating mediums of this country!

OUR INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF PEACE.

We are glad to be able to report that requests for forms are steadily being received, and a goodly number have been returned filled with signatures. To those of our readers who are striving to obtain the distinction of being the first to send in a thousand names (for which a prize of Ten Pounds is offered) we would say that it is not necessary for all the signatures to be given together. They should be forwarded in batches of fifty or a hundred, and credit will be given for every name so sent. The following letter which we have received from a correspondent at Birmingham is of interest, as it emphasises the fact that the Ten Pounds we offer will not only act as an incentive to activities on behalf of peace, but may also at the same time benefit some local charity. "Please send me," the correspondent writes, "some sheets of the International League of Peace. If I am fortunate enough to get the Ten Pounds, I am going to give it to some good society—whichever our clergyman thinks best. Trusting to hear from you by return."

This may be copied at the head of blank sheets of paper, and the signatures placed beneath; but we shall be very pleased to send (post free) any number of printed forms on receipt of an application addressed to the Editor of The Quiver, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.C.

The objects of our League have already been endorsed, amongst other prominent men, by the Lord Bishop of London, the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes (President of the Wesleyan Conference), the Rev. Samuel Vincent (President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland), and Pastor Thomas Spurgeon of the Metropolitan Tabernacle.

THE QUIVER FUNDS.

The following is a list of contributions received from January 1st, 1899, up to and including January 31st, 1899. Subscriptions received after this date will be acknowledged next month:—

OUR FINE ART PLATES.

Doubtless many of our readers are interested in the announcement which has been appearing for several months past on our wrapper to the effect that certain coupons will entitle the holder to receive a set of Fine Art Plates for a trifling sum. We desire to supplement that announcement by stating that the pictures will be of sacred subjects, and will, moreover, be printed on specially prepared plate paper in order to obtain the best possible results. The selected paintings are by Lord Leighton, Sir John Millais, Edward Armitage, R.A., Ford Madox Brown, W. C. T. Dobson, R.A., and William Dyce, R.A., and the series will form an admirable selection of the best-known works of these famous artists—well worthy of a permanent place in every home.

ROLL OF HONOUR FOR SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORKERS.

The Special Silver Medal and Presentation Bible offered for the longest known Sunday-school service in the county of Durham (for which applications were invited up to January 31st, 1899) have been gained by

who has distinguished himself by fifty-six years' service, principally in the Sunday School of the Barnard Castle Parish Church.

As already announced, the next territorial county for which claims are invited for the Silver Medal is

DEVONSHIRE,

and applications, on the special form, must be received on or before February 28th, 1899. We may add that Kent is the following county selected, the date-limit for claims in that case being March 30th, 1899. This county, in its turn, will be followed by the territorial county of Cheshire, for which the date will be one month later—viz. April 30th, 1899.

The names of members recently enrolled will be found in our advertisement pages.

THE QUIVER BIBLE CLASS.

(BASED ON THE INTERNATIONAL SCRIPTURE LESSONS.)

49. From what parable of our Lord do we gather that the sheepfolds in ancient times were large and surrounded by a high fence?

50. By what illustration does our Lord teach us that it is through Him alone we can be saved? Quote passage.

51. In what way does our Lord contrast His care of His people with the neglect shown by the Jewish teachers?

52. Quote passage which shows that Jesus had never attended any of the public Jewish schools?

53. In what words does our Lord speak of the Scriptures as God's revelation of Himself to man?

55. What was especially remarkable in the miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead?

56. What reason did our Lord give for His delay in going to Lazarus when he was ill?

58. What reason have we for supposing that Simon the Leper was the husband of Martha, the sister of Lazarus?

60. What prophecy concerning our Lord was delivered by Caiaphas, the High Priest?

37. In a desert (or uninhabited) place near Bethsaida on the north-west side of the Sea of Galilee (St. Luke ix. 10).

39. Because St. Philip was a native of the district of Bethsaida (St. John i. 44, and vi. 5).

10. The Jews thought that Jesus was the son of Joseph the carpenter, and born in Galilee; whereas they had been taught that no one would know of the birthplace or parentage of the Messiah (St. John vii. 27, 41; St. Luke iv. 22).

42. Because on the last day of the Feast special sacrifices were offered for all Israel, and the priest, having taken water from the Pool of Siloam, poured it upon the altar (St. John vii. 37).

43. Because they understood that, as the "Light of the World," Jesus claimed to be the Messiah (St. John viii. 12; Isaiah ix. 2, and lx. 1).

45. Jesus appears to have made the Jews unable to see Him, and so passed out of the Temple, going through the midst of them (St. John viii. 59; 2 Kings vi. 18).

46. That the disciples believed in the doctrine of "transmigration of souls," which was taught by the Jewish Rabbis at that time (St. John ix. 2; Josephus, "Ant." xviii. ch. 1, sec. 3).

48. The Jews excommunicated the man whose sight Jesus had restored—that is, they shut him out of the synagogue—thus depriving him of all religious privileges (St. John ix. 22, 34).

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "Sacred Art: The Bible Story Pictured by Eminent Modern Painters." Edited by A. G. Temple, F.S.A. (Cassell & Co., Ltd.)

[2] Of it's contents, as afterwards appears were very small. vide page 27, note (1).

[3] Probably they began at about one o'clock.

Transcriber's note:

Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed.

Missing page numbers are page numbers that were not shown in the original text.

The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs, thus the page number of the illustration might not match the page number in the List of Illustrations.

The cover for the eBook version of this book was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

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