{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_43658/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_43658","id":"gutenberg_43658","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43658","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Religious","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Reports & Conference Proceedings","Religious newspapers and periodicals"],"text":"The Quiver 3/1900\n\n[Illustration: (_Drawn by Percy Tarrant._)\n\nEASTER BLOSSOMS.]\n\n\n\n\nTHE CENTENARY OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY.\n\nBy the Rev. A. R. Buckland, M.A., Morning Preacher at the Foundling\nHospital.\n\n\nAt \"The Castle and Falcon,\" in Aldersgate Street, on April 12th,\n1799, there met, in all the solemnity of a public gathering, sixteen\nclergymen and nine laymen.\n\nThey founded there and then the Church Missionary Society for\nAfrica and the East. That Society keeps its Centenary this month;\nno longer an inconspicuous organisation expressing the hopes of a\ngodly few, but a great Society which has girdled the earth with\nits missions. When, in November, 1898, its Estimates Committee\nsurveyed its position, they found that its roll included the names\nof 802 European missionaries, of whom 295 were ladies, whilst, of\nthe 802, no fewer than eighty-four were serving altogether or in\npart at their own expense. Some of them represented the missionary\nenthusiasm of Australia and Canada; a fair proportion were duly\nqualified medical workers, men and women.\n\n[Illustration: MRS. J. A. BAILEY.\n\n(_The first lady missionary of the Society._)]\n\nWith the exception of South America, there is no considerable\nquarter of the globe in which they are not represented. They may be\nfound ministering to Esquimaux within the Arctic Circle, and to the\nIndians of the vast expanses of Canada; they are shepherding the\nMaoris of New Zealand; in India their stations may be discovered\nalike amongst the wild tribes of the northern frontier, the strange\naboriginals found here and there in the continent, and the milder\nraces of the south; in Africa the Society begins in Egypt, but\ngoes no farther south than Uganda, though it is both on the east\ncoast and the west; it is strongly represented along the coasts of\nChina, as well as in the inland province of Sze-Chuen; it works both\namidst the Japanese themselves and that strange people the hairy\nAinu; it is domiciled in Ceylon and Mauritius; it has not forgotten\nPersia. From Madagascar it has retired, and it has shown a wise\nindisposition to enter upon new fields whilst the old are still\ninsufficiently manned. It has ever been known for the strictness\nwith which it observes the comity of missions; and it may fairly be\nsaid that the zeal with which its friends have worked in behalf of\nforeign missions has reacted on all the missionary agencies which\nhave their origins in Great Britain, as well as upon some which\nexpress the zeal of America and the Colonies.\n\n    From Greenland's icy mountains,\n      From India's coral strand\n    Where Afric's sunny fountains\n      Roll down their golden sand,\n\n    From many an ancient river\n      From many a palmy plain\n    They call us to deliver\n      Their land from error's chain\n\n    What though the spicy breezes\n      Blow soft o'er Ceylon's Isle\n    Though every prospect pleases\n      And only man is vile?\n\n    In vain, with lavish kindness,\n      The gifts of God are strown\n    The heathen in his blindness\n      Bows down to woods and stone!\n\n[Illustration: BISHOP HEBER'S MISSIONARY HYMN.\n\n(_Facsimile of part of the Original MS._)]\n\nThe Church Missionary Society was really one of the fruits of the\nEvangelical Revival, though when the Society was born that movement\nwas no longer young. Its first leaders had passed to their rest;\nit was their successors amongst whom the Church Missionary Society\ntook its origin. They were, as history judges them, no mean persons,\nthough in their own day they fell, for their religious zeal, under\nthe condemnation of polite society, whether ecclesiastical or social.\n\n[Illustration: THE BOARD ROOM AT THE MISSION HOUSE.]\n\nThat meeting in Aldersgate Street did not include some of those to\nwhom the foundation of the Church Missionary Society must directly\nbe referred; but, if we look at the circle they represented, we\nshall find that it was one of rare distinction in the religious\nhistory of the country. It included William Wilberforce, Zachary\nMacaulay, Charles Grant, James Stephen, and Henry Thornton on the\nlay side; Charles Simeon, John Newton, Thomas Scott, Richard Cecil,\nand William Goode amongst the clergy. The impulse which moved\nthem was moving others, for the Baptist Missionary Society had\nbeen founded by Carey in 1793, and the London Missionary Society\nin 1795. The Religious Tract Society also began its existence in\nthis year 1799, and the Bible Society was founded in 1804. It was\na fruitful epoch. Yet it has to be remembered that it began under\necclesiastical discouragement, and amidst such popular contempt of\nmissions to the heathen as was reflected in Sydney Smith's essay.\n\nI do not propose to trace in detail the history of the Church\nMissionary Society: within the space of a magazine article such an\nattempt could do little more than produce a list of names and dates.\nIt may be more useful, as well as more interesting, to look at some\nof the Society's great workers at home, at some of its heroes in\nthe mission-field, and at some of the romances which diversify its\nhistory.\n\n[Illustration: THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY'S MISSION HOUSE,\nSALISBURY SQUARE.]\n\nOf the men who helped to found the Church Missionary Society the\nfirst place must be given to Charles Simeon. He was not at \"The\nCastle and Falcon\" meeting, but it was he who, at the gathering of\nthe Eclectic Society in March of the same year, when missionary\nplans were again under discussion, urged immediate action. \"There\nis not a moment to be lost,\" he said; \"we have been dreaming these\nfour years, while all Europe is awake.\" The precise old bachelor,\nfellow of his college at Cambridge, and incumbent of Holy Trinity\nChurch in that town, was not a person easily daunted by obstacles.\nAs an Evangelical he had had to face the most strenuous opposition\nin his own parish. But he had been deeply stirred by plans and hopes\nfor missionary work in India; he was the friend and mentor of Henry\nMartyn. He was able in time to wield at Cambridge an influence\nwhich the late Bishop Christopher Wordsworth compared to that of\nNewman at Oxford. Later generations somehow came to think of him\nas something other than a Churchman; but they were quite wrong. A\ncareful scrutiny of Simeon's works, letters, and diaries will show\nthat he was consistently loyal to his Church and her formularies.\nOf his influence upon foreign missions it is difficult to speak in\nexaggeration; but one or two illustrations may serve to show its\nextent. Henry Martyn was the first Englishman who offered to go\nout under the Church Missionary Society. But Simeon was especially\nanxious about India, and so Martyn went there as \"Chaplain.\" His\nbrief work in Persia, the example of his singularly beautiful\ncharacter, and the swift end of so promising a career, still\ninfluence the minds of young and old. And the influence of Martyn,\nis, in a sense, the influence of Simeon. Less popularly known than\nHenry Martyn, but in some respects of wider power, were the others\nof the famous \"Five Chaplains\" who went out to India, the fruits of\nSimeon's zeal for that land. These men left an indelible mark upon\nthe English in India during their time, and did much to prepare\nthe way of the missionary. Thus Claudius Buchanan helped more than\nany other man to create the public opinion which opened India to\nmissionaries, and led to the consecration of the first bishop for\nall India, the Bishop of Calcutta. Thomas Thomason was the father\nof James Thomason, who, as Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West\nProvinces, ruled (and taught others to rule) in the fear of God, and\nwith the warmest sympathy for missionary enterprise. Through him,\nwhen the Punjab was annexed in 1849, it felt the influence which had\nflowed from the rooms of Charles Simeon at Cambridge.\n\n[Illustration: SECRETARIES of the CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY\n\n  REV THOMAS SCOTT 1799-1802\n  (L. COSS\u00c9 pinxt)\n\n  REV. JOSIAH PRATT 1802-1824\n  (H. WYATT pinxt)\n\n  REV. E. BICKERSTETH 1824-1830\n  (ALEX. MOSSES pinxt)\n\n  REV. WILLIAM JOWETT 1832-1840\n\n  REV HENRY VENN 1841-1872\n  (G RICHMOND R. A. pinxt)\n\n  REV HENRY WRIGHT\n  1872-1880\n\n  REV F E WIGRAM 1880-1895\n  (PHOTO ELLIOTT & FRY)\n\n  REV H E FOX appointed 1895\n  (PHOTO ELLIOTT & FRY)\n\n  Robert A Shield 99\n]\n\nThe name of Edward Bickersteth seems a natural succession to that of\nSimeon. The influence of both is still unexhausted. When the Church\nMissionary Society kept its second Jubilee in November, 1898, the\nsermon was preached by Bishop E. H. Bickersteth, the son of Edward\nBickersteth. And the influence had been wider than the limits of\nany one Society, for Bishop Edward Bickersteth, of Japan, who died\nin 1897, represented another generation in this line of truly\napostolic succession.\n\nEdward Bickersteth had been a solicitor in prosperous circumstances\nwhen zeal for missions led him to take holy orders, and join the\nChurch Missionary Society as Assistant Secretary in 1816. Almost\nat once he was sent to examine the Society's work at Sierra Leone.\nThere he admitted the Society's first African converts to the Holy\nCommunion. In 1824 he succeeded Josiah Pratt in the Secretaryship\nof the Society. He was never an autocrat in the sense that Henry\nVenn was; but his work for the Society in the country was enormous.\nIt has ceased to be the kind of work which is mainly done by the\nHonorary Secretary of the Society, but at that period it was work\nwhich was of inestimable value. It was the more important because\npublic opinion at home still presented a front of mingled contempt\nand indifference to missions, whilst abroad the outlook was far from\nhopeful.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n        ZENANA WORK.    BIBLE SELLING IN EASTERN BAZAARS.\n\n                      TEACHING THE YOUNG.\n\n  LECTURING TO CHINESE HELPERS.  ITINERATING THROUGH THE VILLAGES.\n\n                    SOME METHODS OF WORK.\n]\n\nA greater figure than that of Edward Bickersteth in the annals of\nthe Church Missionary Society is that of Henry Venn. Here, too,\nthe name appears in more than one generation. The first Henry\nVenn belongs, with Wesley, Whitfield, Romaine and others, to the\nbeginnings of the Evangelical Revival. Then comes John Venn,\nwho took the chair at \"The Castle and Falcon\" meeting. Then, in\n1834, Henry Venn the younger, the son of John Venn and grandson\nof the first Henry Venn, began regularly to attend the Society's\nCommittee. He was Hon. Secretary in 1841, and held office for\nthirty-one years. He is the standard by which, doubtless, for\ngenerations to come, Hon. Secretaries of the Church Missionary\nSociety will be compared. He was a strong man in every sense; a\nstatesman and an autocrat. But, like some other autocrats, he clung\nto his work too long. He resigned only a few months before his\ndeath, and left the Society in a condition of discouragement, from\nthe failure both of candidates for the mission field and of means\nfor carrying on the work. Under his successor, Henry Wright (who\nwas drowned in Coniston Lake in 1880), the Society began almost at\nonce to enter upon new life and activity. Here again the hereditary\ninfluence, so manifest in the work of the Church Missionary Society,\nis evident, for four of his children went to the mission field.\nHis successor, Frederic Wigram, was one of the most munificent\nbenefactors the Society ever had. He died, after resigning office,\nworn out by its responsibility and toil. He, too, has sent children\nto the mission-field. In his successor, the Rev. H. E. Fox, the\nhereditary impulse is manifest again. Mr. Fox's father was one of\nthe founders of the Society's Telugu mission, and one of the most\ndevoted of its workers in the foreign field.\n\nAnd now let us glance for a moment at some of the Society's agents\nabroad. The task of selection is difficult. There are names on\nthe list that all men who care for missions have heard of. Samuel\nMarsden, Samuel Crowther, Valpy French, Pfander, John Horden, James\nHannington, Alexander Mackay--these, to name but a few, and many\nothers, are familiar far outside the limits of the Society's own\nfriends. But there are more, less widely known, whose work deserves\nnot a whit less to be had in remembrance.\n\n[Illustration: (_From Photo: supplied by the Church Missionary\nSociety._)\n\nCHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY'S TRAINING COLLEGE AT AGRA.\n\n(_With students in foreground._)]\n\nAmongst these was William Johnson, one of the first missionaries to\nSierra Leone. He went out in 1816, and began an extraordinary work\namongst the slaves released by British cruisers and landed at Sierra\nLeone. He died on the voyage home to England at the early age of\nthirty-four. Those were the days in which to face work in Sierra\nLeone meant facing a peril so imminent that each volunteer needed\nthe courage of those who go upon a forlorn hope.\n\nThere was William Williams, first a surgeon and then, after\ngraduating at Oxford, ordained for work in the Colonies. He went\nto New Zealand in 1825, when its people were a race of cannibals,\nnot one of whom professed Christianity. He lived to see the whole\ncountry more or less fully evangelised. His wife died as recently as\n1896, and his son, baptised in 1829 with the children of one of the\nmost savage of the Maori chiefs, became Bishop of Waiapu in the land\nthe father did so much to open up. William Williams had a brother,\nHenry Williams, who preceded him in the field. So great was the\ninfluence he won that, on the news of his death reaching two Maori\ncamps, in which rival tribes were preparing to meet in battle, they\nat once proclaimed a truce, attended his funeral, and settled their\ndifferences in peace.\n\n[Illustration: (_Photo: G. P. Abraham, Keswick._)\n\nMR. EUGENE STOCK.\n\n(_Editorial Secretary of the Society._)]\n\n[Illustration: (_From Photo: supplied by the Church Missionary\nSociety._)\n\nTHE LIBRARY AT THE MISSION HOUSE.]\n\nThere was Ludwig Krapf, whose name, with that of John Rebmaun,\nshould ever be joined with the origins of our growing empire\nin Eastern Equatorial Africa. He began his missionary work in\nAbyssinia, had to leave as the result of French intrigues, sailed\ndown the East African coast in an Arab boat, and in 1844 settled\nat Mombasa. From the knowledge of the interior gained by Krapf and\nhis companion, came the chain of African discovery which issued,\nas long afterwards as 1875, in the publication, through Mr. H. M.\nStanley, of Mtesa's appeal for missionaries for Uganda. How little\ncould Krapf ever have dreamed of the vast results, political as well\nas spiritual, that would flow from that early disappointment, his\nexpulsion from Abyssinia!\n\nThere was David Hinderer, who, upon the other side of Africa, did\nso striking a work in the Yoruba country. The prosperity of his\nevangelistic labours, the virtual imprisonment in which he and his\nwife--half-starved and in deadly peril--were for five years in the\ntown of Ibadan, and the ultimate discovery that their work stood the\nsevere tests of isolation and persecution, go to make up one of the\nmost interesting chapters in the history of African missions.\n\nThere was George Maxwell Gordon, the pilgrim-missionary of the\nIndian frontier, a pioneer who saw little direct fruit of his\nlabours, yet left missions where none had been. Acting as chaplain\nto the British forces shut up in Kandahar, he was killed, when\nseeking to succour the wounded, in August, 1880.\n\nBut this is a list that might be almost indefinitely extended, and\nstill would seem invidious. Let us come to some striking pages in\nthe Society's history; again, of necessity, passing by many of the\nmost impressive as well as some of the most familiar.\n\nThe city of Peshawur, upon the Afghan frontier, has long been a\ncentre of missionary work. The fanaticism of the people when it\nwas first occupied by British troops seemed to make missionary\nenterprise impossible. One Commissioner--he afterwards fell by\nthe hand of an assassin--refused permission for missionaries to\ncome, on the ground that they would excite the fanaticism of the\npeople to a dangerous pitch. The arrival of Herbert Edwardes\nchanged the situation. A meeting of English people, military and\ncivil, was called in Peshawur itself; a sum of \u00a33,000 was raised, a\nmemorial sent to the Church Missionary Society, and, in response,\nmissionaries provided. Here is an example of what is so often\nforgotten by critics of Indian missions, that they in a large\nmeasure owe their origin and support to men actually or formerly\nengaged in the administration of India. The Church Missionary\nSociety has been peculiarly happy in the number of men of high\ndistinction in the Army and the Civil Service who have served on\nits Committee. Now from the Punjab men are pushing still farther\nafield; Quetta has long been occupied, and the medical missionary\nhas found a welcome from the Afridis themselves.\n\nLet us take another mission founded in answer to an appeal from\nwithout, and that an appeal from a layman. People who recall the\nmissionary meetings of a generation ago will remember that no\nmore thrilling story was told at them than the history of William\nDuncan's early work amongst the Tsimshean Indians of the North\nPacific coast. It was a marvellous example of courage, tact, and\npatience, rewarded by the conversion of savages of a singularly\nunapproachable type. It was a naval officer, Captain Prevost, who\nsuggested that mission to the Society, carried Mr. Duncan thither,\nand landed him at Fort Simpson in 1857. In ten years' time he had\nbaptised nearly three hundred adult converts. In 1862 the Christian\ncommunity was moved to Metlakahtla, where the spectacle of a\ncannibal and violent people living in peace and industry was long\ndeemed one of the marvels of missionary enterprise.\n\nI pass by such striking histories as those of Uganda, of the attempt\nof J. A. Robinson and Graham Wilmot Brooke to reach the Soudan from\nthe Niger, and of the massacre of English women at Hwa-Sang in\nFuh-kien, to recall romances of another kind. What could be more\nmoving than the careers of some of the Society's converts? Is there\nany more striking history of its kind than that of the Rev. Dr.\nImad-ud-din, a learned Mohammedan, who had sought the peace of God\nby every available means, and at last found it in Christ? Or what\nwould they who distrust converts say to the career of that once\nnotorious Border bandit, Dilawar Khan, baptised in 1858, who served\nas an officer in the Guides, and died in Chitral whilst in the\nservice of the British Government?\n\nBut it is time to leave these things and to speak of some aspects of\nthe Society's work which concern all missionary enterprise.\n\n[Illustration: \"IN THE UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE EARTH.\"\n\n(_The peoples amongst whom the C.M.S. Missionaries are now\nworking._)]\n\nTwice in its career the Church Missionary Society has definitely\ncommitted itself to a policy of faith as it has committed itself to\nsending out all who offer and are found qualified. It is a policy\nwhich, judged by the most secular standard, must be accounted\na success. The growth of its staff in recent years, under this\nsystem, has been most striking. The Society has had its periods\nof stagnation and disappointment; at times its directors have\nfelt driven to retrenchment. Thus in 1859 the number of European\nmissionaries on its roll was 226; ten years later it was only 228.\nBut, whereas in 1889 the number was 360, in 1898 it had risen to\n802. During the first ten years the Society sent out five agents;\nin the ten years ending with its Jubilee the number was 119; in\nthe nine years ending 1898 it reached 719. The income of 1848 was\n\u00a392,823; the income of 1898 was \u00a3331,598. Its latest statistics show\nthat there are about 240,000 natives associated with its missions,\nand of late it would seem that its clergy baptise on an average\nabout twenty adult converts every day.\n\n[Illustration: (_Photo: A. G. Carlile, Exmouth._)\n\nSIR JOHN H. KENNAWAY, M.P.\n\n(_President of the Church Missionary Society._)]\n\nIn this month of April all round the world--from North-West Canada\nto New Zealand, from Palestine to Japan, from Central Africa to the\nIndian frontier--men will be keeping the centenary of that meeting\nat \"The Castle and Falcon,\" in Aldersgate Street. For a hundred\nyears of work, considered in relation to the power and the wealth\nand the responsibilities of our nation, there may be little to show;\nbut, for such as there is, men of many races, and once of many\ncreeds, will, with one accord, give thanks to God.\n\n[Illustration: THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY'S MAP OF THE WORLD.\n\n(_The shaded portions indicate the present-day fields of work._)]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: THE MASTERFUL YOUNG MAN]\n\n_A COMPLETE STORY._\n\nBy Margaret Westrup, Author of \"They Furriners,\" Etc.\n\n\nHe stopped in the shade of the high old wall and listened.\n\nA smile shone in his blue eyes as the sweet, childish voice sounded\nclear and high in the still, scented air.\n\n\"What now, Jeannette, shall the mistress of Ancelles fall in love\nlike an ordinary mortal, then?\"\n\nThere was mischief in the pretty voice, but there was pride, too.\n\n\"But yes, mamzelle! Love comes to all--high and low--and spares no\none its pangs.\"\n\n\"Pangs? Ah, bah! it shall have no pangs for me!\"\n\n\"Ah, mamzelle! do not be rash.\"\n\n\"How will it take me, Jeannette? Tell me, that I may be prepared.\nWill it come like a fiery dart to my bosom, bringing a light to my\neyes, and a colour of roses to my cheeks? Or will it take me sadly,\nrendering my cheek pale and my spirits low? Tell me, Jeannette.\"\n\n\"Not the last way, mamzelle\"--the voice was slow now--\"for you are\ntoo proud.\"\n\n\"You are right, Jeannette, I am too proud! 'Tis not I who must be\npale and afraid. 'Tis the other. Love must come to me humble and\nsuing--to be glad or sorry at my will. Is it not so, Jeannette?\"\n\n\"How should I know, mamzelle?\"--sadly--\"I dread its coming at all.\"\n\n\"Bah! what matters it? And why should it come? I, for one, do not\nwant---- Ah! do not scream so, Jeannette--it is a man--he is hurt.\"\n\nThe man scrambled to his feet, and tried to bow, but his face was\nghastly.\n\n\"I beg your--pardon----\"\n\n\"You are hurt, monsieur. Do not try to apologise. Jeannette, help\nhim to the house. Follow me.\"\n\nThe man leant on Jeannette's stout shoulder, and followed the\nstately little figure through the sunny, twisting paths, sweet and\nrich with their wealth of roses, up to the old ch\u00e2teau with its\nnarrow windows gleaming in the sunshine.\n\n\"Here, Jeannette,\" said the little mistress of the roses and the\nch\u00e2teau. \"Monsieur, you will rest on the sofa.\"\n\nHe obeyed the wave of the small white hand and lay down.\n\n\"Jeannette, send for Dr. Raunay.\"\n\nJeannette departed.\n\nThe man opened his blue eyes.\n\n\"I am so sorry----\"\n\n\"You must not speak,\" eyeing him with grave, dark eyes. \"You will\nkeep quiet till the doctor comes.\"\n\nHe submitted.\n\nJeannette returned immediately.\n\n\"Are you thirsty?\" asked his little hostess gently.\n\n\"No--thank you.\"\n\n\"You want for nothing?\"\n\n\"No, thank you.\"\n\nShe sat down and waited.\n\nThen later--\"Jeannette, lower the blinds. Make no noise.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" said the man.\n\n\"Do not speak!\"--frowning.\n\nHe smiled a little.\n\n\"Mamzelle, suppose he dies?\"\n\n\"Jeannette, how _dare_ you?\"\n\n\"But his face is white; and\"--her suspicions bursting out--\"how came\nhe to fall into mamzelle's garden?\"\n\n\"Jeannette, leave the room!\"\n\n\"That I will not! No, I will not! Jeannette knows what is owing to\nher mistress, and to leave----\"\n\n\"Well, well\"--quickly--\"but do not dare to utter another word.\"\n\nJeannette mumbled rebelliously, but retired to a corner vanquished.\n\nThe man opened his eyes as a soft wave of air was wafted across his\nface.\n\nA pair of soft, dark eyes looked down pityingly into his.\n\nHe shut his own with a murmured word of thanks, and let her fan him.\nJeannette came ponderously across the room.\n\n\"Mamzelle, it is not fitting----\"\n\n\"Did I not forbid you to speak?\" said the haughty young voice.\n\n\"Yes, but Jeannette knows what is due to mamzelle, and----\"\n\n\"Mademoiselle also knows.\"\n\nSomething in the tone stopped the old servant's words, and once more\nshe retired vanquished.\n\nThe man smiled to himself.\n\nDr. Raunay came and pronounced a bad sprain of the left arm to be\nthe only injury the man had received.\n\nThe doctor's sharp, black eyes were full of questions, but\nMademoiselle St\u00e9phanie met his gaze calmly, indifferently, and he\ndared not put one question into words.\n\n\"Monsieur, of course, will be our guest,\" she said when the doctor\nhad taken his departure.\n\nThe man reddened slowly under his tan.\n\n\"I--really----\" He raised himself on his right elbow.\n\nJeannette eyed him with sharp suspicion.\n\n\"Of course, you will stay,\" said mademoiselle, with her little\nimperious air.\n\n\"But I am quite well enough to go to an inn----\"\n\n\"There is not one within five miles, and that--well----\" A little\nexpressive wave of the small hands and a whimsical smile finished\nher sentence.\n\n\"I do not like to trespass----\"\n\n\"It is not trespassing,\" with pretty warmth; \"indeed, monsieur, you\nmust accept of our hospitality.\"\n\n\"Then thank you very much.\"\n\n\"And--your luggage? Is it with friends? They will be anxious--we\nwill send----\"\n\nShe was too courteous to ask with whom he was staying. Yet she\nwondered much, for, beyond poor cottages, there were no dwellings\nwithin many miles of Ancelles.\n\n\"I am alone,\" he answered; \"I have walked from B---- to-day.\"\n\nJeannette snorted. She plainly did not believe him. B---- was thirty\nand more miles distant. The suspicion in her stare grew deeper.\n\n\"Oh,\" said St\u00e9phanie.\n\n\"My luggage----\" He hesitated; yet what could he do without it?\n\"It is only a small bag--it is--er--outside your garden wall,\" he\nfinished desperately.\n\n\"Jeannette, please see that it is fetched at once.\"\n\nNo faintest spark of surprise appeared in his hostess's small face.\nShe seemed quite used to having strangers tumble over her wall into\nher garden, quite used to luggage being left outside the wall.\n\nThe man was distinctly amused, but he was touched too.\n\nAn old manservant, with a faint, indescribable old-world air, that\nfitted in with the ch\u00e2teau and the garden and the roses somehow,\nbrought food to the stranger, and, after he had eaten, showed him to\nhis room.\n\nThe stranger looked round him with interest.\n\nIt was a large apartment, large and bare and old--but everything at\nAncelles was old.\n\nBut the curtains to the bed, faded now, had once been rich and\nhandsome. The tapestry across the door of a smaller room leading\nfrom the other, was still beautiful though worn with age.\n\nHugh Michelhurst shivered a little as he stood there, in the dim,\ndark, old-world chamber. There was something pathetic in the tale it\ntold of bygone splendour, something sad and forlorn.\n\nThen his eye fell on a bowl of vivid red roses standing on his\ndressing-table, and he smiled.\n\nThey at least were not old. Their splendour was undimmed. There was\nnothing faded in their fresh, glowing beauty; and who had put them\nthere?\n\nHe went closer; he bent over them and drank in their sweet scent.\nAnd as he did it the old, sunny garden rose before him again. The\nlittle twisting paths, the roses so thick and luxuriant that they\ntrespassed forward from their beds; the old broken fountain, with\nthe water nymph bending eternally in graceful readiness to dive, and\namongst them--the roses, the sunshine, the queer paths, and the old\nfountain--the little mistress of them all, slim, childish, with soft\ndark eyes, with pretty lips made for laughter, with the sun caught\nin the waves of her brown hair. His hands wandered gently over the\nroses as he stood and thought what a gracious little hostess she\nwas! How sweetly she had welcomed him, asking no questions!\n\nA wave of colour surged over his white face.\n\nBut he smiled as he sank down on to a chair.\n\nHis entry into the sweet, old-world garden had been supremely\nridiculous. Moreover, he was terribly ashamed of himself as well as\nrueful.\n\nBut his sense of humour was strong enough to save either feeling\nfrom overpowering him. His arm began to pain him badly again. He\nshut his lips tightly and sat still.\n\nOutside he heard a gay young voice. \"It is a pity, Jeannette, that\nthe sun does not shine into his room now. See how glorious is its\nsetting to-night.\"\n\nA pause.\n\nHugh Michelhurst guessed how the pause was filled by his little\nhostess's mocking answer:\n\n\"Why, Jeannette, how cross you are! And, anyway, in the morning the\nsun will wake him.\"\n\n\"It may rain, mamzelle.\"\n\n\"Rain?\" with a little burst of prettiest laughter. \"Why, where are\nyour eyes, Jeannette? Rain? With that sky--that sunset? All, no!\nEven _ma tante_ would not say that, and she always predicts rain,\nyou know.\"\n\n\"It is her rheumatism, mamzelle; she feels it in her bones.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" carelessly. \"Jeannette, he will need assistance--how careless\nI am! It is that I am so unused to entertaining a guest, and yet\nonce Ancelles was noted for its hospitality----\"\n\nThe pretty voice died away into the distance, and a few minutes\nlater there was a discreet tap at the stranger's door, and the faded\nold manservant appeared, and, with an air, offered monsieur his\nhumble services.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTwo mornings had St\u00e9phanie's prophecy been fulfilled. Two mornings\nthe sun had wakened her guest, and now he was wondering if he dared\nstay and let it wake him a third.\n\n\"Madame ma tante\" had put in an appearance once. She had welcomed\nthe stranger with a stiff yet courteous stateliness that was as\nold-worldly as the garden and the ch\u00e2teau and everything pertaining\nthereto.\n\nShe was a confirmed invalid, and, till she sallied forth to welcome\nher niece's guest (Ancelles belonged to St\u00e9phanie), had not left her\nroom for nearly two years.\n\nHugh Michelhurst was duly presented, and made a favourable\nimpression on \"Madame ma tante.\" In half an hour the impression had\nfaded. In an hour it was gone. \"Madame ma tante\" had forgotten his\nexistence.\n\nHe was sitting now on the old, worn steps leading to the second\nterrace. His right arm rested on the step above, close by his\nhostess's dainty little feet.\n\nThe air was sunny and warm, and sweet with the scent of roses.\n\nHe wondered dreamily what had become of the world----\n\n[Illustration: She smiled softly at his words.\n\nG. G. Manton]\n\nA little breeze came and scattered the rose leaves in her lap--the\nsoft, fragrant heap that she had gathered for _pot-pourri_--and\nroused the man.\n\nHe stooped to gather them up, but she stayed him.\n\n\"There are plenty more,\" she said.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said; \"what a lovely old garden it is!\"\n\nHe watched the pink deepen in her cheek, and the little dimples come\nand go as she smiled softly at his words.\n\nThen he sighed.\n\n\"My arm is better,\" he said. \"I\"--doubtfully--\"must go to-day.\"\n\n\"Must you? Will you not stay a little longer? It\"--wistfully--\"is\nnice to have a guest.\"\n\nHe looked up at her with his blue eyes full of love.\n\n\"It is good of you to say so,\" he said earnestly.\n\n\"Ancelles cannot offer much,\" she said, with a little stately air,\n\"but it offers you a true welcome, monsieur, and one that will never\nfail you so long as you will stay with us.\"\n\n\"I have never,\" he said slowly, \"had such a true welcome before.\"\n\nHis eyes made her restless.\n\nShe crushed the rose leaves in her hand, and scattered them abroad.\n\nHe picked them up and kept them.\n\n\"Do you never wonder,\" he said, \"how I came to fall into your\ngarden?\"\n\n\"We are only glad that monsieur so fell, except for the sprained\narm,\" answered the little mistress of Ancelles.\n\n\"I heard your voice,\" he said, looking up into her face. \"I stood\nand listened, and then--I wanted to see the owner of the voice, and\nI climbed to the top of the wall and then--I fell.\"\n\n\"I thought only schoolboys behaved so,\" she said, but her pretty\nlips parted and her eyes smiled, in spite of herself.\n\n\"If I had been a schoolboy I should not have fallen.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because a schoolboy does not lose his head as I did, mademoiselle.\"\n\n\"And your footing, monsieur.\"\n\n\"The one was an outcome of the other.\"\n\nShe looked away across the sweet, smiling sunshine.\n\n\"Monsieur\"--suddenly bending her gaze upon his face--\"how came you\nto lose your head?\"\n\nHe glanced at her in swift surprise. He was no chicken-heart, yet\nsomething in the proud little face made him hesitate.\n\nBut he was proud, too.\n\n\"Because directly my eyes fell upon you I loved you,\" he said\nsteadily.\n\nSt\u00e9phanie started to her feet.\n\n\"Monsieur, you outrage my hospitality,\" she said haughtily.\n\nHe got up and faced her.\n\n\"Never!\" he cried. \"I did not mean to say it--yet, but----\"\n\n\"You insult me, monsieur!\"\n\n\"Pardon me, mademoiselle\"--his tone was cool as hers now--\"but the\noffer of a man's heart and home can never be an insult!\"\n\n\"An honour, perhaps?\" mockingly.\n\n\"It is at least his best, mademoiselle.\"\n\n\"And seemly within a two-days' acquaintanceship, monsieur?\"\n\nHer pride, the haughty little smile curling her pretty lip, maddened\nhim.\n\nHe bent towards her.\n\n\"Seemly or unseemly,\" he said in low, tense tones, \"you shall love\nme!\"\n\nHer dark eyes flashed.\n\n\"I shall not, monsieur!\" she cried, and shut her small teeth closely.\n\nWith a haughty inclination of her pretty head, she left him--left\nhim amongst the roses, in the sunshine, but cold at heart at what he\nhad done.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHe wooed her persistently. He was persistent by nature, and all his\nlife he had never wanted anything as he wanted her. He bore the\ndiscomforts of the little inn without a murmur, and every day the\nroses on the little twisting paths found him among them.\n\nMademoiselle was proud and cold; mademoiselle was proud and\nmocking, proud and wilful, proud and laughing, proud and\nnon-comprehending--every mood in the world, one after another, was\nmademoiselle, but proud always--proud with them all. And at last he\nlost heart.\n\nSo there came a day when the scent of the roses sickened him, when\nthe twisting paths maddened him, and he stood before the little\nmistress of them all, white, stern, beaten.\n\n\"I have come to say good-bye,\" he said, and the tone of his voice\nhad changed.\n\n\"Good-bye?\" she repeated, and she gave him her hand without another\nword.\n\n\"I would like to thank you for your kindness to me,\" he said dully;\n\"but--well, perhaps some day you will understand what I feel now. I\nknow you are too good for me. I don't see why you should ever have\ncared for me; but oh! my little St\u00e9phanie, you are just all the\nworld to me----\"\n\nHis voice broke, and he turned away down one of the little sunny\npaths. But there amongst the roses love came to him at last; for\nSt\u00e9phanie, with a sudden radiance in her face which sent all the\npride away, ran after him, and he, seeing the radiance, straightway\ntook her into his arms, and the scent of the roses grew sweet to him\nagain.\n\nAnd all the explanation mademoiselle ever saw fit to give of her\nmany unkind moods was--\"You were so masterful, monsieur. You\nhammered out love, love, love, and 'you must,' and 'you shall'--till\nthat day--then you wooed me as I would that I should be wooed.\"\n\nAnd he, remembering the words he had overheard when he stood beneath\nthe garden wall, smiled and thought he understood.\n\nNot all peace was his wooing even now.\n\nHis little mistress still had her moods, and was tantalisingly chary\nof her soft words and caresses. Moreover, she possessed a will\nthat had never been thwarted, and she did not understand the words\n\"shall\" and \"must,\" never having had them said to her.\n\nSo that, sweet as he found his wooing, at times his brow grew dark;\nfor he too had a strong will, and it irked him to have to make it\ngive way to hers.\n\nAnd at last there came a matter in which he would not yield, and so\nthey parted.\n\nFor mademoiselle declared that always must Ancelles be her home.\n\n\"When you are my wife,\" he said, \"you must come with me to my house\nin town--in London, you know. What a change it will be for you,\n_petite_!\"\n\nAnd then mademoiselle, her eyes kindling, declared that never would\nshe live elsewhere than at Ancelles.\n\nHe was aghast. For to a man, strong of limb and strong of brain, the\nlife that was a dream amongst the roses could not suffice.\n\nIn vain he urged his views upon her. She rebelled against his tone\nof authority. At last she stood before him with head erect, and\neyes that flashed on him from under their long lashes.\n\n\"Choose,\" she said peremptorily: \"London or me.\"\n\n\"But, child, hear me----\"\n\n\"I will not hear you. Pray choose at once.\"\n\n\"I would have both----\"\n\nWith a little scornful laugh she bade him begone.\n\n\"St\u00e9phanie----\"\n\nShe waved her white hand towards the gates of Ancelles.\n\n\"You have chosen. Adieu!\"\n\nShe turned away with a scornful smile on her lips.\n\nHe sprang forward.\n\n\"St\u00e9phanie, you must--you _shall_ give way to me in this----\"\n\nHer small hand clenched.\n\n\"Monsieur, allow me to pass!\"\n\nHe stood aside.\n\n\"You will repent,\" he said.\n\nFor an instant she turned her great eyes dark with pride on him.\n\n\"_Never!_\" she said, and walked away.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAt Ancelles the roses still blossomed, the sun still shone, though\nnot so hotly, on the little twisting paths, the water nymph still\nbent gracefully for her dive, and amongst them all flitted their\nlittle mistress. In and out, gayer, more restless, swifter of foot\nthan even of yore, she wended her way--a laugh ever on her lips,\nmerry words tripping from her tongue, and hovering near--Jeannette.\n\n\"Life is good, Jeannette,\" cried mademoiselle, and gaily she made\nherself a crown of roses.\n\n\"Life with love--yes, mamzelle,\" murmured Jeannette, for she was\ngetting desperate over the problem as to how long a young girl could\nlive eating nothing, or next to nothing.\n\n\"Love? Bah! Jeannette, what an old sentimentalist you are!\"\n\nYet Jeannette had heard the sharp, indrawn breath that preceded the\nmocking words.\n\nAnd why did mamzelle have to rest half-way up to her room now?\n\nJeannette had seen her again and again, yet never with\nmademoiselle's knowledge.\n\nFor if Jeannette were with her, then, setting her little white teeth\nclosely, mademoiselle did the flights of stairs without a pause;\nbut Jeannette saw how the small hand, once so disdainful of the\nbalusters, now clung to the support. She saw how the pretty throat\nthrobbed, how her bosom heaved, and how the colour left her face;\nand, seeing, Jeannette's own face grew grey and lined with care.\n\n\"It is a merry world,\" cried mademoiselle, setting the crown of\nroses on her pretty head, \"and love is superfluous.\"\n\n\"So is pride, mamzelle.\"\n\nUp went the small crowned head.\n\n\"Pride superfluous, Jeannette?\" haughtily. \"Nay, it is but proper\nand right for those of Ancelles.\"\n\nJeannette moistened her dry lips.\n\n\"It can be bought too dearly, mamzelle.\"\n\n\"I--do not understand, Jeannette. Surely you are forgetting\nyourself?\"\n\nThe eyes were dangerous, the lips haughty, but Jeannette's love for\nher charge overcame the long reserve and terror of those last months.\n\n\"Mamzelle, mamzelle, listen to me! He is a good man, and he loves\nyou well. Without him you will pine a----\"\n\n\"Pine, Jeannette? _Pine?_\" Suddenly she caught the old servant's\nwrists between her small, hot hands. \"Jeannette,\" she whispered\npassionately, \"never speak so again! Do you hear? _I_ pine--_I!_ Am\nI sad, Jeannette? Answer me! Are my spirits low?\"\n\n\"N--no, mamzelle.\"\n\n\"Do I not work and read and play as always?\"\n\n\"Y--yes, mamzelle.\"\n\n\"Do I ever droop?\"\n\n\"No----\"\n\n\"Or sigh?\"\n\n\"No----\"\n\n\"Or weep?\"\n\n\"No----\"\n\n\"Then what made you speak so, Jeannette?\"\n\n\"I--I do not know, mamzelle.\"\n\nSt\u00e9phanie dropped her wrist. Her eyes were burning, her cheeks\nflushed.\n\n\"Then never dare to speak so again,\" she said, and turned haughtily\naway.\n\nAnd almost directly she burst into a gay little song; and Jeannette,\nstanding listening, felt the slow tears of age dropping one by one\ndown her cheeks.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn London Hugh Michelhurst shouldered his way amongst the busy\nthrong in Piccadilly, and in the fog his thoughts turned to the old\nsunny garden at Ancelles. He sighed, then frowned as if such sighing\ndispleased him. His mouth took a bitter curve as his thoughts\nwandered back to the last time he had stood on the little sunny\npaths amongst the roses, with St\u00e9phanie at his side.\n\n[Illustration: G. G. Manton\n\nShe turned away with a scornful smile.]\n\nPerhaps it was because his thoughts so often wandered in that\ndirection that his face seemed to have grown harder, his mouth\nsterner.\n\n\"Four months!\" he murmured, \"twelve months in a year--say, forty\nyears--long years! Forty years like these last four months!\"\n\n\"Forty years, forty years!\" rang mockingly in his ears.\n\nSuddenly he paused.\n\n\"Forty or a hundred, I will never give in!\" he said, and his mouth\nlooked almost cruel in its set sternness.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSpring had come. A soft, warm, early spring that brought all the\ntender flowers peeping out before their time.\n\nAnd in the warm, trying spring Hugh Michelhurst fell ill of a low\nfever.\n\nAt the end of May he rose from his sick bed, and refused to be an\ninvalid any longer.\n\nBut his strength was gone from him.\n\nOne day he walked out into the country, and his love was strong\non him, so that he bowed his head, and felt weak as a child. And\nsuddenly a scent was wafted to him on the breeze. He stood and\nlifted his head to meet it, and his face worked. On a little cottage\nred roses glowed before their time. He had seen none since he was in\nthe old garden at Ancelles. He stretched out his arms. \"I give in,\"\nhe said, and he turned and retraced his steps the way he had come.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn a little sunny path amongst the roses he found her.\n\n\"My darling--my darling--I will live here always--only live with\nme----\"\n\nHis voice broke; he could say no more.\n\nWith a little fond cry she nestled close to him.\n\n\"No, no,\" she whispered, \"I will come away to your London as you\nwish.\"\n\nThey sat on the steps leading to the second terrace, and the water\nnymph seemed to smile down on them as she bent to take her dive.\nThey sat side by side, and mademoiselle's pretty head rested against\nhis shoulder.\n\n[Illustration: G. G. Manton\n\nWith a little cry she nestled close to him.]\n\n\"But, _petite_, you love your home so----\"\n\n\"My home is wherever you are, monsieur.\"\n\n\"You did not think so once, _ch\u00e9rie_.\"\n\n\"Ah! but then you were 'shall' and 'must'\"--pouting--\"and now--now\nyou are different.\"\n\nHe smiled tenderly. He thought he understood now.\n\n\"We will live part of the year here and part in London. There, my\nlittle one--will that do?\"\n\n\"Ah, yes, perfectly!\"\n\n\"Come now for a little walk,\" he said, for he had something in his\nmind.\n\nHe stopped in one of the twisting paths down which they had so often\nwandered, and looked at the old ch\u00e2teau.\n\n\"That ivy is too thick to be healthy,\" he said, \"but\" (sighing),\n\"you like it--it must stop.\"\n\nNow that same ivy had been the cause of their biggest quarrel before\nthat last biggest one of all.\n\n\"It shall be cut,\" cried mademoiselle, smiling up at him, \"and at\nonce!\"\n\nHe looked down into her eyes adoringly.\n\nThe scent of the roses wrapped them round with softest sweetness.\n\nHe smiled at her tenderly.\n\nYes, he understood now. He had found the way to rule her.\n\n\n\n\nGREAT ANNIVERSARIES.\n\n_IN APRIL._\n\n\nApril claims an anniversary which all Englishmen are presumed to\nhonour. April 23rd is St. George's Day, and St. George is the patron\nsaint of England. Yet he was not, so far as we know, an Englishman.\nHe is said to have been a centurion in the army of Diocletian, and\nto have been roasted alive for pulling down a copy of the decree\nordering the infamous persecution associated with Diocletian's name.\nThat distinction is disputed in the interests of another person; but\nthe fact remains that St. George was held in conspicuous honour by\nthe early Church. His particular place as the patron of the English\ndates from the Crusades. The story of George and the Dragon has no\nrelation to the incident which couples him to the English. Some\nauthorities have identified this St. George with a certain George\nof Cappadocia, Arian Bishop of Alexandria; but Mr. Baring-Gould\nrejects with indignation the proposal to confound the patron saint\nof England with a heretic. We are on the ground, not of legend, but\nof history, in recalling St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, who\nwas born about 1033. His day is April 21st.\n\n[Illustration: (_Photo: A. F. Colbourne, Canterbury._)\n\nST. ANSELM'S CHAPEL, CANTERBURY.]\n\n[Illustration: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.\n\n(_The Stratford-on-Avon Portrait._)]\n\n[Illustration: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.\n\n(_From the Tablet in Grasmere Church._)]\n\nSt. George's Day has memories of other people than the legendary\nslayer of the dragon. On April 23rd, 1564, William Shakespeare was\nborn; on April 23rd, 1616, he died. These, then, are anniversaries\nwhich cannot be overlooked by any person who values literature. Our\npride is qualified by the thought that all the world of intelligence\nhas taken hold of Shakespeare; he is the possession of educated\nmankind. Cervantes does not come of our stock, but in passing it may\nbe permitted to remember that he died on the same day of the same\nyear as Shakespeare. It was on St. George's Day, 1850, too, that\nWilliam Wordsworth, poet laureate, died. The body of John Keble, the\npoet of the Oxford Movement, was laid to rest in Hursley churchyard\non April 6th, 1866. He was deeply influenced by Wordsworth, but\nhis name still more definitely suggests another English poet--the\nsaintly George Herbert. He, too, belongs to this month, for he was\nborn on April 3rd, 1593.\n\n[Illustration: GEORGE HERBERT.]\n\n[Illustration: ROBERT RAIKES.]\n\nGeorge Herbert was related to Lord Herbert of Cherbury, whose\nfriends included Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury, one of the most\ndistinguished of English philosophers. Hobbes was born on April 5th,\n1588. The philosophy afterwards associated with the names of Locke,\nHume, and Priestley owed much to Hobbes. Hume himself--philosopher,\nhistorian, and servant of the State--was born at Edinburgh on April\n26th, 1711. Charles Darwin, philosopher and naturalist, died this\nmonth (April 19th, 1882). Few Englishmen have attained to wider\nfame; few have ever more profoundly influenced human thought.\n\n[Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.]\n\nRobert Raikes, in virtue of his work in prisons and his share in the\nfoundation of Sunday schools, deserves long to be held in memory.\nBorn at Gloucester, he died there suddenly on April 5th, 1811. Could\nRaikes have looked into the future, with what astonishment and joy\nhe would have marked the development in the extent and spirit of\nthis work, which is indicated by the existence of THE QUIVER Medal\nFund and its rewards to veteran Sunday-school workers! A more modern\nand a greater philanthropist also belongs to April. Anthony Ashley\nCooper, seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, was born in Grosvenor Square\non April 28th, 1801. In and out of Parliament, with a zeal which\nno opposition and no disappointment could repress, \"the good Earl\"\nworked for the cause of the oppressed, the poor, the sick, the\nsinful. He did much directly; perhaps more by the stimulus of his\nexample.\n\n[Illustration: THE LATE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY.\n\n(_Photo: Russell & Sons, Baker Street, W._)]\n\nOf institutions associated with the month of April, the Royal\nAcademy is one of the most conspicuous. The Society of Incorporated\nArtists held their first exhibition at the Society of Arts, Adelphi,\non April 21st, 1760. From this there sprang the Royal Academy. The\nfirst exhibition of the Academicians was held in Pall Mall on April\n26th, 1769. The British Museum has its association with this month,\nfor it was on April 5th, 1753, that Parliament granted the sum of\n\u00a320,000 to the daughters of Sir Hans Sloane, in return for the\ncollections which were the basis of the museum's vast treasures.\nThe National Gallery also has its link with April, for it was on\nApril 9th, 1838, that the present building in Trafalgar Square was\ncompleted and opened.\n\nApril has many memories for citizens of the United States. On April\n17th, 1790, died Benjamin Franklin, politician, economist, and\nnatural philosopher; in April, 1861, began the long struggle between\nthe Northern and Southern States; and on April 14th, 1865, Abraham\nLincoln, perhaps the most striking personality hitherto produced by\nthe great democracy, was shot by John Wilkes Booth.\n\n[Illustration: A VIEW OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY.]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: BROUGHT AGAIN FROM THE DEPTHS.]\n\n_AN EASTERTIDE ADDRESS._\n\nBy the Very Rev. W. Lefroy, D.D., Dean of Norwich.\n\n     \"Thou, which hast showed me great and sore troubles, shalt\n  quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of\n     the earth.\"--PSALM lxxi. 20.\n\n\nHuman history had seen but its infancy when the\nannouncement was made that man was \"born unto trouble, as the\nsparks fly upward.\" And ever since the home of the Arab chief was\ndevastated; ever since the day that Job's heart was broken by the\nintelligence of the Sabean slaughter of his sons and daughters,\nfollowed by a conflagration which stripped him of property, and\nmade a pauper of a prince; ever since, the dreary wail of woe rends\nthe air, and the requiem of life sobs and sighs like Eliphaz the\nTemanite, \"Man is born unto trouble.\"\n\nNor can we allow ourselves to question the dictum. The infant's wail\nprecedes the infant's weal. The cry of helplessness is heard in the\ncradle. The child's deep sigh anticipates the child's sweet smile.\nAnd although sunny childhood sometimes passes as if the pitiless law\nof hereditary trouble were suspended, yet no serious thinker can\nhesitate to accept the proposition, that trouble is in the ratio in\nwhich life's meaning and purpose are experienced, or divine love\naccepted and enjoyed. If a man has no trouble, it is because he has\nnot yet practically realised the significance of existence. He is\nstill free from those social, domestic, and personal influences, the\nderangement of any of which brings agony by day and sleeplessness\nby night. Or, again, it may be because he has learnt the loftiest\nand yet the lowliest lesson from his Lord, by accepting the Gospel\nof Gethsemane, \"Thy will be done.\" But excepting the persons so\nclassified by social isolation or spiritual resignation, there is\nnot on earth an exception to the law of the human race being \"born\nunto trouble.\" Yea, more. Constituted as we are, we live in the\npresence of the grim enigma, that the object which gave us the\nhighest joy can give us the most excruciating sorrow. Nor can that\nexistence be anything else than mournful whose happiness or misery\ndepends upon any earthly object.\n\nThis statement may be illustrated by every condition in\nlife--domestic, physical, intellectual. The genius across whose\nmental firmament the lights and shadows of history travelled, and\nby whom they were arrested, analysed, and grouped in their course;\nthe great brain of the great worker whose intrepid excursions into\nthe realms of the past and the present, with a view to tabulating\nthe rise of civilisation--the patient and profound Mr. Buckle, is\nabsorbed by mental enjoyment. He lives, and moves, and has his being\nin men and manners, among maps and manuscripts. He makes a grand\ndiscovery. He keeps the secret for twenty years. He repairs to\nDamascus to recruit for literary service. He is stricken with fever,\nand dies with the words of his intellectuality on his parched lips,\n\"My book, my book! I shall never finish my book!\" Here his highest\njoy was his keenest sorrow. So in physical life. There have been\nmen who seemed at one time as if they were created without nerves.\nTheir arms were brawny, muscular, and mighty. Their limbs were firm\nand fine. They seemed God's highest type of organic life. They\nrejoiced in their strength and in their youth. But disease assailed,\nor dissipation punished, and retribution appeared in feebleness,\nexhaustion, and debility. Youthful feats were forbidden. The sports\nof the past recalled a youth of virtue and purity; and then came\nthe sigh which told that, even physically, the source of our joy\nbecomes the spring of our sorrow. And need I elaborate details to\nestablish the place of this doctrine in domestic life? Do we not\nknow this from the gloomy history of the orphan child, the widowed\nmother, the bereaved sister, brother, friend? You know that to love\ndearly means to have a skeleton in your house. The object of your\nlove causes a thousand smiles to play in your eye, and to break\non your countenance; but the shade of that object is mocking your\nmirth, and is only waiting a few rounds of the clock to compensate\nmirth with misery.\n\nNor is this all. There are sorrows far more terrible than those of\nsickness or the cemetery. A living sorrow defies rivalry. It has a\nfearful pre-eminence in woe. A wayward, wild, debauched youth; an\nestranged husband; an embittered, irascible, worldly wife; a stormy,\nor, what is far worse, a sullen home; these are amongst the darkest\nillustrations of the doctrine, that our sighs are in the track of\nour smiles; our delights become our dangers; yea, it sometimes seems\nas if affection became idiotic, and then, like the raving maniac, we\nlaugh and cry together. So we are \"born to trouble.\" This being so,\nit is important to listen to testimony concerning the remedy which\ntroubled souls have found efficacious. If we have one such man, able\nand willing to give his fellow-sufferers a cure for care, it is\nsurely prudent to hear what he has to say. Accordingly, let me ask\nyou to follow me while I try to establish a cure for all afflicted\nsouls from the experience, conviction, and anticipation of a royal\nmourner. I invite you to come with me to the side of a man like one\nof us. Listen to him struggling up the great altar-stairs of faith\nsustained by love, and, as he peers into the Unseen, he speaks as if\nto one warm with life, charged with ardent sympathy, and he says,\n\"Oh, what troubles and adversities hast Thou shown me; and yet didst\nThou turn and refresh me!\"\n\nThe first step in this study is to be clear as to the nature of\nthe troubles God showed David. There was, then, the personal and\nthe spiritual trouble of backsliding, consequent upon his murder\nof Uriah for his base purpose. And here we must discriminate. The\ntrouble of David about Bathsheba was not sent by God; God permitted\nit; but in the heartless and cold-blooded plot in the tyrannical\ninsolence and diabolical dastardliness of its execution--in the\ncoarse, callous, and criminal height of its succeeding guilty\nrapture--it was of Satan, of sin, of David. For three-quarters of\na year David played fast and loose with God and conscience; and it\nwas when Nathan scared him that God showed him the trouble. Then\ncame anguish, remorse, penitence. Then came the sorrowful sighing of\nthe soul--all the greater in the awakening because it had slept so\nsoundly and so long. Then came that lamentation over lost virtue,\nthe penitential Fifty-first Psalm. It is the expression of a man\nlacerated by conscience. He seems to bleed at every pore. The\nagitation and alarm and agony are piteous beyond description. He\nappears in this psalm to look in every direction, and the ghost of\nhis crime haunts him. Within, without, above, below, behind, beyond,\nhe can see the furies of justice as the embassied troublers of his\nlife. Original depravity, actual outrage, a heart black with the\nEgyptian darkness of fostered treachery, the warrior slaughtered\nby his mandate, the blood-guiltiness staining his soul, and then\nthe wail ringing in the ears of God, \"Cast me not away from Thy\npresence; and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me\"--all these may be\ncompared to a spiritual chamber of horrors, in which David found\nhimself after the startling visit of Nathan.\n\nThese were some of the troubles God showed him. And their cause\nintroduced more of a domestic, not to say of a political, kind. The\nsin brought scandal and reproach on the Church of God. The enemies\nblasphemed. Then Jehovah, vindicating His character for justice\nbefore the world, avenging the atrocious murder of Uriah, sent a\nseries of domestic afflictions upon David unparalleled in human\nexperience. One scene--a nameless scene--has its miserable match\nin the brutal bestiality of the Empire, when the sceptre of Rome\nwas in the hands of a corpse. But the other experiences are easily\nrelated. They are as the outcome of a curse which hung heavily on\nthe royal house. Amnon, the eldest son, was slain by young Absalom,\nwho waited two years for an opportunity. This severed Absalom from\nhome for three years. He then, by a singular artifice, returned,\nand won the hearts of the people by his consummate and accomplished\naddress, his handsome presence, and adroit demeanour. His aged\nand royal father's statesmen proved false to the king, and one in\nparticular advised the murder of David and a revolution. At length\nthe conspiracy grew in defiance and dimension. David was obliged\nto flee from the capital. His flight was far more humiliating than\nthat of the French emperor from Paris. Napoleon had not to mourn\nover the treason of his son as the cause of his exile. This was\nDavid's anguish. He ascended the Mount of Olives and looked back\nupon the city of palaces he had founded and ornamented--the seat\nfor a generation of his power, his glory, his happiness. He was\nleaving it a miserable fugitive, driven forth by the nation he had\nestablished and the child he had reared. He could not, he did not,\ndisguise his sorrow. With bared head and uncovered feet the exile\nbegan his pilgrimage, and every step the old king took recalled the\ncrime and sin of earlier years, while it remained for one Shimei\nto load him with the bitterest and most contemptuous execrations.\nThen came the crisis. Such of the army as remained loyal engaged in\nbattle with the revolutionary forces attracted to Absalom. David\nbegged that his unhappy son might be spared in the conflict. The war\nbegan and issued in the success of the royalists. The first question\nof the venerable monarch was, \"Is the young man Absalom safe?\"\nHe then learnt that order was re-established, but at the cost of\nAbsalom's life. He was accidentally hanged, and while hanging he was\nspeared by David's commander-in-chief.\n\nThese are amongst the troubles--political, domestic, and\nspiritual--which God permitted to fall upon David; and yet this\nvery David has courage amid the havoc of holiness, the misery of\nexile, the torture of outraged parental affection, and political\ninsurrection. That courageous confidence is in a person: he\nrealises God. This conviction is unshaken amid his chequered life\nand history; indeed, all through the din of revolution, the grief\nof a homeless and worse than childless existence, there is one\never-recurring belief: \"God my help,\" \"God my refuge,\" \"God my\nshield.\" In this belief he brings back to God every trouble God\nsent to him. Hence we have these psalms, written by David, as agony\nafter agony swept in upon his soul. Nor did it seem to signify how\ndifferent one sorrow might be from another. The old cry, the same\ncry, is raised to a personal God. When Saul sought his life through\njealousy; when Jonathan was slain in battle; when he himself had\nfallen into sin, and then was aroused--now by the whisperings of\nreclaiming grace, now by the booming billows of divine justice; when\nhe bowed his head in shame, and the fierce light that beat about\nhis court gleamed on his dark soul; when he tottered up the heights\nof Olivet, an impotent outcast, betrayed by his courtiers, deserted\nby his troops, and exiled by the unnatural rebellion and heartless\nperfidy of his son--in these experiences, so fearful, overwhelming,\nand varied, he saw God showing him the trouble. As the hand that\nsent it was ever the same, so from the heart that received it there\narose ever and anon the same plea--\"Have mercy upon me, O Lord\";\n\"Make haste to help me\"; \"O Lord, make no long tarrying\"; \"I am\npoor and needy\"; \"O be not Thou far from me, for trouble is near\nat hand.\" And then, as if realising the apostasy, desertion, and\nfaithlessness of his friends and forces, he adds, \"There is none to\nhelp.\"\n\nWe know how these earnest and anxious entreaties were heard: \"Thou\ndidst turn and refresh me\"; \"Through Thee have I been holden up\never since I was born\"; \"My mouth shall speak of Thy salvation\nall the day long; for I know no end thereof.\" But further.\nThis acknowledgment of God as a \"very present help in trouble\"\nis followed by a prophecy, and that of nothing less than the\nresurrection--\"Thou shalt bring me up again from the depths of the\nearth\"; so that David's sorrow, when brought humbly and heartily\nto God, was followed by divine refreshment then, and hope of\nresurrection hereafter. And a well-founded hope it was, because the\ntrouble sent by God produced a grand moral result when laid before\nHim Who sent it. It had a purifying influence which made his mind\nspeed on to the resurrection day. In its anticipation he was but\nyielding to the influence of a life higher than that he lived before\nhis sorrow, and which sought enjoyment and exercise loftier and\nstill loftier. This he, by faith, foresaw, in the anticipation of\nthat rest to which his trouble sent him, and for the appreciation of\nwhich his trouble purified him.\n\nSo we have here in the spiritual world an instructive and\nencouraging illustration of what frequently occurs in the physical.\nWe have purification by pain; refreshment out of ruin. So have I\nseen this grand law asserting the governance of its God in those\nAlpine crags on which the stars seem to pause. There on those\nstorm-scalped peaks the climber feasts on the panorama spread by\nGod's own hand, in winding river, sapphire lake, everlasting hill,\nsentinelled by a forest of pines, dressed in the matchless sombre\nof Alpine green or shrouded by the spotless snows of heaven. I have\nwitnessed the troubles of the atmosphere. The bursting rain-cloud\nhangs low, the light recedes, the darkness deepens, the wind moans;\nand then the full-toned thunder roars, and the long lines of fire,\nangular and electric, leap from fissures in the firmament. The\nartillery of the elements is deafening, and its echoes rumble\nin the distance like the mutterings of imprisoned spirits. The\nstorm is over. The calm succeeds. The clouds become brighter and\nbrighter still. The sun peeps out here and there in a rift of the\nheavens. The air is fresh and keen and pure. The vegetation is\nbright and green. The rivulets and mountain torrents ripple and rush\nrejoicing. As we see this, we are reminded of the analogies of God's\ngovernment; yea, if we could put a preacher on every peak, a tongue\nin every valley, Nature would minister to grace, and from each would\ncome the response of the royal poet to the call of God. The world\nphysical would raise the ecstatic antiphon to the world spiritual:\n\"O what great troubles and adversities hast Thou showed me, and yet\ndidst Thou turn and refresh me!\"\n\nBut these words have a still richer meaning in their bearing upon\nthe religious fortunes of the Hebrew race, the Messianic glory of\nthe Redeemer, and the present and future position of His believing\npeople. I believe that Israel's troubles are to issue in Israel's\nrefreshment, and even in national resurrection. Her captivities\nand dispersions, her degradation and exile, are but the preludes\nto her rise, return, and splendour. God has sworn it; His word is\nbound to it. His promise is as certain as though it were performed.\nBut we may merely mention this as a conviction, in order to pass\non and recognise in these words the history of Jesus Christ. From\nthat cradle and cottage home; from that carpenter's bench where\nHe toiled; from that country, with its hills and dales, and lanes\nand lakes, where He preached; from the Temple which He glorified\nand abrogated; from the cross where He died; from the tomb which\nHe vacated; from the throne of mediation, where He sympathises,\nintercedes and governs; from earth below, and heaven above, the\nvoice of Jesus sounds o'er land and sea, filling angelic souls with\nadoration, and human hearts with hope, announcing, \"O what great\ntroubles and adversities hast Thou showed Me!\" He was betrayed,\ndespised, and rejected. He looked for some to have pity on Him,\nbut there was no man; neither found He any to comfort Him. He was\nmaligned and misunderstood. The malice of His enemies omitted but\none sin in their resolve to blacken His character, and it remained\nfor the patronising blasphemy of Renan to insinuate that one as\npossible. He was accused of deceit, though infallible; He was\nslandered as a drunkard, though immaculate; yea, the detraction\nof His foes did not spare Him the agony of being charged with the\ncommission of a sin as disgusting as it is brutal--that of gluttony.\nHe was arraigned as a felon, and died as an impostor. But beyond\nall was the sin of which these were but the symptoms. This was the\ntrouble, \"great and sore,\" which God showed Him. This was the agony\nof agonies to the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. Its fell pressure\nis the meaning of the tradition that Jesus was often seen to weep,\nbut never once to smile. To this trouble we trace the overpowering\nexperiences of the fainting, prostrate Christ in the garden; of\nthe wailing and woe-bearing Christ on the cross. Yet there was the\nrefreshment; there was behind it all the unchangeable love of God\nthe Father--\"Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down\nMy Life that I might take it again.\" There was the satisfaction of\nHis soul, in saving the race He died to redeem by representation;\nthere was, above all, the guarantee of that redemption in being\nbrought \"from the depths of the earth again.\"\n\nAnd if we were to follow the history of His Church, that history\nwould be a living commentary on the experience of David and of\nDavid's Lord: divinely sent trouble, divinely sought and divinely\nsent refreshment, issuing in spiritual resurrection. Is not this\nthe account many have to give of sorrow, succour, and salvation?\nYou were weak: you are now strong. You were \"choked with cares,\"\nand sought relief in a flood of tears: you are now able to leave\nthe burden of your cares with Him Who \"careth for you\"; while your\neyes, once red with agony, are now bright with praise, gratitude,\nand hope. Remembering what you were, and now recognising what you\nare, you may adopt the language of David, \"I am become a wonder\nunto many, but my sure trust is in Thee\"; or, taking a fuller view\nand a finer tone, you will ring out the litany of deliverance, and\nchant the song of praise and blessing, \"O what great troubles and\nadversities has Thou showed me; and yet didst Thou turn and refresh\nme.\"\n\nThis present refreshment is a prophecy of future resurrection. It\nleads all the afflicted children of God on to the grand climax in\nsin, sorrow, and all the trouble to which we are born. Then the cup\nof universal affliction shall be full. The waters of our pilgrimage\nshall be sweetened, and changed into the bright, clear, rosy wine of\nimmortality. Then farewell, sorrow; farewell, weakness; agony, ache,\ndesolation, and sin, we bid you a final and a glad farewell. Then\nshall rise upon this scene of change and uncertainty, where pain\nand pleasure are so intermingled and combined, the sun that knows\nno setting, the everlasting day that knows no night. Then shall the\nchildren of God, the \"children of the resurrection,\" gathered from\nevery known and unknown region, race, and age, rise to the rapture\nof the saints, and, defying the immeasurable weight of all the\nocean's pressure--for the sea shall give up its dead--shattering\nthe manacles with which corruption had long bound the germ of\nincorruption, they shall \"in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,\"\ngreet the Saviour Who loved them, with a greeting worthy the Lamb\nthat was slain; worthy the grandest event in the annals of earth\nand heaven; while high above the din of the last crash of worlds,\nyea, louder than the storm which marches on the ruins of creation,\nshall rise the anthem of royal and even wretched and relieved\nexperience--\"Thou hast brought me from the depths of the earth\nagain.\"\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: FOR THE SAKE OF HER CHILD]\n\nBy Scott Graham, Author of \"The Link between Them,\" Etc.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\n_The Pity of It._\n\n\nOn Saturday night, in that same week, Harold sallied\nforth at dusk, with a bulky brown-paper parcel under his arm,\ncontaining a pair of boots which he was taking by stealth to a\nhumble cobbler in a back alley to mend.\n\nJust because he fervently desired not to meet anybody he knew, as he\nturned a corner he almost ran into the arms of May Burnside; who,\non seeing him, appeared confused. He stopped and tried to conceal\nhis parcel as well as he could, whilst talking volubly; and May\nstammered and fidgeted, like one detected in a guilty enterprise.\nHer aunt had that day presented her with half-a-crown; and, wishing\nto make a frock for Doris, she was on her way to buy some wonderful\nmaterial she had seen marked fourpence three-farthings in a cheap,\ncommon shop she would not have cared to enter by daylight. Miss\nWaller would have fainted at the idea of her niece being seen going\ninto Whittaker's, where everything was ticketed \"Alarming Sacrifice!\"\n\nSo, the boots weighing on his uneasy conscience, and the fourpence\nthree-farthings on hers, they continued to blush and stammer until\nHarold summoned up courage to say that it was rather late, and, if\nMrs. Burnside was going home, he would escort her, if she wished.\n\nShe hesitated, loth to lose the chance of bargain, and then said--\n\n\"My aunt is dining out, so I need not hurry back; and I wanted to\ngo to a shop--Whittaker's, do you know it? I buy rubbish there\noccasionally.\"\n\nHe did know the shop, which was close to the alley wherein dwelt his\nold cobbler. \"If you don't mind,\" he said eagerly, \"I'll leave you a\nmoment, whilst I do an errand hard by, and meet you when you've done\nyour shopping.\"\n\nSo he went off, delighted at solving the problem of the boots; for\nno man appears to advantage when hugging a clumsy parcel. Having\nduly effected her purchase, May rejoined him, and, as they strolled\ntowards Victoria Square, informed him that they were starting for\nLondon on Monday. \"I know I shall hate it!\" she added, with a sigh.\n\nHe sighed too; but what could he say or do, bound as he was, hand\nand foot? \"July _is_ rather hot for London,\" he answered discreetly.\n\"Lulu wrote yesterday, and may I suggest, if you have leisure, she\nwould be delighted if you called to see her? I will give you her\naddress. The flat is very tiny, of course, but----\"\n\n\"But infinitely preferable, I am sure, to Victoria Square!\" retorted\nMay bitterly. The burden of life seemed intolerable that evening.\n\n\"Are you, then, so unhappy there?\" he asked, startled. \"How I\nwish----\"\n\nHe checked himself hastily, and May stifled a sob which rose in her\nthroat. \"Very few people are quite happy, it seems to me,\" she said,\ntrying to speak calmly. \"There is always something.\"\n\n\"Yes, but you--_you_ ought to be happy, if there were any justice\nin the world!\" he burst out impetuously. \"You deserve a sunny,\nsheltered life, free from worry and care. Will you believe it is\nthe hardest of my trials to be able to offer you nothing but barren\nsympathy?\"\n\n\"It is very good of you to sympathise with me,\" May murmured\ngratefully. \"So few people do. They look at my clothes, and decide\nthat anybody dressed as I am, and living in Victoria Square, _must_\nbe happy. 'Lucky Mrs. Burnside!' they call me.\"\n\nHe remembered how enviable, in the early days of their acquaintance,\nMay had seemed to him, and thought how mistaken are the judgments of\nthis world. A great pity swelled his heart as she said \"Good-bye\";\nand he tramped back to his dreary rooms doubly depressed, both on\nher account and his own. How he longed to be able to free her from\nher shackles, and offer her a happy home, independent of Miss Waller!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"I must say, May, nobody would think you were going to London to\nenjoy yourself. Do, for goodness' sake, try to look a little more\ncheerful!\" said Miss Waller sharply, as they took their seats in\na reserved first-class carriage on the Monday. Mr. Lang, to May's\ngreat relief, had returned to town three days before, so they were\nspared his company. \"You are the most ungrateful girl I ever knew.\"\n\n[Illustration: \"Do try to look a little more cheerful!\"]\n\n\"I'm sorry you think so, aunt, but----\"\n\n\"It would serve you right if I washed my hands of you entirely,\"\ncontinued the irate spinster. \"But I am too kind-hearted; my sense\nof duty restrains me. I should be better off now, if I'd been more\nselfish and less considerate for others. But I'm well aware it's\nuseless to expect gratitude in _this_ world.\"\n\nAnd, with a heartfelt sigh for the wickedness of this generation,\nMiss Waller arranged the air-cushion more comfortably at her back,\nand, placing her daintily shod feet on the opposite seat, commenced\nto study a newspaper. May sat watching the deep-green summer\nlandscape flit by, with pretty much the same feelings as a convict\nmight experience while going down to Portland guarded by warders.\nThe knowledge that Mr. Lang awaited them at the end of the journey\ntook all the colour out of the blue sky; and the sleek cattle\nstanding knee-deep in water beneath the willows, seemed to mock her\nby their animal freedom from care. For herself, she cared little;\nbut there was Doris to consider, and the thought of her helpless\nchild harassed her throughout that miserable journey.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\n_The Recluse._\n\n\nEnforced idleness is, to an active mind, the greatest misery\nconceivable. Harold Inglis had in him a vast capacity for work, and\ntherefore found it doubly bitter to have to spend his days lounging\nabout, waiting for the patients who never came. He was afraid to go\nout lest he should miss a summons, and unable to sit down to read\nor write, so continually did he find himself listening for a ring\nat the bell and Ann's voice announcing a patient. He could not even\ntranquillise himself with tobacco, for he had given up smoking on\naccount of the expense.\n\nHe returned from an errand one afternoon to find an elderly\nmanservant waiting with the intimation that Sir Edward Vane, of The\nTowers, was ill, and would like to see him. He knew Sir Edward by\nname as a wealthy and eccentric recluse, who lived alone in a big\nhouse just outside the town, and was liberal in doctors' fees. Not\na little flattered, he promised to come immediately, and was about\nto turn in at the lodge gate at The Towers, when he encountered Dr.\nSelwyn, another local medical man, with whom he was acquainted.\n\n\"Been sent for by Sir Edward, eh?\" asked Selwyn, with a broad grin.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Wish you joy. You may not know it, but he's already tried every\ndoctor in Beachbourne, and quarrelled with them all in succession. I\nwouldn't attend him again for any money. Good-bye, and good luck to\nyou!\"\n\nIn some trepidation, Harold knocked, and was admitted through a\nhandsome hall into a spacious sitting-room, littered with almost\nevery conceivable object. On a sofa reclined a grey-haired man\nabout sixty, whose tanned face, speaking of long residence in the\ntropics, was disfigured by a look of fretful ill-health. A retired\nAnglo-Indian, distinguished in the Civil Service, Sir Edward had\nseen more of the world than most men.\n\n\"You're not in partnership with anybody here, are you?\" he asked,\nwhen Harold had examined him carefully.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"All the better. A more wretched lot of impostors than the\nBeachbourne doctors I never came across. For years they've been\ntinkering at me, and, after all, I'm worse, instead of better. What\nare doctors for, if they can't cure one?\"\n\nHarold was discreetly silent. Sir Edward had a complication of\nmaladies, beyond any medical skill to remedy.\n\n\"My father lived to be ninety,\" continued the invalid. \"And why\ncan't I?\"\n\n\"I don't think, for my part, I should wish to be so old as that,\"\ndiffidently returned Harold. \"It must be so sad to outlive all one's\nfriends.\"\n\n\"I have no friends,\" was the grim reply. \"Only some greedy\nrelations, eager for my money. I've a good deal to leave,\" he added,\nlooking keenly at Harold. \"And when I take a fancy to people,\nI'm liberal----They say here that I'm always quarrelling with my\ndoctors; but it's the doctors who quarrel with me, and will air\ntheir own particular fads, instead of trying to cure me. Are you\nmarried?\" he asked abruptly.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"A good thing, too; you've more time to attend to your patients.\nHewett used to bore me talking by the hour about that ugly wife of\nhis. Do you understand fossils, and such things? My room's in an\nawful mess, as you see, and I should like to have the specimens\narranged a bit; but I can't trust the servants.\"\n\nThe place was indeed crammed with all sorts of curios, many\nexceedingly valuable. By continually asking for one possession after\nanother, Sir Edward had ended by accumulating all his treasures\nin this one room, which he never left, save for his bedchamber\nadjoining. A most untidy place it was; the curiosities being heaped\non chairs, shelves, and the floor, without any method.\n\n\"I am very fond of fossils; and if you wish them arranged, it would\ngive me great pleasure to help.\"\n\n\"Hewett wanted me to make a clean sweep of them; interfered with the\nflow of his precious fresh air. Like his ignorance! Did he think I\nwanted to sit and stare at an ugly wall-paper all day when I was\ntired of reading?\"\n\n\"Do you read much?\"\n\n\"Yes; chiefly Sanskrit. In _my_ day, Indian officials had to be not\nonly gentlemen but scholars. Well,\" as Harold rose to go, \"I'll have\nyour prescription made up, and shall expect you again to-morrow.\"\n\n\"I will come, and hope the pain will be easier then.\" He detailed\nthe treatment he desired, and was giving a few final directions when\nthe manservant opened the door. \"Miss Geare has called, sir. Will\nyou see her?\"\n\n\"Oh dear!\" pettishly exclaimed Sir Edward. \"She'll stay an hour,\nprosing about her dogs. For mercy's sake, don't go!\" detaining\nHarold. \"Help me to entertain her, and get her away soon! She was to\nhave been my sister-in-law, having been engaged to my brother Adrian\nyears ago; and since in an evil hour I settled at Beachbourne, I've\nbeen fairly persecuted by her.\"\n\nIn another minute the little lady tripped smilingly in.\n\n\"Well, Edward dear, how are you now? I heard you were not well, so I\njust came to inquire.\"\n\n\"I'm better now, thank you,\" returned Sir Edward gruffly. \"I've\ngiven Hewett the sack, and this is my new doctor--Dr. Inglis. Do you\nknow him?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, he has been attending me. I'm sure he has done me good,\nand I hope you'll benefit also, Edward. You can't _think_ how kind\nDr. Inglis was to my darling Bijou when he broke his leg!\"\n\n\"Having attended Bijou, it, of course, follows that Dr. Inglis will\ncure me,\" sneered Sir Edward. \"How is the amiable Miss Pepper?\"\n\n\"She's waiting outside with the dogs, as you said you wouldn't have\nher here. She's a faithful creature; I wish you liked her a little\nbetter, Edward dear.\"\n\n\"I never was fond of vinegar, Catherine.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't be so sarcastic, Edward! I never was clever; but you make\nme feel like a little girl again, when my governess scolded me.\"\n\nThere were tears in the watery blue eyes; but they did not seem to\ntouch Sir Edward. \"The remedy, my dear Catherine, is exceedingly\nsimple,\" he blandly rejoined. \"I know I'm a curmudgeon, unfit to\nassociate with such an angel as you. Why then should you inflict\nupon yourself the unpleasantness of coming here? Why not stay away,\nto enjoy the more congenial society of Miss Pepper and the dogs?\"\n\n\"So you don't want me, Edward? I think you're very unkind,\" returned\nMiss Geare, evidently wounded, but with a patient dignity Harold had\nnot expected. He noticed that ever since she entered her gaze had\nwandered, at intervals, to an oil-painting of a fine-looking young\nman in uniform which hung over the mantelpiece. \"But I know better\nthan to take you at your word. You are all I have left--my dear\nAdrian's brother--and----\" She broke down, and wiped the slow tears\nof age from her eyes.\n\nSir Edward gave an impatient sigh, and Harold interposed. \"Allow me\nto remind you, Miss Geare, that my patient has had a very severe\nattack, and the quieter he is the better. Everything depends on\nthat. I must go home now; and may I request the pleasure of your\ncompany to the gate, if you are ready?\"\n\n\"Yes, do go home to Bijou!\" fretfully murmured the invalid. And Miss\nGeare, after bestowing an affectionate farewell on the unresponsive\nSir Edward, allowed Harold to politely conduct her to the lodge gate.\n\n\"Poor Edward!\" she began, as they went down the drive, \"he allows\nillness to sour his temper, and it's such a pity! But I take no\nnotice--he's my dear Adrian's only brother, and I can't bear\nto stay away from the house. Did you see the portrait over the\nmantelpiece?--that was my Adrian. I was young, and pretty too, in\nthose days, though you mayn't believe it----\"\n\n\"I quite believe it,\" said Harold kindly, touched by the spectacle\nof this forlorn old age.\n\n\"Adrian was so proud of Edward. He was so much thought of in India,\nand is very, very clever--but not equal to my Adrian--oh, no; nobody\never could be as handsome and noble as he was! When I heard he was\nkilled in the Mutiny, I thought I should die too; I think it must\nhave killed something inside me, for I've never been the same since.\nI get confused, and I can't remember things----Yes, I'm coming.\nVery sorry to have kept you waiting.\"\n\nThe humble apology was to Miss Pepper, who, with a most unamiable\ncountenance, was standing just outside the gate. Miss Geare hastily\nsaid farewell, and Harold could hear her companion scolding her\nvigorously as they went down the road. But, as he thought of the\nfaded, antique love story which had ended so tragically, he could\nnot but feel sorry for poor little eccentric Miss Geare--it was so\nevident that the best part of her had been buried in her lover's\ngrave. Her eyes must have been rather like May's, he thought, before\nsorrow had given them that vacant expression; and then he wondered,\nfor the hundredth time, what Mrs. Burnside was doing in London, and\nwhether she thought of him as often as he did of her.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\n_Vanitas Vanitatum._\n\n\nArrived in London, all May's worst anticipations were realised; for\nMr. Lang accompanied them everywhere, and she had not a minute to\ncall her own. He assumed an air of proprietorship which made her\nblood boil. \"You ought to do this, Mrs. Burnside--you should see\nthat,\" he repeated from morning till night; and, as Miss Waller\ninvariably pronounced all his suggestions charming, it was useless\nfor May to rebel.\n\nSo London proved the same weary old story over again--a life of\noutward glitter and show, of softly rolling carriages, of sumptuous\ndinners, and reserved seats; and within, dust and ashes, and Dead\nSea fruit! May talked and smiled, but it was mechanically; her heart\nwas far away.\n\nShe asserted herself sufficiently, however, to declare her intention\nof calling upon the Inglis girls in their flat in West Kensington.\nShe had written to Lulu, who sent her a pressing invitation to come\non Saturday afternoon, when they were at leisure.\n\nMiss Waller instantly denounced the scheme as a wild-goose chase,\nasserting that May was certain to lose her way. They were still\ndiscussing it when Mr. Lang came in from Palace Gardens, as he\nusually did first thing in the morning, ostensibly to ask what they\nwished to do, but really to order them about at his sovereign will\nand pleasure. \"Well, ladies, what's the programme for to-day?\" he\nbegan.\n\nMay turned round from the window of the handsome drawing-room for\nwhich her aunt was paying a small fortune, thinking, as the morning\nsunlight fell upon his podgy figure, that Mr. Lang grew uglier and\nmore common-looking every day. \"I have promised to go and see my\nfriends the Inglises this afternoon,\" she announced firmly.\n\n[Illustration: \"This is my new doctor--Dr. Inglis.\"--_p. 509._]\n\n\"And who may the Inglises be?\"\n\n\"Some girls who live at West Kensington,\" returned May, colouring at\nhis lordly tone.\n\n\"Their brother is a doctor--a very unsuccessful one at Beachbourne,\"\nput in Miss Waller irritably. \"They are very poor, and live in a\npoky flat. What May can see in them I can't imagine; and I'm sure\nshe'll get lost if she goes alone.\"\n\n\"I can take a cab, aunt.\" By a perfect miracle she had a few\nshillings in her pocket.\n\n\"I'll tell you what,\" pompously proclaimed Mr. Lang. \"You shall go\nin a cab, Mrs. Burnside, if you really must, and I'll call and bring\nyou back in my carriage. Eh, Miss Waller?\"\n\n\"Oh, what a splendid idea!\" gushed the spinster, brightening; and,\nthough May protested earnestly against troubling Mr. Lang, he\nwas resolute. Then he carried them off to inspect a picture in a\nBond Street shop which took his fancy--a seapiece, with violently\nultramarine waves tumbling about the canvas. May considered it\na most irritating production, and boldly said so; for, despite\nher aunt's frowns, she refused to flatter Mr. Lang. He took her\ncriticism very good-naturedly, however, and insisted on their coming\nto luncheon with him at a fashionable Regent Street restaurant,\nwhere only African millionaires and suchlike could afford to go.\n\nBut at length May's ordeal was over, and she drew a great breath of\nrelief as the lift deposited her at No. 18, Windermere Mansions.\nLulu herself admitted her, evidently delighted to see her, and\nannounced that just then she was alone.\n\n\"Esther isn't back yet, but I expect her every minute,\" she\nexplained. \"Mabel, our chum, has gone to see some friends. We don't\nkeep a servant, but a charwoman comes morning and evening. Our flat\nis a mere cupboard, as you see; but, such as it is, you are very\nwelcome.\"\n\nShe conducted May over it, and tiny it certainly was; only one\nsitting-room, a speck of a kitchen, three small bedrooms, and a\nbathroom. But it was very comfortable and homelike; and, though many\nof the articles were merely of wicker and bamboo, it was furnished\nwith a taste which betrayed the instincts of gentlewomen.\n\n\"How I envy you!\" exclaimed May, as she sank into a chair in the\ncosy little sitting-room. And then, to Lulu's consternation and to\nher own intense disgust, she burst into tears.\n\nLulu looked quite alarmed; for the modern girl reserves all such\nexhibitions for the privacy of her own apartment, and tears and\nhysterics are as much out of fashion nowadays as poke bonnets and\nsandalled shoes. It is not that the new girl can't feel, but that\nshe considers it undignified to cry.\n\n[Illustration: To Lulu's consternation ... she burst into tears.]\n\n\"Forgive me,\" apologised May, blushing furiously. \"I'm\novertired--I've been doing too much in this heat. I feel quite\nashamed to be so foolish.\"\n\n\"We'll have tea directly Esther comes; that will revive you,\"\nreplied Lulu cheerfully and she proceeded to light a dainty\nspirit-kettle which formed part of a most inviting tea equipage. May\nwatched her enviously, thinking how sweet and homelike it all was.\nShe had never known a real home since leaving her father's house.\nHer married life was a horrible nightmare, and Victoria Square\nwas little better; and if she yielded to pressure and married Mr.\nLang----But no! that would not bear thinking of!\n\n\"There's Esther!\" cried Lulu eagerly, as a latch-key clicked in the\nhall door.\n\nMay had expected to find Miss Inglis handsome; but she was not\nprepared for such a young goddess as now swept into the room,\nwith a stride of long, well-knit limbs which made the place seem\nludicrously small. Esther Inglis would have attracted notice\nanywhere, with her splendid, keen-cut, dark face and stately poise\nof head; and her family might well be proud of her.\n\nShe was better dressed than Lulu, in a plain but well-fitting gown\nwhich was very becoming.\n\n\"Tired, dear?\" asked Lulu affectionately, as her sister, after\ngreeting May, reclined her tall figure in a basket-chair.\n\n\"Rather; that is, I've a Saturday afternoon kind of feeling.\nThe office was very hot, and the new man can't quite manage the\ntelephone. Where's Mabel?\"\n\n\"Gone to see her friends at Richmond. Give me your hat, dear.\"\n\nShe removed her sister's outdoor garb with a deft motherliness which\ncharmed May. Miss Inglis was clearly accustomed to being waited\nupon; but it seemed quite natural, with her splendid face and figure.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\n_Mr. Lang meets his Match._\n\n\n\"And how is Harold, Mrs. Burnside?\" Esther asked as they sipped\ntheir tea.\n\nMay gave as favourable an account of his progress as she could,\nto which Miss Inglis listened thoughtfully. \"I'm afraid he has an\nuphill struggle before him, poor old fellow! Without capital, it\nseems to me, you can do nothing nowadays? Are there many doctors at\nBeachbourne?\"\n\n\"A good many; and, of course, it takes time to make a practice.\"\n\n\"It's always the same old story--want of money!\" sighed Esther\npessimistically. \"Nowadays the competition is something dreadful;\nand what will it be for the next generation?\"\n\n\"Why, Esther, you seem in rather a croaking mood!\" remonstrated Lulu.\n\n\"Well, my dear, going about daily in trains and omnibuses, and\nhaving to run the gauntlet of every man who thinks that because a\ngirl works for her living she can't possibly be a lady, doesn't tend\nto sweeten one's view of life.\"\n\n\"I suppose there are annoyances in every lot,\" diffidently put in\nMay. \"But there are--there really are--worse things than being\nobliged to earn one's living. You must be so happy here, able to do\njust as you like, with nobody to worry you.\"\n\nEsther's brow cleared. \"Yes, it's something to be independent,\nnowadays. And it's too bad to bore you with my grumbles, Mrs.\nBurnside. I don't often indulge in complaints, do I, Lulu? We three\nreally have a jolly time here; and my salary is to be raised twenty\npounds a year, beginning from next month.\"\n\n\"Oh, Esther, how splendid!\"\n\n\"Yes, we must go on the river, or have some dissipation to celebrate\nit. Oh! who can that be?\" as a loud knock resounded at the outer\ndoor.\n\n\"My aunt thought I might get lost, and a friend of ours--Mr.\nLang--offered to call for me,\" said May, flushing. \"He is earlier\nthan I expected--I hope you don't mind his coming?\"\n\n\"Oh, dear, no!\" nonchalantly responded Esther, as Lulu bustled\nout to admit Mr. Lang, who entered with his usual bumptious\nself-confidence. But when his eyes fell upon the superb figure of\nEsther, he was palpably surprised.\n\nMay introduced him; but, while Lulu gave him a friendly greeting,\nEsther barely condescended to acknowledge his existence. Miss\nInglis, late of Mallowfield Hall, was not to be put down by a vulgar\nplutocrat.\n\n\"I must apologise for coming rather early, Mrs. Burnside,\" he began,\n\"but I didn't quite know how long it would take to get here; I never\nwas in this neighbourhood before. Don't you find it rather out of\nthe way?\" he continued, addressing Esther.\n\n\"It _is_ rather inconvenient, especially as we don't keep a\ncarriage,\" she coolly returned. A keen observer of human nature, she\nhad taken Mr. Lang's measure in one haughty glance.\n\n\"Nice little place, though,\" he added patronisingly, intending to be\nvery polite. \"That drapery over the mantelpiece is a good idea. Did\nLiberty do it?\"\n\n\"I did it myself, with a few yards of cheap cretonne and an ounce of\ntin-tacks.\"\n\n\"Really! How clever!\" he exclaimed, not perceiving that Esther was\ncovertly laughing at him. \"Old miniatures, too! Are you a collector?\nI am; I've got some lovely Cosways.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear, no! these are only some of our ancestors. My father has\nthe best ones, down in Cornwall.\"\n\n\"I've rather a good collection at my house in Palace Gardens. You've\nseen them, haven't you, Mrs. Burnside? It would give me great\npleasure to show them to your young friends, if they care to call\nsome day.\"\n\n\"Thank you; my sister and I are working all day, and have very\nlittle time. I am not specially interested in miniatures, except\nthose belonging to our family,\" replied Esther coldly. May inwardly\nrejoiced at seeing Mr. Lang meet his match for once.\n\n\"I believe you have a brother out in South Africa?\" presently asked\nMr. Lang, turning to Lulu.\n\n\"Yes, at Johannesburg. He's on the staff of the Victorina Mine.\"\n\n\"I believe I've met him somewhere. Rather good-looking, with dark\nhair, isn't he? He must know me; I'm so well known out there\nin connection with the Springkloof Mine. Have you heard of the\nSpringkloof, Miss Inglis?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" answered that superb young lady, fixing her eyes steadily on\nhim. \"I have heard a good deal about it from Jack. He was over in\nEngland last summer.\"\n\n\"I'm often going backwards and forwards to Johannesburg,\" continued\nMr. Lang; \"I should be glad at any time to take charge of any\nparcels or letters for your brother, if you will let me know. This\nis my London address,\" and he laid his card on the table.\n\n\"Thank you, we couldn't think of troubling you.\"\n\n\"No trouble, I assure you. I should be very glad to oblige any--any\nof Mrs. Burnside's friends.\"\n\nMay crimsoned beneath his significant glance and the scarcely veiled\nscorn on Esther's fine face. How these girls must despise her for\nassociating with this horrible man! Unable to bear it any longer,\nshe rose to take leave.\n\n\"I hope we shall meet again before you go,\" Lulu said wistfully;\nbut May dared not press them to come and see her aunt, knowing they\nwould only meet a chilly reception from Miss Waller. \"I will write\nand let you know,\" she answered hurriedly.\n\n\"Perhaps you young ladies might like a drive in the Park\noccasionally?\" suggested Mr. Lang. \"I'd be very happy to send my\ncarriage.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" responded Esther, who appeared to be spokeswoman on all\noccasions. \"My sister and I work for our living, and have no time\nfor such dissipations. I am employed in a City office.\"\n\n\"Then it's a shame you should have to work--that's all I can say,\"\nwarmly rejoined Mr. Lang. \"A woman's place is at home, in a handsome\ndrawing-room, with every comfort about her--not jostling about in\nthe crowd with men.\"\n\n\"Handsome drawing-rooms and an idle life are not within the reach of\nevery woman, nowadays, Mr. Lang,\" coldly responded Esther, as they\nshook hands; and the next minute the door closed behind them.\n\n\"Horrid man!\" cried Esther wrathfully, when the visitors had gone.\n\"Didn't his insufferable patronage make your blood boil? He might\nwell ask if we knew him by name; of course, we do--too well, for,\naccording to Jack, the Springkloof Mine was a byword on the Randt,\nfrom the way in which the original owners were cheated out of the\nproperty by Mr. Lang and his syndicate. I remember he mentioned this\nLang as a man who was well known at Johannesburg to have mixed in\nmany shady transactions.\"\n\n\"What a pity that nice Mrs. Burnside should be obliged to associate\nwith him! He evidently admires her; but, to tell you a secret,\nEsther, there's somebody who admires her even more--and that's\nHarold.\"\n\n\"Poor Harold! How can he ever afford to marry? Mrs. Burnside is\ndependent on her aunt for everything, isn't she?\"\n\n\"Yes, and her aunt intends her to marry Mr. Lang. Poor thing! I can\nsee she is simply miserable at the idea of it.\"\n\nEsther took up Mr. Lang's card, to read the address. \"He might well\nsay West Kensington was out of the way! If he ever comes again--I\ndon't mean to be at home.\" And she tore it into the smallest\nfragments.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\n_On the Island._\n\n\n\"This is what I call perfectly delightful,\" pronounced Miss Waller\nsolemnly. She looked meaningly at May, who stood near, looking her\nbest in pale blue, with a big white hat, but her niece pretended not\nto hear.\n\nA week had elapsed since Mrs. Burnside's visit to the Inglis\ngirls; and it was again Saturday afternoon. It had been a week of\nabsolutely tropical heat, exhausting to a degree; and Mr. Lang,\nnoticing May's pale cheeks, had proposed a trip up the river in his\nsteam-launch. So, with their mutual friends the Wingates, and some\nother people, they were now bound for an island some distance above\nKingston, where they intended to land and have tea.\n\nAfter the scorching and crowded streets, the river, with its green,\ntree-shaded banks, was indeed a pleasant change; and, had she been\nfree from care, May would have greatly enjoyed watching the numerous\ngay boats and launches filled with happy holiday-makers. But the\npresence of Mr. Lang--vulgar, fussy, and pretentious--spoiled\neverything, and she avoided him as much as possible, greatly to her\naunt's disgust.\n\nThe island at which they presently arrived was very small; and\nso crowded with people that at another time the scene would have\namused May. They landed with some difficulty, amid the crowd of\nskiffs, punts, and canoes, which were moored to the banks; and had\nto walk warily, not to tread upon their late occupants, who were\nnow grouped round every variety of tea equipage, arrayed in every\nkind of costume. One or two people, ostentatious like themselves,\nwere attended by liveried servants to turn the whole thing into\na burlesque; but the great mass had spread their tea with their\nown hands, and it was comical to see how their ideas of a picnic\nvaried. Here would be a homely meal with thick enamelled tea-things,\nhuge chunks of bread-and-butter, and shrimps or watercress for a\nrelish. Next door would be an aristocratic party with a silver\nteapot, fairy-like china, expensive cakes, and fruit on artistic\ndessert plates. Here a stout materfamilias, purple with the heat,\nstruggled to satisfy her hungry brood of eight with hastily buttered\nrolls; there a pair of lovers, oblivious of all else, sat partaking\nof nectar and ambrosia, in imagination a thousand miles away.\nEverywhere was good humour, laughter, and happiness.\n\nAt last, after his usual bustle, Mr. Lang contrived to secure a\nvacant spot for his party; though not without an angry argument\nwith some plainly dressed people who, with scant respect for\nAfrican millionaires, declined to move their common delft\ntea-service to make way for his costly Dresden. Whilst the footman\nspread the cloth May sat abstractedly gazing over the sunlit river,\nwhen suddenly she caught a glimpse in an approaching boat of a\nfigure which made her heart leap. Surely that stalwart young man in\nflannels, rowing two girls towards the island, was Harold Inglis!\nWith consummate skill he steered his cockleshell craft to the bank,\nthen helped his sisters out, and, carrying a basket, came to find a\nplace to sit down.\n\n\"What a handsome girl!\" murmured more than one of Mr. Lang's party\nas Esther advanced with her queenly gait. May, delighted, rose to\ngreet her. \"How wonderful to meet you here!\" exclaimed Miss Inglis.\n\"Harold had to come up to town on business, and we persuaded him to\nbring us up the river.\"\n\n\"So glad to see you again, Mrs. Burnside,\" said the young doctor as\nthey shook hands; his honest English face flushing as his glance\nmet hers. That glance and that handclasp seemed to throw a flood\nof light upon the secret places of May's soul; for suddenly she\nrealised that she loved him better than her life. He was, and always\nmust be, the one man in the world to her.\n\nMiss Waller was not pleased at this addition to their party; but\nshe could not interfere when Mr. Lang pressed the Inglises to join\nthe circle assembled at tea. Nor could they well refuse: though\nindependent Esther insisted on making use of the provisions they\nhad brought with them. Harold stationed himself beside May, as a\nmatter of course, and contrived, under cover of the lively chatter\nof the rest, to tell her about the new patients he had secured at\nBeachbourne, and hear what she had been doing in London. It was a\nvery harmless, matter-of-fact conversation, but it drew down many\njealous glances from Mr. Lang, which May perceived, but did not\nheed. Why should she not enjoy this brief moment of happiness?\n\n\"Shall I see you again before I leave? I'm going back on Monday,\"\nHarold observed wistfully, when the tea-things had been packed up\nfor the return journey.\n\n[Illustration: \"If he ever comes again!\"]\n\nBut she shook her head, knowing it was useless to invite him to call\nupon her aunt; nor could she promise to visit Windermere Mansions.\n\"We shall be returning the end of next week, I hope,\" she answered\nhurriedly, sorry to seem so inhospitable. \"I shall be so glad to\nleave London!\"\n\n\"Now, Mrs. Burnside,\" interrupted Mr. Lang, bustling up, \"your\naunt's invited me to dine with you at eight; and if I'm to be back\nin time to dress, we must look sharp. Sorry to have to say good-bye\nto you, Miss Inglis,\" he added, turning to stately Esther with his\nmost patronising air. \"I wish I could ask you to come back in the\nlaunch with us; but there's so little room.\"\n\n\"Thank you, I prefer a rowing-boat. I thoroughly disapprove of\nsteam launches on a crowded river like the Thames,\" calmly responded\nshe; whilst Miss Waller gasped, open-mouthed, at such effrontery.\nImagine a beggarly girl in an office daring to address such\ncriticism to the great Mr. Lang!\n\nThe lovers had perforce to separate, for the rowing-boat would, of\ncourse, be soon left behind by the launch. May took her seat with\na sinking heart at the prospect of Mr. Lang's company for the rest\nof the day; and Harold was so silent all the way home that Esther\ncommented on it as they disembarked.\n\n\"So this is the end of my little treat in honour of my rise of\nsalary!\" she ruefully remarked. \"I thought it would be pleasant on\nthe river; but I feel almost sorry we came. Certainly, Mrs. Poyser\nwas right in her opinion of 'pleasuring-days.'\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\n_Reprieved._\n\n\n\"Now, May,\" began Miss Waller in her most portentous tone, on Monday\nmorning, \"I must have an explanation with you. I'm going home this\nweek, for it's ruinously expensive being here; and to-day Mr. Lang\nis coming for his answer. Without any beating about the bush, I\nexpect you to marry him.\"\n\n\"Oh, aunt, don't--_don't_!\" entreated May, wringing her hands. \"I\ncannot marry Mr. Lang.\"\n\n\"What childish nonsense! Fancy refusing a house in Palace Gardens,\nand all that money!\"\n\n\"I can't and won't marry him.\"\n\n\"Very well, then, you and Doris must find another home. I have\npinched myself to keep you in luxury; but if you will be so wickedly\nblind to your plain duty, I wash my hands of you.\"\n\n\"I don't care one bit for myself, aunt; I could earn a living,\nI'm sure, and I'd gladly do it. Let me try,\" pleaded May, \"I will\npromise never to cost you another penny, if you will only be so kind\nas to give Doris a home until I am able to keep her myself.\"\n\n\"Which will not be till Doomsday. Talk of earning your living--what\nrubbish! Why, you haven't even one decent accomplishment. No, if\nyou leave my house, Doris goes, too; I won't have the little spoilt\nmonkey left on my hands.\"\n\n\"But, aunt----\"\n\n\"Besides, think what advantages you could give Doris if you\nmarried Mr. Lang--the best possible education, horses, carriages,\nContinental trips, everything! If you really cared at all for your\nchild, you couldn't hesitate for a minute.\"\n\nIt was a clever argument, and it made May waver as nothing else\ncould; and Miss Waller did not know whether to be glad or sorry that\njust then Mr. Lang himself was announced.\n\n\"Don't go, Miss Waller,\" he began, as the spinster, after a few\ncasual observations, was about to leave the room. \"I've nothing to\nsay to Mrs. Burnside you may not hear as well. Your niece knows by\nthis time that I am anxious to have her for my wife. I want to marry\nand settle down now, and I can promise you,\" he added, turning to\nface May for the first time, \"a most luxurious home--you've seen\nit--both for yourself and your little girl. Your aunt wishes it, I\nknow; and I hope, Mrs. Burnside--May--you'll make me very happy by\nsaying you'll be my wife before Christmas.\"\n\nHe came closer, and would have taken her hand; but she started\nback. Her aunt's basilisk eyes were fixed on her, to add to her\ndiscomfiture; but she said as firmly as she could, \"I am very\ngrateful for your kindness, Mr. Lang; nevertheless, I must refuse\nyour offer, for I do not love you, and I could not marry any man\nunless I did.\"\n\n\"Now, really, Miss Waller,\" remonstrated the plutocrat, turning with\nan injured air to the wrathful spinster, \"I call this too bad! It\nwas understood between us that you would prepare Mrs. Burnside, so\nthat it might all be plain sailing. I'm not accustomed to ask and be\nrefused, I can tell you.\"\n\n\"May must have lost her senses to reject such an offer, Mr. Lang,\"\nreturned Miss Waller, with an annihilating glance at her niece. \"She\nis an ungrateful, undutiful girl; and if she refuses you, I will\nhave nothing more to do with her.\"\n\n\"Well,\" rejoined Mr. Lang, with a gulp, as if swallowing something\nvery nauseous to the taste, \"I must confess I didn't expect to be\nsent to the right-about like this. However, young ladies often\nchange their minds; and perhaps, when Mrs. Burnside thinks my offer\nquietly over, she may alter her opinion. I've great faith in your\npersuasions, Miss Waller. I've just had a telegram, saying a fall of\nrock has damaged the machinery at the Springkloof, and I'm wanted\nout there, so I must sail for the Cape at once. I expect to be away\nsome months; by November I shall probably be back in England. I give\nMrs. Burnside until then to consider my offer; I won't look upon\nthis as a final rejection. I'm sure, when she thinks of all I'm in a\nposition to offer, she can't be so foolish as to refuse.\"\n\n\"How kind--how generous!\" exclaimed Miss Waller, as May stood in\nstony silence. \"I promise in my niece's name that when you come back\nshe will accept you. I hope we shall see you again before you leave?\"\n\n\"Well, no, for I've a lot to do before I go. But I'll write to you;\nand as soon as I possibly can I shall return for Mrs. Burnside's\nanswer.\"\n\n[Illustration: \"How wonderful to meet you here!\"--_p. 513._]\n\nAs if in a sick dream, with this threat ringing in her ears, May\nmechanically tendered him her limp hand in farewell. When they were\nonce more alone her aunt said in crisp, dry tones:\n\n\"I shall return to Beachbourne on Wednesday, and make arrangements\nfor spending August and September in visiting amongst our friends in\nthe country. We have plenty of invitations. I have said all I need\nsay on the subject of Mr. Lang. Meanwhile, you can choose between\nPalace Gardens and every luxury, and a life of starvation and\nbeggary for you and Doris.\"\n\nDespite the apparent calm with which Mr. Lang had taken May's\nrejection of his flattering offer, he was nevertheless in a very bad\ntemper when he left the house and jumped into his victoria. He was\nnot accustomed to rebuffs--which made the fact that he had just been\nrejected by a penniless widow, only saved from actual want by her\naunt's charity, doubly galling.\n\n\"I'm mad to care so much about a pale-faced girl with nothing to say\nfor herself; and I really ought to do better. I could easily marry a\nlady of title, or anybody I choose; and it would serve her right if\nI went straight off and proposed to somebody else, just to show her\nthat rich husbands don't grow on every bush!\"\n\nRevenge is always the first thought of a mean mind which is smarting\nfrom a sense of injury. Mr. Lang chuckled over this idea for some\ntime, and the result was, that when Esther Inglis entered their\none sitting-room about half-past five that day, she found Mr. Lang\nseated in the most comfortable chair, awaiting her.\n\nShe instantly assumed her thorny manner; but it had no more effect\nthan it would have had upon a rhinoceros. \"I've come to say good-bye\nfor the present, Miss Inglis,\" he airily remarked, as if his visit\nwere a matter of course. \"I leave to-morrow for Johannesburg on\nbusiness; and as I shall probably see your brother, it would give me\ngreat pleasure to take charge of anything you may wish to send him.\"\n\nEsther's handsome face relaxed. Really it was very kind and\nthoughtful of Mr. Lang, who, with his influence, might prove a\nvaluable friend to Jack.\n\n\"It is very good of you, and in his last letter Jack asked us to\nsend him some collars and ties; they are such a fearful price at\nJohannesburg, and not good. But they are not bought yet, and you say\nyou leave to-morrow?\"\n\n\"Yes, but the shops will not be closed for some time, and my\nvictoria is at the door, if you will honour me by using it to go\nwhere you wish.\"\n\nEsther hesitated a moment; but the opportunity of saving expensive\nand troublesome postage, besides serving Jack, was too good to lose.\nMr. Lang rose, and indicated a box lying on the table.\n\n[Illustration: \"Oh, don't thank me.\"]\n\n\"I've brought you a little fruit, Miss Inglis, just sent to me from\nmy country place near Dorking. My head-gardener prides himself on\nhis peaches and nectarines; but I must leave you to judge.\"\n\n\"Oh, thank you!\" cried Esther, with sparkling eyes; for she had not\ntasted a nectarine since leaving Mallowfleld. In a moment she had\nundone the satin ribbon which tied down the lid, and was feasting\nher eyes on such peaches as she had seldom seen.\n\n\"As you seem fond of fruit, I'll give orders to my gardener to send\nyou a box periodically,\" observed Mr. Lang. \"Oh, don't thank me;\nI shall be away, and somebody may as well enjoy it. And if you'll\nhave the parcel and letters ready, my footman shall call for them\nto-morrow morning.\"\n\nHe accompanied Esther down to the street, where his beautifully\nappointed carriage was waiting; and it must be confessed she enjoyed\nfinding herself seated behind a spruce coachman and footman once\nmore. \"You will take this lady's orders,\" pompously commanded Mr.\nLang. \"Keep the carriage as long as you like, Miss Inglis, and I'll\nnot forget about the parcel.\"\n\nSo manifest was his desire to propitiate, that Esther could do no\nless than bid him a civil farewell, with the hope that he might have\na pleasant journey. Then she rolled away, looking so much at home in\nthe smart carriage that Mr. Lang gazed after her admiringly.\n\n\"By Jove, how well she sets the whole thing off! Looks like a lady\nused to carriages all her life. May Burnside really isn't a patch\nupon Esther Inglis; there is no mistake about that!\"\n\nHad Miss Waller only been there to hear him, she might well have\ntrembled for the success of her darling scheme of marrying May to a\nrich man.\n\n\n[END OF CHAPTER TWELVE.]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: EASTER EGG ROLLING IN WASHINGTON]\n\n\n\"Going to Mr. President's!\"\n\nThat is what the hundreds of little boys and girls will tell you any\nEaster Monday morning, should you chance to stop them and ask their\ndestination as they go toddling along the streets of Washington with\nbaskets of eggs hanging on their arms and a glad delight shining in\ntheir eyes.\n\nThey make up a very \"mixed\" crowd, these children! There is the\ndainty little miss in richly embroidered frock and wide silk sash,\nwith one tiny hand held tightly in the grasp of a big negro nurse\nand the other hand clasping lovingly a basket of pretty coloured\neggs; there is another little girl in a very clean but much-faded\ngingham or print apron, trotting along at her mother's side--the\nmother dressed, perchance, in shabby black, belonging to the class\nknown in the Southern part of the States as the \"poor whites\"; there\nis also the trio of little \"darkey\" girls, dancing merrily along the\nsidewalk, swinging their egg-baskets as though with intention of\nspilling the eggs over passers-by, yet never quite dropping them,\nand singing the while as they keep step--\n\n    \"Tra la la la, tra la la la,\n    Easter Monday morning!\"\n\nThere are nice, smart-looking little boys, strutting along proudly\nin their first pair of knickerbockers, with pockets bulging out with\nEaster eggs, their black nurses walking just a few steps behind\nthem; there are the poor white boys whose clothes are patched and\nboots worn with toes protruding. On other days they sell newspapers,\nblack boots, and do \"odd jobbs\" to earn a few cents, but on Easter\nMonday morning they somehow get together a collection of coloured\neggs and go to see the President. Then there are the little black\nboys, some smartly dressed (for many of the coloured people of\nWashington are well-to-do), and others as shabby as shabby can be.\nBut no matter. Are they not provided with Easter Monday eggs and\ngoing up to the White House to see \"Mr. President,\" who every Easter\nMonday gives over his beautiful lawn to as many little boys and\ngirls as like to go and see him, and roll their eggs over the grassy\nslopes that look out over the Potomac River?\n\n[Illustration: Lester Ralph.\n\nTHE INVASION OF THE PRESIDENT'S LAWN.]\n\nOn no other day during the year does Washington present so\ninteresting and picturesque an appearance as on Easter Monday,\nand it is the happiest day of all the year with the children of\nthe Capitol City. In England, of course, Easter Monday is always\na Bank Holiday, but not so in the United States. In New York and\nother large American cities banks and shops and schools are open\nas usual; but in the district of Columbia, where Washington is\nsituated, it is a legal holiday. That in itself makes it a happy\ntime for the children. Then, add to the joy of having no lessons to\nlearn the fact that they are allowed to take dozens of coloured\neggs to the White House lawn and play the games of \"egg-picking\" and\n\"egg-rolling\" as the specially invited guests of the President of\nthe United States, and it will be easily understood how festive an\noccasion is Easter Monday to the children of Washington.\n\nNot even the oldest inhabitants of Washington can remember the time\nwhen the boys and girls of the city did not celebrate Easter Monday\nby \"egg-rolling,\" although the children of fifty years ago rolled\ntheir eggs down Capitol Hill, under the shadow of the magnificent\nCapitol building, instead of on the White House lawn. Year after\nyear the children of former generations trudged up the great hill\nwith their egg-baskets over their arms and had the happiest times\nimaginable with their Easter games.\n\nOne Easter Monday, however, about twenty years ago, hundreds of\nboys and girls went to Capitol Hill with their eggs just as they\nhad done in previous years, when they were astonished to be hustled\noff the grounds by special messengers and policemen from the Senate\nand House of Representatives, who declared that the distinguished\nSenators and Congressmen in convention assembled had made up their\nminds that their \"door-yard\" was no longer to be disfigured for days\nafter Easter Monday with broken eggs and vari-coloured shells! They\nwere weary of having their highly polished boots smeared with yolks\nof eggs, and Easter Monday \"egg-rolling\" in Washington was to be\nended!\n\nThen there went up all about the precincts of the nation's Capitol a\nloud wail of anguish and wrath from hundreds of childish throats, in\nwhich the numerous nurses and attendants joined. Many boys and girls\ngathered on the steps of the building, sobbing in disappointment,\nsome of the larger boys throwing out direful hints of vengeance\nto be wreaked on the heads of the nation's law-makers; but the\nstately Senators remained stony-hearted, in spite of it all. In the\nmidst of the tearful hubbub the President's carriage drove past,\nand President Hayes (the then head of the nation) drew up near the\nportico to inquire why the children wept instead of rolling their\neggs on Easter Monday.\n\nA chorus of voices informed him that the \"nasty Senators wouldn't\nlet them play any more because they messed up the grounds\"; and then\nagain from the throng of little ones confronting the President there\narose fresh outbursts of grief and indignation.\n\n[Illustration: Lester Ralph.\n\n\"GOING TO MR. PRESIDENT'S.\"]\n\n\"Never you mind, children,\" said President Hayes soothingly. \"You\nmay come right up to my house and play in my back yard.\"\n\nThen the mourning was turned to rejoicing. Every child knew that in\nall the city of Washington there was not so wonderful a \"back yard\"\nas that which belonged to the White House. Its beautifully kept\nslopes were ideal places for \"egg-rolling,\" and then there was the\ngreat fountain in the middle of the lawn! So when the President's\ncarriage started to return to the White House, it was followed by\nseveral hundred boys and girls swinging their egg-baskets, and\nsinging and shouting out their gratitude to the President of the\nUnited States, who was going to let them play in his garden. I doubt\nif ever an American President had an escort of which he had such\ncause to feel proud as that which accompanied President Hayes to the\nWhite House gates on that memorable Easter Monday.\n\n[Illustration: Lester Ralph.\n\nON THE WAY TO THE WHITE HOUSE.]\n\nOutside the gates they were kept waiting for about an hour, while\nthe President gave his hurried instructions to the gardeners to put\nthe place in readiness. At eleven o'clock the gates swung open, and\nfrom that time till six o'clock the children rolled their eggs.\n\nEver since then Washington children have gone regularly every Easter\nMonday to play in the President's \"back yard,\" each of President\nHayes's successors having kept up the custom of inserting in the\nWashington papers each year an invitation to all the children\nresidents of the town to spend the day rolling eggs on the lawn.\n\nIn President Hayes's time his own children joined in the sport, and\nduring the last term of President Cleveland the President's little\ngirls, who were considered too young to roll eggs with the elder\nchildren, were kept on the back portico with their mother or their\nnurse, where they could watch the progress of the games.\n\nTwo years ago, on Easter Monday, I spent the day on the White House\nlawn, watching the big \"Presidential children's party,\" as it is\ncalled. The gates were opened at a little after ten o'clock, and\nduring the day there were several thousand children playing in the\ngrounds. Many of the children, besides carrying their baskets of\neggs, carried also their luncheon-baskets, and when tired of games\nthey sat about on the grass, picnic-fashion, eating bread-and-butter\nand cakes and hard-boiled eggs. I should here mention that, although\nthe President does not consider it necessary to make any rules for\nthe preservation of order among his young guests--it being taken\nfor granted that all children invited to the President's garden\nwill behave in their very best style--he always requests that those\nwho accept his invitation to roll their eggs on his lawn will\nbe particular to bring with them only eggs that are thoroughly\nhard boiled, for in the game of \"egg-picking\" the use of raw or\nsoft-boiled eggs would be, to say the least, most inconvenient!\n\nThe game of \"egg-picking\" is a very simple one, although it is\nentered into most enthusiastically by the boys and girls. The\nchildren separate themselves into groups of eight or ten, then seat\nthemselves on the grass at the top of the slopes and roll their eggs\ndown to the bottom. The eggs that make the descent without getting\ncracked or \"picked\" may be brought back and re-rolled, until they\ndo get cracked or until the game is over, while those that get\n\"picked\" are placed back in the baskets. The boy who can hit his\nneighbour's egg and \"pick\" it without \"picking\" his own is looked\nupon as something of a hero. Of course, toward the end of the game\nmany of the players drop out, all of their eggs having got \"picked.\"\nVery often the players are reduced to two who show themselves\nparticularly expert, and then there is great excitement watching for\nthe winner.\n\nBesides the game of \"egg-picking\" there are egg-ball games, egg\ncroquet games; but plain \"egg-rolling,\" which consists of rolling\neggs down the slopes, going after them, and rolling them again and\nagain, seems to be the favourite amusement. Then, too, the children\nengage in \"jumping the rope\" and other similar amusements.\n\nAlthough many of the children spend the entire day on the lawn,\nnumbers of them remain for a couple of hours only. By this means\nthe grounds are not kept so crowded as they would otherwise be. The\nhours between three and five o'clock, however, are considered the\nmost enjoyable, as during that time the President always arranges to\nhave the Marine Baud to entertain the children with music, and it\nis at that time also that the President makes his appearance out on\nthe back portico to greet the children. It is, of course, thoroughly\nunderstood that so busy a man as the President cannot spend his\nwhole day with his young visitors. He entertains them by turning\nover his grounds to them, and they enjoy themselves in their own way\nwithout molestation.\n\nOn the afternoon of the Easter Monday which I spent in Washington\nPresident McKinley came out on the portico at about half-past three.\nHe took off his hat and waved it to the children, who all gathered\nas near as possible about the portico and shouted out--\n\n\"Howdy do, Mr. President? Howdy do, howdy do?\"--the boys taking off\ntheir caps and the little girls waving their handkerchiefs.\n\n\"How do you do, children? Glad to see you, and hope you are having a\ngood time!\" shouted back the President.\n\n[Illustration: Lester Ralph.\n\nPRESIDENT McKINLEY GREETING HIS YOUNG VISITORS.]\n\n\"Splendid time, Mr. President, and thank you for your invitation,\"\ncalled back the delighted little guests.\n\n\"That's right!\" returned the President, laughing. \"I hope you'll all\ncome again next Easter Monday.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Mr. President. Good-bye, good-bye!\" shouted the\nchildren. Then President McKinley went back to his duties of State\nand the children returned to their egg-rolling. Mrs. McKinley\nsat on the portico most of the afternoon watching the merriment.\nOccasionally a little boy or girl would edge up to the portico, and\npush a blue or red egg through the railings, saying:\n\n\"Please, Mrs. President, I've brought you one of my eggs to keep!\"\n\nMrs. McKinley accepted the little presents with the sweetest of\nsmiles and a \"Thank you.\"\n\nAt about two o'clock in the afternoon the White House lawn looked\nlike a large picnic ground. Some of the children had brought napkins\nto lay upon the grass when they should be ready to eat their\nluncheon, and on the napkins they spread their boiled eggs and\nbread-and-butter. One little girl, when I complimented her on her\ndaintiness, explained:\n\n\"I does it so I won't get eggshells on Mr. President's grass! My\nmamma told me I must be careful, cos it wouldn't be very nice if the\nPresident of the 'Nited States had to go round to-morrow picking up\neggshells after me!\"\n\nDuring the afternoon there were several slight accidents at the\nfountain. Some of the children delighted in digging all the meat\nfrom their eggs through the smallest possible aperture and then\nfloating the empty shells in the lower basin of the fountain where\nthe water was undisturbed. In trying to keep their improvised ships\nfrom sailing away, two little girls fell into the water, but they\nwere quickly rescued by their nurses and taken home to be dried.\n\nAt five o'clock the crowd began to disperse, and at a little past\nsix the small guests of the President had all left the lawn and\nwere on their way to their various homes. Such a variety of homes,\nindeed, they went to! Some to magnificent mansions on Connecticut\nAvenue. Their fathers were high Government officials, Senators,\nmembers of the Cabinet, and their mothers well-known society\nwomen. Other little boys and girls went to very humble homes and\nminded their little baby brothers and sisters while their mothers\ngot supper; and then there were the homes in the localities given\nover almost entirely to the negro population. Before the War their\nparents and grandparents had been slaves, little dreaming that their\ndescendants would ever be invited along with the children of the\naristocratic whites to play in the President's \"back yard\"!\n\nBy the way, what a sight that \"back yard\" did present on the morning\nfollowing Easter Monday! There were four gardeners busily at work\nwith rakes and brooms and baskets. They were gathering up the litter\nof eggshells, breadcrumbs, bits of paper, lost playthings, and tiny\nbits of muslin and calico that had somehow got torn off the dresses\nof some of the children. At the fountain one of the gardeners was\nfishing out pieces of string and floating shells. It was four\no'clock when the garden was finally \"picked up\" and shorn of its\nfestive appearance. It was then absolutely \"spick and span,\" and\nno one could ever have guessed that the day before it had been a\nplayground for several thousand children!\n\n  ELIZABETH L. BANKS.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\nFORGIVENESS.\n\n\n    Within a spacious hall, before a fire\n      Whose flick'ring light danced weirdly on his brow,\n      Stood Peter mutely brooding o'er his vow\n    To die with Christ, though thousands should conspire\n    To wreak their vengeance, profitless and dire,\n      On Christ and all who faith in Him avow.\n      With sin the soul of Peter struggled now,\n    When, \"Known, or not, to Jesus?\" men inquire.\n\n    \"I know Him not\"--thus, falsely, thrice he swore;\n      And think you that because this weak man fell\n    The God-Man would deny him evermore?\n      Christ looked upon him, and that look did spell:\n    \"For thee My soul shall on the Cross be riven,\n      And, therefore, Peter, is thy sin forgiven!\"\n\n    LOUIS H. VICTORY.\n\n[Illustration: OUR ROLL OF HEROIC DEEDS\n\nThe above picture records a brave attempted rescue on the part of\nPrivate Frederick Lakeman Banks, of the London Rifle Brigade. When\non the way to the Rainham Rifle Range some time ago, Banks and\nseveral of his companions were attracted to this spot by the cries\nof some bystanders, who stated that a child had fallen into the\nthick muddy water of the tidal creek and had disappeared. Banks\nimmediately threw off his coat, plunged into the filthy water,\nand after a three minutes' search succeeded in finding the boy.\nUnhappily, the child was past help; but, all the same, the gallantry\ndisplayed by the rescuer was rewarded by the bestowal of the Bronze\nMedal of THE QUIVER Heroes' Fund.]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: MISS LUCRETIA'S NEW IDEA.\n\nH V Brock]\n\n_A COMPLETE STORY._\n\nBy M. H. Cornwall Legh, Author of \"The Steep Ascent,\" Etc.\n\n\nI.\n\n\"So poor Annie is dead!\" Miss Lucretia repeated as she\nlaid down the black-edged letter which she had just read through for\nthe third time and wiped her eyes with a handkerchief already damp\nand flabby. \"Poor Annie! So soon after poor Edward's death too! And\nnow I wonder what will become of poor little Amy?\"\n\nShe repeated the adjective which seemed most appropriate as often as\nshe liked, for she was only speaking to herself.\n\nMiss Lucretia lived alone in a very small house, which was one of\na row, all just alike, with a bow-window apiece for their glory,\nand a little bit of garden and a fence and a gate. They were called\nPrimrose Cottages, despite the fact that there were no primroses\nabout them.\n\nThirlambury was a very dull, behind-the-age little town, and people\nthought Miss Lucretia a very dull, behind-the-age little lady. She\nthought so herself; for she had always taken life meekly.\n\nLucretia was the only one of the three sisters--of whose happy\ngirlhood together the old maid was thinking as she wiped away\nher tears--who had been at all meek. Constantia and Ann had both\nbeen strong-charactered, masterful girls, in accordance with the\ntraditions of their family. With Constantia this decided turn had\nmet with the happiest development. It had enabled her to manage to\nperfection a husband and family, and it was with pardonable pride\nthat she now looked at her six successful sons and daughters,\nall brought up just as they should have been, physically,\nintellectually, and morally; of whom the last had just left the\nnursery for the school-room.\n\nWith Ann the family characteristics had gone in the wrong direction.\nHer strong will had led her to marry a very unsatisfactory little\nman, whom his family finally exported to New Zealand, with her and\ntheir four children, rejoicing over the happy riddance. Out there\nConstantia did not like to say, providentially, though that was the\nadverb which suggested itself--the four children took diphtheria,\nand every one of them died.\n\nWhen the grass had grown green on those four graves, another\nchild was born--little Amy--and Aunt Lucretia was asked to be its\ngodmother. And now, there was this child of five years old left\nwithout either parent. They had not been first-class parents,\nbut Miss Lucretia did not think of that; her heart being of too\nold-fashioned make for such philosophy.\n\n\"An orphan, poor little dear!\" she said to herself, and her\nhandkerchief became damp again at the thought.\n\n\"Constantia has arranged already about her being brought to\nEngland,\" Miss Lucretia soliloquised. (Being alone, she had got into\nthe way of soliloquising.) \"How prompt Constantia always is! And now\nwhat will become of the child?\"\n\nIt was not an idle speculation. Miss Lucretia was revolving\nsomething in her mind--an idea so new, so absorbing, that over it\nher eyes dried, and she put back the letter into its envelope with\nuntrembling fingers.\n\n\"I am sure I could do it!\" she said at last, speaking aloud this\ntime, and with a great deal of determination. \"A child of five\ncannot cost much to keep, and there are many little ways in which\nI could reduce my expenditure.\" Then she relapsed into silent\nthought again. She was making deep calculations, wondering how an\nincome which just sufficed for her and her faithful Fanny could\nbe stretched at the four corners so as to cover the expenses of\none more member of humanity. Such a little member that in a large\nhousehold she could be received and fed and clothed for some years\nto come without any perceptible difference in the outgoings; but\nthis was a very small household, and the matter had to be considered.\n\nMiss Lucretia's income was of the kind described as modest; but she\nwas a careful manager, and, as everybody knew how poor she was,\nnothing was expected of her in the way of entertaining beyond a\nquiet cup of afternoon tea, and the promoters of charity lists went\naway from her door contented if she only gave half-a-crown.\n\nShe always did give the half-crown, and a penny to the organ-grinder\nwho came round weekly, and sixpence each to the butcher's boy, the\nbaker's boy, and the grocer's boy at Christmas; the same every year,\nnot allowing herself any wild excursions of charity till the regular\nsubscriptions had been provided for.\n\nBut it was not in her philanthropies that Miss Lucretia proposed\nmaking her substantial reductions. There were a great many little\nluxuries which could be curtailed.\n\nRegarding food, people would have said that no one was more\neconomical than Miss Lucretia, but Miss Lucretia herself knew\nbetter. It was true that there never was any waste in this little\nestablishment. A pound of meat was never ordered when three-quarters\nof a pound would do; and every scrap of food was eaten. But the\nmeat and the milk and the butter ordered for 4, Primrose Cottages\nwere always of the very best. The eggs must be newlaid, and not\nselected. The pot of jam--\"preserves,\" Miss Lucretia called it,\nwith old-fashioned elegance--in which she and Fanny indulged once\na fortnight, must be of whole fruit in syrup; not the marvels of\ncheapness in two-pound jars.\n\n\"Why,\" thought Miss Lucretia now to herself, \"should I buy butter\nat eighteenpence a pound, when they say the Normandy butter, or\nthe Brittany, is really excellent? And it does seem a sinful waste\nto give two shillings for tea when one can get it quite good,\nthe Vicar's wife tells me, at sixteen-pence. Indeed, I have seen\nphenomenal tea at a shilling.\" And so on.\n\nThe little lady proceeded with her reductions till she was quite\nconvinced that Amy's coming need make no real difference in Fanny's\ncomfort--the question which had pressed most upon her mind.\n\nThen there were Amy's clothes to be thought of. Well, they would not\ncost much. There was a gown hanging up now in the cupboard which\nmight be cut up for her.\n\nThen there was a crimson merino dress which Miss Lucretia had\nbought last summer for the Vicarage garden-party--not without some\nmisgivings as to the choice of so unwearing a colour, but with the\nsolace to her conscience of knowing it could be dyed.\n\nThat would make a sweet little frock and cloak for Amy; for the\ndress had only been worn twice, and its wearer had held it up very\ncarefully out of the dust.\n\nMiss Lucretia went up to the little box-room opening out of her\nbedroom, and turned out a number of old treasures--things she had\nkept ever since her girlhood, carefully folded, wrong side out,\nand covered with tissue-paper. Here was her bridesmaid's dress for\nConstantia's wedding--that would cut up into a lovely Sunday frock;\nand here was a piece of china silk which had never been made up till\nMiss Lucretia grew too old for white dresses; and other things that\nwould all come in. Yes, she would have no difficulty in dressing\nlittle Amy, and making her look just as smart as the children at\nBeaconsfield Mansion when occasion arose for it. She hoped the\noccasions would arise, that her child would be asked to parties,\nlike other children, and with a new interest the old woman thought\nof the different families of her acquaintance.\n\nAnd now about a room for Amy. The little box-room must be cleared\nout, and that would make a charming nest for her. The old chintz\nwith the rosebuds on it Miss Lucretia had just taken from its paper\nwould be the very thing for curtains. A little bed would just\nfit here behind the door, and a washstand there, and so on. Miss\nLucretia planned it all out with absorbing interest. The question\nwas, where was the money to come from for buying the furniture?\nThere were certain things in the box-room which could be sold. Miss\nLucretia's harp; she never played on it now, and harping was out of\nfashion, so it would not be wanted for Amy. And that portfolio of\nengravings--and---- She had soon marked out enough of her treasures\nto make the furnishing of the little room an easy matter.\n\nThen she went downstairs and divulged her great project to Fanny.\nHer co-operation was very necessary, and her mistress approached her\na little timidly.\n\n\"Fanny, I am thinking of having a child to live with me.\"\n\n\"Bless us! ma'am, a child?\"\n\n\"Yes, my poor sister's little orphan.\"\n\nFanny's heart was warm. She listened to Miss Lucretia's plans and\nwishes without any crushing comment, but at the end she remarked,\n\"Well, I should have thought as Mrs. Dalrymple would have taken her;\nshe is so rich and with that big place and all; but if she don't\nfeel disposed that way, and you do, ma'am, well, I suppose the poor\nlittle soul had best come to us.\" That was quite enough, and now\nMiss Lucretia hurried out of the house, and into the High Street, to\ninquire about the price of children's beds. It was early in the day,\nof course, to enter into such details, but then, the whole affair\nwas so interesting that they could not be put off till to-morrow.\n\nAs Miss Lucretia walked down the High Street, she was attracted by\na toyshop, and found herself straying into it to inquire the price\nof a doll in the window. It would be very silly to buy one so soon,\nand before any of the necessaries of life were provided for. But the\ntemptation proved too strong for her. She went in and bought it--the\nfirst present she would give to _her child_.\n\nMiss Lucretia spent an hour in the furniture shop. She had to\narrange first with the proprietor about the sale of her own\nbelongings, and then to choose the furniture for the room. She\nfound she wanted only the prettiest, nicest things for Amy, though\nthe cheapest for their solid value would have been her main object\nif for herself. Then there was a lovely paper, with nursery rhyme\npictures all over it, which so fascinated her that she ordered\nhalf-a-dozen pieces of it to come on approval.\n\nAltogether, it was a most exciting afternoon, and Miss Lucretia\ncame home with a springing step, and radiant eyes, and a general\nbearing of youthfulness, such as she had not known for the last\ntwenty years. A bright golden glow had suddenly overspread the grey\nlandscape of her life, such as the sun sometimes throws at sunset,\nwhen it looks out from under a cloud at the end of a long grey day.\n\nBefore the post went out, she wrote a letter to Constantia,\nannouncing her intention of taking Amy for her own, which gave a\ndelightful seal of finality to her decision.\n\n\nII.\n\n\"I could not have believed that Lucretia would be so foolish. Just\nfancy! she wants to adopt Amy!\" was Mrs. Dalrymple's comment, as\nshe read her sister's letter; and everyone at the breakfast table\nexclaimed.\n\n\"It is a very generous idea,\" remarked Mr. Dalrymple mildly. He had\nalways been a mild sort of man, and marriage with Constantia had not\nmade him less so.\n\n\"Generous! yes. Lucretia is always generous. You know the difficulty\nI had in stopping her giving expensive presents to the children; but\nit is so very foolish. I shall write her a letter, of course, and\ntell her that we intend to have Amy ourselves. Poor Lucretia! Fancy\nher with the charge of a child!\"\n\nSo Constantia wrote her letter. It contained about a quarter of\nthe words that Lucretia had used, and was very sensible, kind and\ndecided. There was no answer required to it.\n\nGreat was Mrs. Dalrymple's surprise, therefore, when by return of\npost came a reply, not of acquiescence, but setting forth the other\naunt's superior claim as godmother, an idea which, as Constantia\nremarked, was simply absurd.\n\n\"I shall have to go to Thirlambury myself,\" she said: \"though it\nis not very convenient.\" It was often not very convenient to go to\nThirlambury.\n\n[Illustration: Then she divulged her great project to Fanny.\n\nH V Brock]\n\nIn the meantime, Miss Lucretia had been indulging in her new\nday-dream, till every bit of her life had been remodelled in\nanticipation, and brought into harmony with her coming work and\nresponsibility as an adopted mother. Already she attached to herself\nthat beautiful title, the missing of which had been the sole sorrow\nof her life. As a young girl, Lucretia's day-dreams had not been of\nlovers, but of marriage; the joys of children clinging round her\nneck, the merry voices about the house, the little feet pattering up\nand down.\n\nAnd now she counted the days to the one coming so near, when\nshe should feel the real warm arms of little Amy clasped round\n\"godmamma's\" neck, and fold the child in her own with the new\nwonderful joy of possession. She felt that she could hold up her\nhead again among women, and that the life which a week ago had\nseemed to hold nothing more except advancing infirmities was full of\nnew possibilities and ever-increasing interest. Miss Lucretia lived\nagain.\n\nMiss Lucretia actually bought the bed, which the shopman had urged\nher to purchase at once, or it might be gone, as he had no other\nbedstead for a child.\n\nAs Miss Lucretia relinquished one after another of her own comforts\nand conveniences, the blessedness of giving grew more and more\napparent to her. Nothing in life had ever given her a joy like the\njoy of this sacrifice.\n\nFour days had passed so, and Miss Lucretia was just planning which\nplot of the small garden space allowed to a Primrose cottage might\nbe spared from beans and cauliflowers to make a flowerbed for Amy,\nwhen a ring was heard at the door-bell. Miss Lucretia answered it\nherself, as Fanny was out, and there stood Constantia!\n\n[Illustration: There stood Constantia!]\n\nMiss Lucretia was always delighted to see her sister, and made the\nmost of her rather infrequent visits. But to-day a kind of misgiving\ncame over her at the unexpected sight of Constantia's smiling face;\nand a sensation of defeat as Constantia uttered, in her brisk,\ncheerful voice, the words, \"And how are you, Lucretia? You didn't\nexpect to see me?\"\n\nLucretia welcomed her, as usual, and took her into the little\nparlour, which was drawing-room or dining-room according to the time\nof day. It was drawing-room now, and the dining-table stood folded,\nwith a cloth and some ornaments on it, in a corner; everything was\nas neat and carefully arranged as it always was; each chair in that\nparticular spot which experience had proved to be the best for it.\n\n\"How nice and tidy you always look, Lucretia,\" was Mrs. Dalrymple's\nfirst remark, as she sat down with a genial laugh in the visitor's\narm-chair. \"You must be struck with the difference when you come to\nThe Towers. With six children, it is impossible to keep everything\nin its place!\"\n\nMiss Lucretia asked after the six children, categorically, staving\noff the subject which she knew very well had brought her sister to\nThirlambury.\n\n\"The girls are as well as possible,\" answered their mother, massing\nthem, for brevity; \"and they are all looking forward so much to\nhaving Amy.\" Mrs. Dalrymple was a person who took bulls by their\nhorns. She always knew exactly what she intended to do with the\nbull--the great secret of success in life--and was quite sure about\nits being the best thing that could be done.\n\n\"But I intended to have Amy,\" answered Miss Lucretia, in almost as\nfirm a voice, but putting herself at a disadvantage at once by her\nslip of the past tense.\n\n\"Yes, I know you did. You wrote me all about it. It was exceedingly\nkind and good of you to think of such a thing, but, of course, it\nwas quite out of the question. As I told you when I wrote, we intend\nto take her.\"\n\n\"Didn't you get my second letter?\"\n\n\"Yes, and I saw by that you did not quite understand mine to you. I\nwrote in a hurry, and I suppose I did not make myself clear.\"\n\nConstantia Dalrymple was under the impression that she was the most\ntruthful of women.\n\n\"You made yourself perfectly clear,\" answered Lucretia, with a\nquiet dignity which was not usual with her. \"But before you spoke\nof taking the child, I had made up my mind to do so. I have spoken\nto Fanny about it, and she is perfectly willing to accept the extra\neconomies we shall have to practise, and any trouble Amy will give\nher. Of course, I shall take charge of her myself.\"\n\n\"How good of Fanny! I have always thought she must have enough to do\nwith the whole work of your house, and she works a good deal in the\ngarden, too, does she not?\"\n\nMiss Lucretia looked a trifle uncomfortable.\n\n\"I think Fanny will enjoy having a young life about the house,\" she\nreplied, rather hurriedly; \"just as I shall myself.\"\n\nConstantia smiled. It was not exactly a nice smile, but perhaps she\ndid not know that.\n\n\"I do not think either you or Fanny have had much to do with\nchildren,\" she said. \"It is all very well to have them with you for\na few hours at a time, when they are in their best frocks and on\ntheir best behaviour, and you have nothing to do with them except\namuse them. But when you have the whole responsibility of a child,\nand are obliged to look after her from morning till night, it is a\nvery different thing.\"\n\n\"Of course it is,\" said Miss Lucretia.\n\nIt was that very fact, comprising as it did the constant demand\non time and thought and labour, with all the rich reward of\ncorresponding affection from the child in its dependence, that\nmade the sweetness of this dream of motherhood. But Lucretia could\nnot put this into words. She was never very fluent with her deeper\nideas, which were, perhaps, instincts rather than formulated\nnotions, and she was least fluent of all with Constantia.\n\n\"And how could you ever afford it?\" went on Mrs. Dalrymple.\n\nLucretia explained her scheme of retrenchment, and all her little\nplans.\n\n\"But you won't be able to go on dressing Amy with your old things\nfor ever,\" said Constantia. \"And, then, there will be hats and boots\nand shoes.\n\n\"She may be ill, too; children have to go through measles and\nwhooping-cough, and that sort of thing: how will you afford to pay\nthe doctor?\"\n\nLucretia was silent for a moment; Constantia had such a very\nconvincing way of saying things, and making all that was unpractical\nand visionary appear so; but she was not really vanquished.\n\n\"I think one must trust for that----\" she began, at which Constantia\nsmiled again.\n\n\"How about schooling, too? A girl's education is a very expensive\nthing nowadays. I am sure Edie and Gwendoline have cost us as much\nas the boys.\"\n\n\"Amy is only five now, and for some years to come I think of\nteaching her myself.\" The present tense this time, for she was on\nher mettle. \"You know we were very thoroughly grounded by Miss Cox.\"\n\n\"That is a long time ago, Lucretia!\"\n\n\"Yes, it is a long time, but I suppose the principles of grammar and\narithmetic are the same, and I have not forgotten how to read!\"\n\nIt surprised Mrs. Dalrymple to see her sister pluck up so much\nspirit, but this defiant attitude did not affect her. There was in\nher such a certainty of being in the right, and of causing the right\nto prevail, that she was able to take all Lucretia's opposition very\nquietly. It was obstinate of her sister to hold out like this--weak\npeople always were obstinate--and it was extremely foolish, but her\nsurrender was only a matter of time.\n\nLucretia went on talking, urging her suit in a way that would have\nstruck some people as pathetic, but Constantia was not much given\nto seeing the pathos in life; her view of things in general was\noptimistic, and unless a sorrow was thrust before her she did not\nlook at it.\n\nConstantia let Lucretia talk on until she naturally ceased, after\nrepeating herself a good many times, in the way that peculiarly\nweakens a cause. Then she brought up her reserve force.\n\n\"But do you think it would be good for the child to be by herself,\njust with you and old Fanny?\"\n\nFanny was ten years younger than her mistress, and Lucretia realised\nhow very old fifty-nine must be.\n\nConstantia paused a moment. Then she went on to point out all the\ndrawbacks of a bringing-up such as Amy must have with two old\nmaids--not using the term, but dwelling on the characteristics\nimplied in it.\n\n\"What would you do with the child if she were naughty?\" Mrs.\nDalrymple asked by way of a test question. \"She is sure to have a\nstrong will of her own; you know what poor Ann was.\"\n\nMiss Lucretia could not answer the question, naughtiness seeming to\nher as multi-form a thing as illness, and the treatment for either\ndepending upon its form and cause. She replied that her idea was to\nbring the child up on a system of love; a vague answer which did not\nsatisfy her sister.\n\n\"Bringing up children is not such an easy and simple matter as\npeople might think who have had no experience.\" Here Constantia\nherself stood on a firm foundation. \"And it is much more difficult\nto bring up one child by itself than when there are others for it to\nconsort with.\"\n\nThen Mrs. Dalrymple proceeded to dilate on the smallness of Primrose\nCottage, which was certainly a very poor little place compared with\nThe Towers. There Amy would have the grounds to play about in; she\nwould share the girls' governess, ride on Gwendoline's pony, and\nNurse, who had been so splendid with Bertram and Edie, would only be\ntoo pleased to have a child again.\n\n\"It always makes her and me quite unhappy to look at the empty\nnursery,\" said Mrs. Dalrymple, \"though the children have only flown\ninto the schoolroom.\"\n\nThere was a weight of truth in every sentence Constantia uttered,\nwhich made it strike like a battering-ram against the walls of Miss\nLucretia's airy castle. At last she gave a little cry--a cry in\nwords:\n\n\"Oh, don't tell me that I mustn't have Amy!\"\n\n\"I do not say that you must not have her,\" answered Constantia. \"As\nyou say, you are the child's godmother, and the elder of us two. I\nleave it for you to decide. Only, I want you to think which would\nreally be best for Amy.\"\n\nReleased thus, suddenly and unexpectedly, from the paws of the\ncat, the little mouse of Miss Lucretia's soul ran trembling into a\ncorner, while the cat smiled, sweetly enough this time, as those may\nwho have won the game. It was a good cat, too, which had only been\ndoing its duty.\n\nAt this moment, Fanny came in, bringing tea, and Mrs. Dalrymple\ngreeted her with her usual warmth and kindness, rejoicing in the\nanticipation of eating some of that delicious home-made cake which\nwas always so much better than they could get their cook at The\nTowers to make; asking with sympathy after Fanny's rheumatism, and\ngiving her an abundance of those smiles which were so taking; while\nLucretia sat, looking old and small and withered, with a face that\nseemed as if it would never smile again.\n\nShe had come to her hour of sacrifice; the great sacrifice of her\nlife. Even with Lucretia the age was not past when sacrifices may be\nlit up by a golden halo of romance. There had been a halo round the\nsacrifice of all her little comforts which she had already made in\nwill for Amy. The love that prompted it had turned the self-denial\ninto a part of the joy of her prospective guardianship.\n\nBut round this sacrifice there hovered no such brightness. It was\nonly like herself, a poor, common-place, drab-coloured thing.\nNo sense of heroism could attend it; common-sense demanded it,\nso Constantia had proved, but, even with Constantia's provings,\nLucretia could not have offered up her precious sacrifice upon the\naltar of common-sense. But the other altar, which stood hard by,\nthe altar of love, was one that she could not thus disdain. The\nresult of the pitiful struggle was certain, or Constantia would not\nhave given the game into Lucretia's hands; but Lucretia was not\nsharp enough to see that. To her the whole brunt of choosing was\nas real, the action of her will as decided, as if a long habit of\nunselfishness had not made any other course impossible.\n\nIt was better for Amy that she should go to Constantia. Then to\nConstantia she must go.\n\n\"I suppose you are right,\" she said at last, in words as commonplace\nas befitted her unheroic sacrifice.\n\n\"I was sure you would agree with me when you came to think about\nit,\" Constantia answered, gently now, for it was part of her system,\nthe one, perhaps, which had made it so successful with her children,\nnever to use unnecessary force. \"I am sure a month hence you will\nfeel very glad that you have not a child turning your peaceful life\nand your pretty cottage upside down.\"\n\nThere was no use trying to make Constantia understand; and, if she\ncould have understood, it would have made no difference.\n\nMiss Lucretia said nothing. It was time now for Mrs. Dalrymple to\ngo, and, finishing her second cup of tea, she wished her sister an\naffectionate good-bye, with the promise of a hamper of game from The\nTowers, where they were just going to have one of their \"big shoots.\"\n\n[Illustration: She had come to the great sacrifice of her life.\n\nH V Brock]\n\n\"Perhaps I might have done it more kindly,\" Constantia thought, as\nshe drove in her cab to the station. \"But it was such a foolish\nidea. I am glad Lucretia saw it for herself in the end.\"\n\nMiss Lucretia went upstairs with slow, old footsteps, after her\nsister had gone. The last red glow had faded from her landscape, and\neverything was grey again, a shade deeper grey now, as it must go on\ngrowing deeper, till the night. She went into the little room, and,\nas she looked at the little bed which was never to hold her child, a\ntear came up into each of her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.\n\nThe doll lay on the bed, wrapped up in the white muslin that was to\nhave made its underclothes, looking like a tiny corpse. It seemed to\nLucretia like her dream of motherhood as it was now, the dead body\nof something that had never really lived.\n\nShe went to the window and looked out on the grey, darkening\nlandscape, and over it there twinkled one faint star. She stood\nwatching, and the star grew brighter, then another came out, and\nthen another. For a long time Lucretia looked up: then she knelt\ndown, looking up still.\n\nThe far-off light from the stars seemed to be shining on her face as\nshe turned it to Fanny, when that faithful woman came up at last to\nbring her mistress down to supper.\n\n\"Miss Amy is going to Mrs. Dalrymple,\" she said, quietly, and with a\nlittle smile. \"My sister left it to me to decide whether she should\ngo to The Towers or come here, and I gave her up to them, Fanny. I\nam glad she is going to my sister. She will be happier there.\"\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: SOME FAMOUS EASTER HYMNS]\n\n\nThere can be no two opinions as to the most famous Easter hymn.\nIn almost every church throughout the land, and in most chapels\ntoo, there arises, every Easter morning, the well-known strains of\n\"Jesus Christ is risen to-day, Alleluia!\" There may be an occasional\ndifference in the wording of a line here and there, as the hymn\nappears in various hymnals, but practically it is the one hymn which\nbinds all Christian congregations together on Easter morning. It\nis our Easter greeting one to another, in the joy and hope of that\nblessed day, like the greeting of the pious Russian on the same\nmorn, who salutes every passer-by with the words \"Christ is risen!\"\n\n[Illustration: (_Photo: W. and D. Downey, Ebury Street, S.W._)\n\nTHE REV. S. BARING-GOULD.]\n\n[Illustration: (_Facsimile of part of the original manuscript of Mr.\nBaring-Gould's Easter Hymn._)]\n\n    On the Resurrection Morning\n      Soul & Body meet again,\n    No more sorrow, no more weeping,\n                No more pain.\n    Here awhile they must be parted\n      And the Flesh its Sabbath keep,\n    Waiting, in a holy stillness\n                Fast asleep.\n\n           *    *    *    *\n\n    O the beauty! O the gladness\n      Of that Resurrection Day,\n    Which shall never, thro' long ages,\n                Pass away.\n    On that happy Easter morning\n      All the graves their dead restore,\n    Father, sister, child & Mother\n                Meet once more.\n\n    S. Baring Gould.\n\nIt is strange, therefore, that no one has even an indistinct\nnotion as to who wrote this famous hymn. Its author is, and long\nhas been, unknown; and, equally strange, there is almost the same\nto be said of the composer of its famous tune. For the tune is as\ngreat a favourite as the words, and, in fact, whilst the words do\noccasionally alter, as stated, the tune is ever the same one we know\nso well. The honour of being its composer has by some been ascribed\nto Henry Carey, but there are no certain grounds for the assumption,\nfine musician though he was. So completely has this tune associated\nitself, however, with the hymn that few people are aware that some\ncollections of hymns have alternative tunes to the great song of\npraise for Easter Day. But even Monk's tune to it in \"Hymns Ancient\nand Modern,\" takes quite an inferior place; it is seldom, or never,\nused.\n\n[Illustration: (_Photo: Elliott and Fry, Baker Street, W._)\n\nDR. E. H. TURPIN.]\n\nPossibly the immense popularity of \"Jesus Christ is risen to-day\"\ndepends on two things. Firstly, the words are extremely simple--a\nlittle child can understand them; secondly, the tune is one of the\nvery best \"congregational\" ones of any collection.\n\nWere I asked to name the next favourite Easter hymn, I should\ncertainly give the palm to one of the most beautiful hymns of\nthe Church of Christ--a hymn which has solaced and sustained the\nhearts of thousands in their dark hours of grief for the loss of\ntheir loved ones, just as it has rejoiced the hearts of so many\nloving servants of the Master at their Easter festivals. I refer to\nBaring-Gould's touching hymn \"On the Resurrection morning.\"\n\nThe comfort derived from the sweet words of hope and promise in this\nhymn by members of the Church militant here on earth will never be\nknown till that \"Resurrection morning.\"\n\nThe Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould has kindly given me, for THE QUIVER,\na copy of the manuscript of this hymn, and a few notes about it\nwhich cannot but prove interesting. It was composed on May Day, in\n1864, he says; and, certainly, that is appropriate enough, for do\nnot all poets sing of May Day as a special day for the awakening\nand rejoicing of nature? Horbury, that robust Yorkshire village\nwhere Mr. Baring-Gould was then the curate, was the birthplace of\n\"On the Resurrection morning,\" as it was of what has proved one of\nthe six most \"popular\" hymns of the world, viz. \"Onward, Christian\nsoldiers.\" So Horbury enjoys no mean fame. No one speaks more\nlovingly of Horbury than does its former curate, now so famous; and\nHorbury--church, chapel, and \"non-connected\"--is proud to a degree\nof Sabine Baring-Gould and of the fame he has for ever given its\nname by these and other noted hymns.\n\n[Illustration: \"ON THE RESURRECTION MORNING.\"\n\n(_Facsimile of Dr. Turpin's Musical Setting._)]\n\nIt will be noticed that there is a word or two slightly different\nin the author's copy from those of the usually printed text. In one\ncase his manuscript is not perhaps the better. \"Which shall never,\nthrough long ages, pass away,\" is not, in the writer's opinion,\ngrander than \"Which shall not, through endless ages, pass away.\"\nDr. E. H. Turpin's fine tune to \"On the Resurrection morning\" has\nthe merit of exactly suiting it. All can sing it, and that makes\nit so popular. The composer, with great kindness, has also allowed\nme to reproduce his manuscript of it here; and it is only fair to\nsay that did the renown of the celebrated organist, as a composer,\ndepend only on this one tune, so linked to the hymn, it would not\neasily perish whilst joyful hearts on Easter Day, and sad hearts at\nthe graveside of loved ones, join in singing \"On the Resurrection\nmorning.\"\n\n[Illustration: _Come, ye faithful, raise the strain._\n\n  _S. John Damascene._        _Arthur Henry Brown._\n\nFACSIMILE OF THE COMPOSER'S ORIGINAL SETTING.]\n\nTo the Rev. J. M. Neale, who died about the time when Baring-Gould\nwrote the hymn just spoken of, the Christian world is indebted for\nthree splendid Easter hymns. Of these it is difficult to say which\nis the finest, though perhaps, being quite original, we should give\nthat honour to the well-known \"The foe behind, the deep before.\"\nEvery section of the Church of Christ sings with deep and solemn\npathos those beautiful lines--\n\n    \"No longer must the mourners weep,\n      Nor call departed Christians dead;\n     For death is hallow'd into sleep,\n      And every grave is but a bed\"--\n\nfollowing so closely on the joyful strain of \"Christ is risen!\" in\nthe preceding verse.\n\n[Illustration: (_Photo: William Gill, Colchester._)\n\n_Arthur H. Brown._]\n\nTo this hymn innumerable tunes have been composed by musical people\nof various degrees of ability; but it has always seemed to me that\nby far the best are the two tunes given to it in the Wesleyan\nhymn-book, and, curious to relate, the composers are both ministers,\nthe Rev. Olinthus R. Barnicott and the Rev. Sidney J. P. Dunman.\nAnd it may safely be said that the singing by an average Wesleyan\ncongregation of this fine hymn, to either of these fine tunes, will\nnot be easily forgotten by the person who hears it for the first\ntime.\n\nThe two other famous Easter hymns of Dr. Neale's composition were\nreally translations from the Greek. Nevertheless, they are grand\ntranslations, if one may say so. \"The Day of Resurrection\"--best\nrecognised when sung to the tune composed by Berthold Tours, the\ncelebrated composer is a regular favourite at Easter-tide; but even\nmore famous is the other hymn from the Greek--\n\n  \"Come, ye faithful, raise the strain\n    Of triumphant gladness.\"\n\nThis hymn may safely be placed amongst the most popular of Easter\nfavourites, and, like so many others, whilst excellent in its\nwords, it owes not a little of its fame to its fine tune. This\nlatter was composed by Mr. Arthur Henry Brown, of Brentwood, and\nwas called \"St. John Damascene,\" under which name it still figures\nin the various Church hymn-books. Mr. Brown told me that the tune\nwas composed in less than a quarter of an hour! But he also told\nme that even that was eclipsed by the tune \"St. Anatolius\"--does\nany hymn-lover not know it?--to \"The day is past and over,\" which\nwas composed in five minutes! Truly that was an \"inspired\" five\nminutes, for which the Christian Church has reason to be thankful!\n\nTo the late Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Christopher Wordsworth--who that\nknew the saintly old man did not love him?--the world is indebted\nfor the ever-popular\n\n    \"Alleluia! Alleluia!\n     Hearts to Heav'n and voices raise,\"\n\nwhich always goes with \"a good swing\" on Easter morn. Its tone is\n\"victory\" from beginning to end, and there are few more beautiful\nEaster verses than the first one of this hymn.\n\nSir Arthur Sullivan composed its tune--the one best known, \"Lux\nEoi\"--and the very lilt of the music seems somehow to suggest the\nwork of the great musician who gave us similar \"swinging\" tunes for\n\"Onward, Christian soldiers\" (\"St. Gertrude\") and for \"The Jubilee\nHymn.\" But Sir Arthur tells me that \"Lux Eoi\" was not composed\nespecially for this hymn, but for another one less famous. The\nrapidity of Sir Arthur's composition is only equalled by that of\nArthur H. Brown, already mentioned. The gifted composer of _The\nGolden Legend_ thinks long before he puts pen to paper, and often\ndefers doing this \"till the last minute,\" as we say; but when he\n_does_ get started, he goes at it as few composers can, and will\npolish off the introduction to an oratorio in a night!\n\n[Illustration: (_Photo: Elliott and Fry, Baker Street, W._)\n\nTHE LATE BISHOP WORDSWORTH.]\n\n\"When I survey the wondrous Cross,\" that splendid old hymn of that\nsplendid old divine, Dr. Isaac Watts, is probably one of our very\noldest hymns that is at all well known to-day. Everybody sings it,\nfor everybody knows both words and tune: Englishman, native African,\nBrother Jonathan, converted Chinese, all sing alike from the heart,\nafter they have felt the real significance and power of that death\nand resurrection--\n\n    \"Love so amazing, so divine,\n     Demands my life, my soul, my all!\"\n\n\"Rockingham,\" the tune to which this hymn is eternally wedded,\nwas composed by Dr. Edward Miller. There is a magnificent roll\nand stateliness about it which suits the words perfectly, and the\nwonderful magnetic force which comes over one as one listens to six\nthousand people--led by, say, Mr. Ira D. Sankey, singing \"When I\nsurvey the wondrous Cross\"--was well described by the nameless slave\nin America, who, hearing it thus sung by a crowd, and being reproved\nfor humming the tune as the people sang, said, \"Massa, it no use; me\n_must_ jine in!\"\n\n[Illustration: (_Photo: J. C. Schaarw\u00e4chter, Berlin._)\n\nSIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN.]\n\nA living hymn-writer of no small fame--the present Archbishop of\nYork--has given us one of the very finest of the hymns for this\nseason. Though not popular in the sense that Dr. Watts' celebrated\nhymn is, yet there are few more charmingly beautiful lines,\nsuggestive of Good Friday and Easter thoughts, than are found in Dr.\nMaclagan's hymn, \"Lord, when Thy Kingdom comes, remember me!\"\n\nThis hymn is one of the best-known of the Archbishop's, though, of\ncourse, his most famous one is the ever-beautiful \"The Saints of\nGod, their conflict past.\"\n\nWe cannot pass by without notice the Rev. John Ellerton's \"Welcome,\nhappy morning,\" and the Rev. F. W. Faber's very sweetly sad \"O come\nand mourn with me awhile,\" which, of course, is a hymn for Good\nFriday. The tune to this was written by the celebrated Durham man\nto whom the Church of England (and all denominations) will ever\nbe in debt for some of the sweetest hymn-tunes the world has ever\nknown--Dr. J. B. Dykes. And it was fitting that he who composed the\nbeautiful tune to \"Our blest Redeemer,\" for Whitsuntide, should then\ngive us another ever-famous tune to Faber's grand words.\n\n[Illustration: (_Photo: T. Heaviside, Durham._)\n\nTHE LATE DR. J. B. DYKES.]\n\nLet me close this brief account of some of our finest Easter hymns\nby just recalling one or two of our finest Easter anthems. Of\ncourse, the first, _par excellence_, is the immortal \"I know that my\nRedeemer liveth\"; and equally with it, from the same \"oratorio of\noratorios,\" is the \"Hallelujah\" Chorus. Of these what shall be said?\nShall it be told again how Handel thought he was in heaven when he\nwrote them? Or shall we note that the \"Hallelujah\" Chorus is one of\nthe three pieces of music in the world on hearing which every Briton\nstands up and doffs his hat? These are the National Anthem, the\n\"Dead March\" in _Saul_, and the \"Hallelujah\" Chorus. In the first he\npays his tribute to his earthly sovereign; in the second he pays his\nlast tribute to the venerated dead; in the third he acknowledges the\ntribute due to his Almighty Lord, the Sovereign of Heaven.\n\n[Illustration: (_Photo: Hills and Saunders, Oxford._)\n\n_John Stainer_]\n\nApart from these two masterpieces of Handel, the prettiest and most\nbeautiful Easter anthem is that of Dr. Stainer, composed for the\ncantata _The Raising of Jairus' Daughter_. In a wide experience of\ncathedral music and anthem-singing by our best choirs, I doubt if\nthere is any much finer musical treat than to listen to the choir of\nSt. Paul's, or that of York Minster, as there rolls forth that most\nbeautiful of anthems, words and music--\"Awake, thou that sleepest,\nand arise from the dead, and God shall give thee light.\" This is,\nindeed, a noble song for \"Easter's bright morning,\" and well may its\nwords be taken as our special Easter thought; for to all of us, in\nsome way or other, they must have a special meaning.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: SELF-HEALING.]\n\nBy The Rev. Hugh Macmillan, D.D., L.L.D.\n\n\"Physician, heal thyself.\"--ST. LUKE iv. 23.\n\n\nWe are accustomed to think that the healing virtue there\nis in herbs and trees was meant only for man; that herbs and trees\nwere created with these virtues in them for the special purpose of\ncuring our human diseases and ministering to our human wants, and\nfor nothing else; that God had man in view in the beginning when He\ngave these medicinal qualities to plants, and apart from man's use\nof them they serve no other purpose.\n\nNow this, which is a common, widespread idea, is an altogether\nerroneous one. For if God meant these vegetable qualities and\nproducts exclusively for man's use, the questions may be pertinently\nasked, Why were they so long undiscovered; and why do they occur in\nplaces often remote from human habitation, and waste themselves upon\nthe desert air?\n\nIt is true indeed that God designed them as remedies for man's\nailments, that He prepared beforehand the cures of human ills long\nprevious to the necessity for these cures arising. But this law of\nmercy was a comprehensive one, and had a two-fold object in view.\nGod in the first place created the plant complete in itself, adapted\nto its own circumstances and requirements; and in the second place,\nit is through this perfect adaptability to its own wants that it\nbecomes generally useful in nature, and ministers to the necessities\nof other created things. It is because the plant heals itself first\nby the remedy which it grows and produces by its own powers that it\nbecomes a medicine to the animal world, when any members of that\nworld are placed in similar circumstances and exposed to a similar\ndisease.\n\nWhy, for instance, does the Peruvian bark tree produce the bitter\nprinciple in its bark from which we have prepared the valuable\nmedicine called quinine? Is it not because that bitter principle\nis necessary to preserve the health of the tree itself in the wet,\nmalarial districts where it grows? The Peruvian bark tree grows its\nown quinine, and administers it to itself, as it were, in order to\nprevent a disease in itself caused by the marshy places where it\nis found, similar to fever in the human subject. The willow grows\nbeside rivers and streams which are apt to cause exhalations and\nbreed influences that are noxious to the well-being of the tree. It\nhas therefore developed in its own bark a febrifuge called salicin,\nwhich protects it from these noxious influences and maintains its\ntrunk and branches and foliage in vigorous health and beauty. And\nit is because the quinine is good for the tree itself in malarial\nplaces that it is good for the fever which human beings take in such\nplaces; and it is because the salicin of the willow guards the tree\nfrom the injurious exhalations of marshes and river banks that it\nis a specific for rheumatism in man, which is produced by the same\ncauses.\n\nThe same benefit which the medicinal principle developed by itself\nworks in its own constitution it confers upon man when subjected\nto the same evil. And so it is with all the herbal medicines. They\nhave a purpose to serve in the economy of the plant that yields them\nbefore they can minister to human sickness and disease. Sugar was\nnot meant in the first instance to sweeten man's cup, but to store\nup food for the plant in order to enable it to flower. Tannin is\ncreated in the bark of the oak tree, in the first instance, not for\nthe purpose of helping to make leather for man's shoes, but for\nthe purpose of preventing mildew and fungous growths from settling\non the bark of the tree and so decaying it. Scent is produced\nin flowers and shrubs that grow in watery places, not for man's\ngratification in the first instance, but in order to deodorise the\nair and make it fit for these scented flowers and shrubs to breathe\nand to preserve their vitality and vigour. Aromatic fragrance is\nyielded by the grey shrubs and herbs of the dry desert, not that the\ngarments of the human passer-by might smell pleasantly of it, but\nthat it might regulate the temperature, and keep the plants cool in\nthe burning heat of the noonday and warm in the freezing cold of the\nnight air.\n\nSuch instances might be multiplied indefinitely. Indeed, it may\nbe regarded as a rule of nature without exception that, whatever\nproperties plants possess that are useful to man, these properties,\nin the first instance, are not only useful but indispensable to\nthemselves. And it is because they serve necessary uses in their own\neconomy that they are found so necessary in the economy of man. Each\nplant that grows in circumstances where it is likely to be injured\nby the soil or climate develops within itself the antidotes and\nremedies against these unfavourable circumstances. It is a physician\nthat heals itself first of all, that adapts itself as perfectly as\npossible to the peculiarities of its own place of growth. Nature\nand it are harmonious: they help each other. The qualities that\nare beneficial to itself are equally in the same way beneficial to\nother creatures; and it helps the world because it has first helped\nitself. It imparts health all around because it looks first after\nits own health.\n\nAll this is obvious. The plant could not exist at all did it not\ndevelop those qualities which would minister to its welfare and\nadjust it perfectly to its environment. But in human economy we\nfancy somehow that the law is less strict and more irregular, and\ncan be violated at times with impunity. We think that a man can\nperform the part of a physician, and cure others, although he cannot\ncure a trouble that afflicts himself; that he can restore others\nto health while he himself is unhealthy. We can separate between a\nman's skill and his personality; and, indeed, there are many cases\nwhere a physician who is dying slowly of some incurable disease\ncan yet, by his knowledge and cleverness, so treat his patients\nthat he may heal their diseases and restore them to health and\nstrength. But we are usually suspicious of a doctor endeavouring\nto cure others when he himself labours under an uncured disease.\nWe reason naturally that his first concern should be himself; and\nif he fails in doing good to himself by his skill and medicine,\nwhen his interests are most of all concerned and the motive for\nhealing strongest, how can he hope to succeed in the case of others,\nstrangers and comparatively indifferent to him? We should not accept\nwith implicit confidence a so-called remedy for baldness forced\nupon our notice by a person whose own head was in that condition.\nWe should expect him to operate upon himself in the first instance\nwith success, and then we should feel disposed to venture upon a\nsimilar use of it. The proverb says that \"He who drives fat cattle\nmust himself be fat\"; and upon the principle involved in that common\nsaying he who would heal others must himself be a specimen of that\nactive, vigorous health to which he wishes to restore others. In no\nwork, indeed, is the personal equation of more consequence than in\nthe work of the physician. Three-fourths of the elements that enter\ninto all diseases are spiritual, and three-fourths of the remedies\nthat must be used for them must also be spiritual. The personal\nappearance, character, and manner of the physician himself are most\nimportant factors in the cure of disease. Confidence in the doctor\nis more than half the cure; and therefore what the doctor is in\nhimself is of great consequence.\n\nIn the spiritual sphere the physician can only heal others as he\nheals himself. He himself must be an exemplification of the saving\nhealth of God's countenance if he is to do good to others. It is\njust as true in the affairs of the human soul as it is in the\ncase of the plant--that the quality which is beneficial to the\nsoul itself is equally beneficial to the world. It is noticeable,\nhowever, that there are exceptions to the rule in the spiritual\nworld as there are exceptions in the natural human world. Just as\nthere are cases of physicians healing bodily diseases in others\nwhile their own disease is unhealed, so there are cases where a man\nis the means of saving others while he himself is unsaved.\n\nIt is not, indeed, a matter of supposition, but of certainty, that\na man may do good while he is not good. Hundreds of instances could\nbe given, in which persons have been the means of quickening,\ncomforting, and building up souls in the Lord, while all the time\nthey themselves were strangers to the power of truth and ignorant\nof the love of Christ in their hearts. Ministers have preached the\nGospel for years, and have been wise in bringing souls to Christ,\nand yet have themselves been castaways in the end. Members of\nchurches have been zealous in every good work, and yet have known\nnothing of godliness but the form. The very commonness of this\nthing increases its sadness. We think the case of Moses leading\nthe Israelites to the border of the Promised Land while he himself\nwas forbidden to enter peculiarly pathetic; but its pathos is in\nreality far less touching than the case of the man who brings others\nto the fountain of life while he himself is perishing of thirst, who\nis like a guide-post pointing the way of salvation to others while\nunable himself to take a single step.\n\nBut though instances have unquestionably occurred in which signal\nbeneficial results have followed the preaching of the Gospel by\nungodly men, this is not the normal order of the Divine procedure.\nIt is personal experience of religion as an inward life, as a living\npower in the heart, that imparts unction to active Christian effort,\nthat adds conviction and power to testimony and commendation. He\nis the man to do spiritual good to others who is able to say with\nthe Apostle, \"That which we have heard, which we have seen with our\neyes, and our hands have handled, of the word of life, declare we\nunto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us.\" He is the man\nto say to others, \"O taste and see that the Lord is good,\" who has\nhimself tasted, and from his own enjoyment can say, \"Blessed is the\nman that trusteth in Him.\"\n\nIt is an unchangeable law and constitution of our nature that we\ncannot desire blessings for others which we do not really desire for\nourselves, the blessedness of which we have not known ourselves.\nWhen we feel the value of our own souls, and not till then, we\nshall feel the value of the souls of others. When we see the Lord\nourselves, and not till then, we shall desire that every child of\nman shall see Him.\n\nIt is on this account that our Lord says to Peter, \"When thou art\nconverted, strengthen thy brethren.\" \"Simon, son of Jonas, lovest\nthou Me? Feed My sheep; feed My lambs.\" If we are saved ourselves,\nwe shall be best fitted to save and benefit others. There is a\nvirtue in true holiness, there is a secret charm in the wisdom that\ncometh from above, which wins our hearts, and inclines us to embrace\na religion which yields such blessed fruits. The man who eminently\npossesses and constantly exhibits these qualities becomes quick and\npowerful in acting upon the minds of those around him.\n\nThe best way, then, to do good is to be good, and to have such a\nChristian character as will of itself communicate good. Be yourself\nwhat you wish your family, your friends and neighbours, to be.\n\"Physician, heal thyself.\" God needs physicians, many physicians;\nfor there are many destroyers spreading the influence of their\nungodly life--a deadly infection--around, and adding to the disease\nand misery which man's sin first brought upon the world. Let us act\nas fellow-workers with the Good Physician in bringing back health\nand strength and beauty to a plague-stricken world; and for this\npurpose let us qualify ourselves more thoroughly. Let us apply the\nGospel remedies anew to our own case which we recommend to others,\nthat our own profiting and healing by these may be made manifest to\nall. Let us ask God to search us and see if there be anything that\nwould prevent us from doing all the good that we might, any defect\nof manner or disposition of heart that might cause the way of truth\nso far as we are concerned to be evil spoken of; and let us ask the\nhelp of the Divine Spirit to get it healed. So that thus being made\nevery whit whole ourselves, we may diffuse a healthy atmosphere\naround us and make others partakers of our saving health.\n\nThe Sabbath is the best day for healing. Jesus asked the Jews, \"Is\nit lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?\" The reply might have been,\n\"Is it lawful to do anything else but heal on the Sabbath day?\"\nThat day is set apart for healing the diseases of the world. It is\nthe day of recreation--re-creating us and fitting us anew by its\nrest and refreshment of worship for the toil and travail of our\nweekday life. Let us bring to Jesus on this Sabbath day all the old\ninfirmities and disabilities which have been a hindrance to the\ngrowth of the work of grace in the midst of us, and He will deliver\nus from them, and make us new creatures; and so--set free in newness\nof health and strength, with our palsied frame invigorated, our\nwithered hand restored, our lame feet made swift in the way of God's\ncommandments, and our world-bound spirit loosed from its infirmity\nand covetousness, and enabled to look upward where our true treasure\nis--let us seek to free others from their infirmities and diseases,\nand to make all around us strong in faith and health in the new life\nof God's service.\n\nLet the tonic that has restored our own spiritual constitution be\nin all our words and deeds and looks, to restore the spiritual\nconstitution of others. Let the perfume that neutralises the drought\nand cold of the world be exhaled from all our character and conduct,\nso that it may be the means of enabling all with whom we come in\ncontact to resist the aridity and the coldness of the world too.\nLet each of us be so full of Christ's healing and saving power, so\nsaturated with His salvation, as it were, that we ourselves may be\nChrist's best medicines. Let the words \"Physician, heal thyself\" be\nin the very forefront of our profession and of our life throughout\nall the years; and we ourselves in such a case will be among the\nmost potent influences for good in the world.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: PLEDGED.]\n\nBy Katharine Tynan, Author of \"A Daughter of Erin,\" Etc.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\n\"GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART.\"\n\n\nBeside the Wishing Well stood Anthony Trevithick, pale\nand moody. His eyes were on the ground, and an old childish habit of\nbiting his nails when he was perplexed or in trouble had come back\nto him.\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" said Lord Glengall at his elbow. \"I have\nreturned for some things Miss Graydon left behind her.\"\n\n\"These?\" asked the young fellow, pointing with his foot to the\nlittle heap of trinkets on the moss. But even in his anger he\nblushed for the unhappiness of the position.\n\nLord Glengall stooped and picked up the things, and stuffed them\ninto one of the pockets of his rough coat. He turned as if to go\naway. Then he hesitated an instant and came back.\n\n\"There is no reason why we should be enemies,\" he said, advancing a\nstep nearer.\n\n\"No?\" replied Anthony Trevithick, lifting his moody eyes. \"That\ndepends.\"\n\n\"On what, sir?\"\n\n\"On--a great many things,\" stammered the young man.\n\n\"You mean on whether I am prepared to stand aside and to sacrifice\neverything that you may have your will. I know the state of affairs,\nyou see.\"\n\n\"I meant to seek you out and tell you, Lord Glengall. I ought to\nsay, perhaps, that Miss Graydon is without reproach in this matter.\"\n\n\"Neither of us is likely to wrong her in our thoughts, I hope,\" said\nLord Glengall. \"The question is, whether _you_ are without reproach.\"\n\n\"By what right----\" began the younger man.\n\n\"Hush!\" said the other, with a dignity that was more compelling than\nhis words. \"We are speaking as man to man. Miss Graydon has told\nme something of how affairs lay between you and her, but not all.\nWhy did you leave her in the first instance in the position of a\nhalf-engaged girl?\"\n\n\"Are you her ambassador?\"\n\n\"She is dearer to me, I dare swear, than she is to you, though you\nwill not believe it. There is no use in beating about the bush. If I\nthink you can make her happier than I can, I am prepared to give her\nback her promise.\"\n\n\"Lord Glengall!\"\n\nA gesture silenced the words on his lips.\n\n\"Don't say anything, please. If I do it, I do it for her. And I\nshall only give her up to you if I am sure you are worthy.\"\n\n\"I don't say I am worthy, but I have a fairly clean record. As for\nthat matter, I will explain. I was unwise, but I was not altogether\nto blame. My mother has a greatly loved young cousin. She has been\nin the house with us since her mother died some years ago. It was a\nscheme of my mother's that we should marry, though it was not openly\nexpressed. I did not oppose it. I had no idea what love meant till I\nsaw Pamela; but I had fetched and carried for Lady Kitty. Probably\na great number of people thought we were engaged; and it seemed to\nme that I ought to set the matter straight before I was formally\nengaged to Pamela.\"\n\n\"It would have been better to have let Pamela alone till you were\nquite free.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know, but----\"\n\n\"There; you are young. You can't be expected to be as deliberate as\nan older man. You meant to act straight by her?\"\n\n\"I meant to come back in a week a free man. When I was called away\nto my uncle's sick bed, my mother made me promise not to speak, not\nto try to clear up things with Lady Kitty, till I returned. I did\nwrite to Mr. Graydon, but the letter never reached him.\" He blushed\nhotly and paused.\n\n\"Yes, I know,\" interrupted Lord Glengall. \"When you came back?\"\n\n\"When I came back, I found--Pamela engaged to you, and my cousin\nengaged to a great friend of mine. As it proved, she had never\nthought of me in that way; but her affection for my mother prevented\nher from speaking out.\"\n\n\"You should have written again to Mr. Graydon. You made Pamela\nunhappy.\"\n\n\"I thought he had not written because I said I would come as soon as\nI could. Then I was kept week after week, till the time turned into\nmonths. I am deeply sorry that I caused her unhappiness.\"\n\n\"This is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?\"\n\n\"It is absolutely the truth, and nothing else.\"\n\n\"Very well, Sir Anthony, I believe you. If you had not been\nstraight, I should have held her to the letter of her bond against\nyou and the world, even against herself. Now--in her heart she has\nchosen you, and you are a fitter mate for her than I--I resign her\nto you.\"\n\n\"Lord Glengall!\"\n\n\"I do not ask your thanks, sir. Make her happy--that is all. For the\nrest, I have one word of advice for you.\"\n\n\"Whatever it is, I shall act upon it.\"\n\n\"Go back to-night to England.\"\n\n\"Without a word to Pamela?\"\n\n\"Let her be. I will say what is necessary. You will have to win her\nagain, young sir. She is not the girl to change her lovers like her\nfrocks.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you are right, sir,\" with hesitation.\n\n\"Go,\" said Lord Glengall, waving him away, \"go! If you speak to her\nin her present mood, you will be sorry. Let her be free of both of\nus for a while.\"\n\n\"You, too, will leave her?\"\n\n\"I shall leave her till all this is forgotten. It will be nothing\nnew for me to set out for the ends of the earth at an hour's notice.\"\n\n\"You are, as Pamela says, the best man living.\"\n\n\"Stop!\" said Lord Glengall, with a gesture as if he could not endure\nthe praise. \"Good-bye!\"\n\n\"Good-bye,\" repeated Sir Anthony, turning away.\n\nSeveral times as he went homeward Lord Glengall stooped to pat the\nshaggy coat of the terrier who still trotted by him.\n\n[Illustration: Pointing with his foot to the little heap of\ntrinkets.]\n\n\"You don't know poetry, old fellow,\" he said once aloud, \"but there\nwas a poet named Shakespeare who wrote something about people coming\nback 'to push us from our stools.' I am not good at remembering\npoetry; but that young gentleman we have just left has come back to\npush us from our stools--to push us from our stools.\"\n\nThe dog, as if he understood, thrust a sympathetic nose into his\ncompanion's hand.\n\nWhen Lord Glengall reached Carrickmoyle, he went straight to Mr.\nGraydon's room. Mary was sitting by her father, stitching a piece of\nfine white stuff in the twilight.\n\n\"Ah! Glengall,\" said the invalid briskly. \"Have you come in to smoke\na last pipe with me? Come and tell me what prices were like at the\nfair to-day. Run away, Molly child, and rest your eyes, and let\nGlengall have your seat.\"\n\nThe two men lit up soberly, and smoked away for a while, discussing\nprices and cattle and crops in a desultory fashion.\n\nAt last Lord Glengall knocked out the ashes from his stumpy clay\nagainst the top bar of the grate, and stuffed the pipe into his\npocket.\n\n\"I wanted to talk to you about Pam, Graydon,\" he said.\n\n\"What about Pam?\"\n\n\"Only that I did the child an injustice in wanting to marry her. I\nam too old.\"\n\n\"Does Pam say this? Are you speaking for her?\"\n\n\"Poor little Pam! There were some love-passages, Graydon, between\nher and your pupil Trevithick.\"\n\n\"I guessed as much, but how far the thing went I have no idea. I\ndon't believe in probing into those things, Glengall. It is better\nto let them die.\"\n\n\"Had you any idea that the young fellow might possibly ask for her?\"\n\n\"I hoped so once, not because it would be a good marriage for Pam,\nor anything of that sort, but because I thought him a good lad, and\nI believed in his father's son. I was disappointed that he turned\nout so different from my expectations.\"\n\n\"Would you be surprised to hear that he wrote to you about Pam\nimmediately after he left, and that his mother intercepted the\nletter?\"\n\n\"His mother!\"\n\n\"Yes; she had other views for him.\"\n\n\"I wonder why she came here, why she troubled our peace, and forced\nher hospitality on Pam, who didn't want it?\" said Mr. Graydon\nmusingly.\n\n\"To make a parting between the lad and Pam more certain. She told\nPam he was engaged to his cousin; and in other ways made the child's\nvisit miserable.\"\n\n\"My poor Pam! I remember she hated to go.\"\n\n\"I am sorry the boy has such a mother.\"\n\n\"Yet I remember her a very noble-looking girl. I don't think she\nwas made for mean things.\"\n\n\"Ah! well, we can let her be. She is sufficiently punished, poor\nwoman, by her son's scorn. That must be a terrible thing to endure.\"\n\n\"And she is a proud woman.\"\n\n\"However, Graydon, we are not concerned with her. The state of the\ncase is this: The young people were in love with each other, and\nwere parted by a fraud. Under a total misapprehension, Pamela has\nengaged herself to me. Now that the misapprehension is removed, what\nis the clear course for me to take?\"\n\n\"I should ask Pamela, Glengall.\"\n\n\"Pamela is at this moment in a mood in which it would not be safe to\ntake her at her word. The only thing for me to do is to step down\nand out.\"\n\n\"Glengall!\" said Mr. Graydon, laying a hand on his.\n\n\"Don't pity me just now, Graydon. Frankly, I'm not equal to it.\"\n\n\"Have you told Pam?\"\n\n\"I shall tell her. Afterwards I shall go away till the nine days'\nwonder is forgotten.\"\n\n\"Glengall, I wish this had not happened.\"\n\n\"There is one way in which you can atone to me for its bitterness--I\ndon't mind confessing to you that it is bitter.\"\n\n\"And that way?\"\n\n\"You must borrow from me what will take you abroad. You must; it is\nfor their sakes.\"\n\n\"Very well; if there is no other way. I shall repay you, I hope.\"\n\n\"You have plenty of time before you to grow rich in. When you come\nback next spring, you must finish your _magnum opus_.\"\n\nMr. Graydon rubbed his hands in boyish cheerfulness.\n\n\"I shall feel equal to tackling it after a change. I'm afraid I've\nbeen vegetating, and the mosses and mildew have grown upon me. You\nhave lived, Glengall, while I was growing into a worthless old\nblock.\"\n\n\"It is you who have lived,\" said Lord Glengall. \"You have lived\nnaturally. When I die, it is the end of my line, and I shall have no\none to close my eyes.\"\n\nWhen he found Pam in the drawing-room alone, a little later, he drew\nher to him, and kissed her hair where it clustered over the white\nforehead.\n\n\"I have brought your pretty things, Pam,\" he said, fumbling in his\npocket.\n\n\"And you have forgiven me?\"\n\n\"I have forgiven you, dear.\"\n\nHe fastened the little chain about her neck and the bracelet on her\nwrist.\n\n\"You will wear them for me, Pam?\" he said. \"I should not know what\nto do with them.\"\n\n\"And my ring?\" said Pam, wondering.\n\n\"I have taken back the ring. You are free, Pam; free as air.\"\n\n[Illustration: \"You are free, Pam; free as air.\"]\n\n\"But I don't want to be free.\"\n\n\"You did yesterday, Pam, and you will to-morrow. I have seen Sir\nAnthony, Pam. He is guiltless, and will come again.\"\n\n\"I do not want him to come,\" cried Pam with a great sob.\n\n\"I sent him away because I was afraid if he came to you now you\nwould make him and yourself unhappy. He hated to go, but he went. He\nwill come again. You will be good to him, Pam, because you love him.\nNow, good-bye, my dear. I shall come back when you are married.\"\n\nPamela's hands were over her eyes, and she was crying quietly.\n\n\"Another thing, Pam,\" he said. \"I have arranged with your father. He\nis to winter abroad.\"\n\n\"Sylvia will see to that,\" she answered. \"Miss Spencer has made it\neasy for her. At least, we need not take that from you.\"\n\n\"You have given me great happiness,\" he repeated. \"And now,\ngood-bye, my dear, good-bye.\"\n\nA day or two later Carrickmoyle was startled by the news that Lord\nGlengall had sailed for Australia.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\n\"THOUGH 'TWERE TEN THOUSAND MILE.\"\n\n\n\"I wish something would happen,\" said Sylvia; \"it is the longest\nsummer I have ever known.\"\n\nSylvia was wearing black for Miss Spencer, who had passed away\npeacefully a few weeks after that talk with Pamela. When the\nlegal formalities were completed, Sylvia would be _ch\u00e2telaine_ of\nDovercourt; but her interest in her inheritance seemed very slight.\n\n\"By-and-by,\" she had said, \"I shall be glad to know that I have\nmoney to do things with; but just at present I can only remember\nwhat it is that has made me rich.\"\n\n[Illustration: \"I thought you were going to marry him, Bridget.\"]\n\n\"Why not have Mr. Baker or Mr. St. Quintin to tea quietly?\"\nsuggested Pam. \"I am sure they are longing to come, and they would\ncheer you up.\"\n\nBut Sylvia would not. She preferred to wander from the house to the\ngarden with the dogs at her heels, or to stray from one room to\nanother, having a desultory chat with her father, who was now up and\nabout, or with Mary, cheerfully sewing her bridal clothes, usually\nending up with a visit to Bridget in the kitchen.\n\nBridget quite agreed with Sylvia about the dulness of the house, and\nsuggested the same remedy for it as Pamela had done.\n\n\"Have a bit of company, child,\" she said. \"Sure, her that's gone\n(the heavens be her bed!) 'ud be the last to grudge the young what's\nnatural to the young, let alone that I hear young Mr. St. Quintin's\nthat mopy that they say 'tis to horse-racin' he's took, wid the\ndesign of breakin' his neck by way of divarsion.\"\n\n\"Don't talk such nonsense, Bridget,\" said Sylvia languidly. \"The\nhorse is not born that could unseat Mr. St. Quintin. He can stick\non like grim death. But I don't feel that company, such company as\nI could get, would be any good to me. I don't like young people,\nBridget.\"\n\n\"Well, sorra such a house I ever was in,\" said Bridget, scandalised.\n\n\"Never mind, Bridget dear,\" said Sylvia, who had temporarily lost\nher taste for sharp argument with Bridget. \"I suppose I was born\nold.\"\n\n\"Listen to her,\" cried Bridget, \"an' she wid the lightest feet, aye,\nan' the purtiest face in the barony! Between you and Miss Pamela,\nme heart's fairly bruk. There's Miss Pamela, that ought to be goin'\nto be married a week from next Tuesday, goin' round as mopy as a\nchicken wid the pip. I never seen such goin's on anywhere I was.\"\n\n\"It certainly _is_ time,\" said Sylvia again, \"that something should\nhappen, and, short of marrying myself, Bridget, I'll do anything to\nbring it about.\"\n\n\"Indeed, then Mr. St. Quintin's a pleasant young gentleman,\" said\nBridget, broadly smiling, \"though an imp of mischief. 'Tis meself'll\nnot forget in a hurry how he whipped the steps from undher Grady\nwhin he was pickin' the morello cherries, an' never purtended he\nheard him bawlin' melia murther, an' the ould rogue, as he was\ncontrivin' to slip down by the trunk, caught by a twig in his\nbreeches an' held there! As I said to Mr. St. Quintin, I hoped he\nthought then on poor Mary that's gone, that often he made suffer,\nthe crathur!\"\n\n\"I thought you were going to marry him, Bridget,\" said Sylvia, with\nthe same languid interest.\n\n\"Och, then, heaven forgive you, Miss Sylvia. Sure them was only my\njokes. Not but what he axed me. 'The mischief bother you, man,' says\nI. 'Is it havin' me commit murther you'd be? Why, sure I couldn't\nkeep me hands off you if I was lookin' at you every day, an' then\nI'd be tried an' hung for it, maybe.'\"\n\n\"Well, I'm glad you're not going to marry him under the\ncircumstances,\" said Sylvia. \"But, all the same, it is time some of\nus made a stir.\"\n\nAnd even then one thing that was to disturb the current of their\nlives was on its way.\n\nThe very morning after Sylvia's conversation with Bridget there was\na large square envelope for Mr. Graydon, which somewhat exercised\nhis youngest daughter's imagination.\n\n\"Come here, dad,\" she said, when at last he arrived at the\nbreakfast-table. \"I've been longing for something to happen, and I\nbelieve this is really a happening at last.\"\n\n\"It is my uncle's writing,\" said Mr. Graydon, as he took the letter\nand opened it. As he read it his face grew graver and graver.\n\n\"Poor old Uncle Charles!\" he said, when he had finished. \"His boy is\ndead.\"\n\nLord Downshire's letter was very characteristic:--\n\n\"MY DEAR ARCHIE,--I will not say you have scored again, but at\nleast I have failed with the last card I held against you. My boy\nis dead. I don't ask for your sympathy or your pity. You, with your\nhealthy girls, cannot appreciate what I suffer. I am racked in the\nspirit and the body, and I shall be very glad to leave a world that\nhas lost savour for me. I heard indirectly that you were ill after\nyou had been here; but, you see, _you_ have recovered, and it is\nmy boy that is dead. You are my heir now, and I am too sick of it\nall to make another attempt to frustrate you. And there is no use\ncontinuing in enmity against you, so I shall make you an allowance\nproportionate to the condition of my heir. I shall not ask to see\nyou, but Messrs. Lees and Saunders, of Lincoln's Inn--you will\nremember Saunders; Lees died last year--have my instructions.\"\n\nMr. Graydon put the letter into his pocket when he had read it.\n\n\"Something has happened, Sylvia,\" he said sorrowfully. \"I am Lord\nDownshire's heir once more; and yet I would a thousand times rather\nbe as I was, and the old man's little son living.\"\n\nBut the happenings of the day were not over.\n\nSylvia, going her pilgrimage to Miss Spencer's new grave, was\naware of a tall young figure, which had something familiar about\nit, swinging along towards her. Presently she recognised Anthony\nTrevithick.\n\n\"Miss Sylvia,\" he said, \"I am so glad I met with you. I want to see\nPamela.\"\n\n\"Pamela!\" with oddly upraised eyebrows.\n\n\"Yes--Pamela. I have stayed away as long as I could. I promised Lord\nGlengall I would give her time.\"\n\n\"Oh! that is how it is, is it?\"\n\n\"Yes; didn't you know?\"\n\n\"I guessed, of course, but Pam is not the old Pam. She has been as\nsolemn as an owl, and as secretive, ever since.... When was it?... I\nreally think it began about the time of your going away. She used to\nbe the best of good company.\"\n\n\"What is this for, Miss Sylvia?\" said the young man, touching her\nblack frock.\n\n\"Ah! You do not know. Miss Spencer died a month ago.\"\n\n\"I am sorry,\" he said, with a sympathy which at once made Sylvia his\nfriend.\n\n\"Does Pam know you are coming?\" she asked.\n\n\"No. I was afraid to announce myself. Perhaps she will show me the\ndoor.\"\n\n\"Perhaps she won't, Sir Anthony. She's fond of you, you see.\"\n\n\"Oh, Miss Sylvia!\" cried Anthony Trevithick, flushing delightedly\nthrough his tan.\n\n\"Oh, yes! she's fond of you. I'm not going to talk about her\nsecrets, but I know how it is. I knew all along. That is why I was\nso vexed with her--when---- Never mind. You want to see Pamela,\nthen? Well, just wait for me a minute outside this gate. I will come\nback with you then, and find Pamela for you.\"\n\n\"You are awfully good.\"\n\n\"Perhaps I'm glad to get rid of Pam. She's prettier than I am,\nthough some people don't think so. Perhaps I'm afraid of her\nstealing my admirers.\"\n\n\"I believe it is only your goodness to me.\"\n\n\"And to Pam. She's not the same Pam she was a year ago. If you make\nher like her old self, I shall forgive you even that you left us\nforlorn and unsquired at that famous festivity for which you should\nhave returned.\"\n\n\"Oh! Miss Sylvia, I shan't believe that.\"\n\nShe did not try Anthony Trevithick's patience by keeping him waiting\nlong at the churchyard gate. She was gone only a minute or two\nbefore she returned, her basket empty of its flowers, and her face,\nwhich had gained so much in character and sweetness during the\nyear, a little overshadowed.\n\nWhen they reached Carrickmoyle, she brought Anthony Trevithick\nthrough the sunny hall where the door stood, as ever, hospitably\nopen, and into the big drawing-room. \"Stay here till I find Pam,\"\nshe said. She went upstairs two steps at a time in the boyish way he\nremembered. He listened with a smile on his face till the sound of\nthe footsteps died away. Then he began to walk up and down nervously.\n\nPam sat in the window of her own little room with her chin in her\nhands, gazing over the summer-dark landscape, her air listless, and\nher eyes apathetic.\n\n\"It is lonely, Sylvia,\" she said, scarcely turning her head as her\nsister entered.\n\n\"You never used to find it so,\" said Sylvia. \"I remember the time\nwhen Carrickmoyle held all the delights for you.\"\n\n\"That was when we were little girls in short frocks, and led poor\nMick into scrapes.\"\n\n\"Many a year ago,\" said Sylvia. \"When you struck Anthony Trevithick\nwith the sun-bonnet that was intended for the red cock----\"\n\nPamela's heightened colour assured Sylvia of what she wanted to know.\n\n\"Pam,\" she said, \"why don't you make it straight with Anthony\nTrevithick?\"\n\n\"How do you know there is anything to make straight?\"\n\n\"Rubbish!\" said Sylvia, with quiet scorn.\n\n\"Oh, Sylvia!\" said Pamela, \"you don't understand. I am tired of love\nand lovers. I only want to be let alone. I have suffered too much.\"\n\n\"If you have, it's your own fault. You'd no business to take poor\ndear Glengall when you were in love with someone else, though how\nyou could look at others in the same day with Glengall fairly\nbothers me. And now, why don't you write and ask Anthony Trevithick\nto come back?\"\n\n\"I don't want him to come back.\"\n\n\"Yes, you do; you're crying your eyes out for him every night.\nYes, you are. And why you let all this muddle go on without doing\nanything to prevent it I don't know. I could shake you, Pam!\"\n\n\"What would you have done, Sylvia?\"\n\n\"Well, supposing I was in love with a man and knew him to be in love\nwith me, and supposing he went away and didn't write, I'd never\nthink anything except that the letter was lost. If I could get at\nhim, I'd write and ask him what it meant. If I couldn't, I'd go on\nbelieving in him, maybe till I was old and grey, and till I died, as\nsome have done--if I really loved him, mind you.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you are right, Sylvia.\"\n\n\"There's no doubt about it, Madam Faint-Heart.\"\n\n\"But come,\" she said, after a benevolent scrutiny of Pamela; \"come,\nyou look very nice, unless you'd like to put on the pink sun-bonnet.\nAnthony Trevithick is in the drawing-room.\"\n\n\"Sylvia!\"\n\n\"Yes, I know I ought to have mentioned it before, instead of talking\nnonsense. The poor young man's on tenter-hooks.\"\n\n\"Sylvia! I _can't_ go down.\"\n\n\"Yes, you can. You shall, even if I have to use force.\"\n\n\"Very well, Sylvia,\" said Pam, rising and trembling a little.\n\n\"Come, don't think about it. Do it quickly, as we used to take our\ncod-liver oil long ago. Let us run down the stairs. There, you poor\nlittle thing! your hands are cold. The run will warm them.\"\n\nAnd, half-resisting, Pamela was pulled by force down the stairs.\n\nNevertheless, she entered the room with her head high.\n\n\"How do you do, Sir Anthony?\" she began.\n\n\"Ah, Pam darling!\" cried the young man, coming to meet her. \"Don't\ngive me any more cold words or cold looks. I haven't deserved them,\nand if you've nothing else for me I shall go away for ever.\"\n\n\"No, surely,\" said Pam, and her sweet voice had a little surprise in\nit. \"You didn't really deserve any blame at all.\"\n\n\"But you did, for I asked you to trust me, Pam. I asked you to trust\nme, and your faith was brittle.\"\n\n\"So it was,\" said Pam.\n\n\"Well,\" said Sylvia, as she went out and closed the door. \"It is\nplain these recriminations are not meant for me. Heigho! I wish Mr.\nBaker would come along just now, that I might have the satisfaction\nof refusing him. It is easy to see that Glengall is as completely\nforgotten as if he had never existed.\"\n\nNo one could say that Mr. Graydon's youngest daughter was not loyal\nto the absent.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\n\nA PROPOSAL.\n\n\nPamela Graydon had been Pamela Trevithick for three years, when one\nday in late summer Sylvia, still Sylvia Graydon, was entertaining a\nvisitor in her London drawing-room.\n\nIt was Lord Glengall, a shade greyer, a shade leaner, but looking\nwell nevertheless, and brown with southern suns.\n\n\"And so,\" he said, \"we shall travel back to Ireland together.\"\n\n\"It will be a delightful and unexpected pleasure to have your\ncompany.\"\n\n\"You are glad to return, Sylvia?\"\n\n\"Glad! It is no word for it. I am hungry for the velvety wind that\nblows across the mountains. I am so tired of these glaring streets,\nof parties, and dinners and luncheons, and functions of all kinds.\"\n\nLord Glengall laughed.\n\n\"To tell you the truth, I am amazed and amused to find your father\nin the midst of it all.\"\n\n[Illustration: Half-resisting, Pamela was pulled by force.]\n\n\"Papa! Oh, papa is the veriest Piccadilly lounger. He has returned\nto it all as freshly as if he had never left it. He discovered\ntroops of old friends--without a misgiving--as soon as ever he came\nin for the title.\"\n\n\"He doesn't pine for Carrickmoyle?\"\n\n\"Now and again. When the desire becomes very strong, he and I slip\naway to Euston some evening, forgetting all our engagements, and,\nfor a few days, our new circumstances, at Carrickmoyle, where\nBridget cooks our chops and makes us potato-cakes just as of old.\"\n\n\"I am glad to hear Bridget is still to the fore.\"\n\n\"She is not a day older.\"\n\n\"She never carried out her threat of marrying my gardener?\"\n\n\"Mr. Grady is still a widdy-man, as they used to say in the dear\ncountry.\"\n\n\"But to return to your father. The _magnum opus_ has become an\naccomplished fact. You see, I haven't been so far out of the world\nas not to have heard that.\"\n\n\"Yes. It has been a great success. He is as much in request at\nlearned societies and conversaziones as he is in fashionable\ndrawing-rooms. To think of the years he vegetated at Carrickmoyle!\"\n\n\"Happy years, Sylvia.\"\n\n\"I could hardly hope for happier.\"\n\n\"He will be in soon, Sylvia?\"\n\n\"About half-past five,\" consulting a little watch fastened to her\ngown. \"You can endure my company till then.\"\n\n\"I shall try to. But am I not keeping you from afternoon calls or\nsomething? I saw a carriage at the door as I came in.\"\n\n\"I have sent it away. I was rejoiced to do it. Papa will be simply\nwild with delight at your falling from the clouds like this.\"\n\n\"He hasn't forgotten me, then?\"\n\n\"How should he? The only drawback about Carrickmoyle has been that\nwe could see from it the cold chimneys of Glengall.\"\n\n\"Ah! we shall warm them,\" said Lord Glengall, beaming at her. \"We\nshall have fine jinks if only you and your father will spend six\nmonths of the year at Carrickmoyle. I am no Londoner, and never\nshall be. But I shall be able to endure six months of solitude if I\nknow I am going to have you for the remainder of the year.\"\n\n\"You will not long be left solitary. You cheated the country the\nlast time by disappearing again before it had had time to rejoice\nover you. Your return will flutter the dovecotes for thirty miles\naround.\"\n\n\"You are very kind, Sylvia,\" said Lord Glengall simply. \"But you\nhave not told me half the news,\" he went on. \"How is Molly?\"\n\n\"Flourishing. Mick has got his company. He wouldn't leave the\nservice on any consideration, and I think he was right. They are as\nmuch in love with each other as ever; and they have a beautiful boy.\"\n\n\"Ah! that is right. Molly deserved to be happy.\"\n\n\"She did, and so did Mick. Mick is a dear old fellow.\"\n\n\"And Pam, Sylvia?\"\n\nThere was no consciousness in his voice.\n\n\"Pam, too, is a success. She has been a beauty for three seasons,\nstrange to say.\"\n\n\"And it is a happy marriage?\"\n\n\"Perfectly happy. They are ideally well suited.\"\n\n\"I am glad of that. How does Pam get on with her mother-in-law?\"\n\n\"Fairly well, I believe. Lady Jane keeps herself to herself, which\nis lucky for Pam. I never took to that lady. But she is devoted\nto the heir. She wouldn't strike you, somehow, as a grandmotherly\nperson, but it is so.\"\n\n\"There is an heir?\"\n\n\"Yes; he is two years old, and he has a baby sister of seven months.\"\n\n\"Ah! how you young people have been making history since I left. I\nshall not know this new world of your making.\"\n\n\"You find me changed?\"\n\n\"Lovelier, Sylvia.\"\n\n\"It is nice to have you say that.\"\n\n\"Still greedy for conquest, even though it is only an old fogey?\"\n\n\"Ah!\"--with more intensity than he thought the occasion\ndemanded--\"you never can be that!\"\n\n\"You are always kind, little girl. When I look into your eyes, I\nfancy it is the old Sylvia I am talking to, and not a fine lady.\"\n\n\"It is the old Sylvia.\"\n\n\"The Sylvia I knew would never have worn this\"--touching a fold of\nher dress.\n\n\"She would, if she could. It is only a Paris tea-gown. She was\nhappier in the prints at sixpence a yard from Guirk's shop in\nLettergort.\"\n\n\"Happier, Sylvia? What have you been doing with yourself since?\"\n\n\"Growing old and faded with trying to occupy several houses at once\nand doing a great many things I detest.\"\n\nShe laughed at him from where she sat in her youth and beauty, and\nhe laughed in answer.\n\n\"Where are the lads who used to be in love with you?\"\n\n\"All married, except Algy St. Quintin; but he has long given up\nasking me. We are good comrades.\"\n\n\"No more than that, Sylvia?\"\n\n\"No more than that. I wouldn't lose sight of him for anything. He\nis just the same imp of mischief, as Bridget used to call him. His\ncoolness is phenomenal, and his impudence so deliciously incongruous\nwith his cherubic boy's face.\"\n\n\"There is no one else, Sylvia?\"\n\n\"There is no one else.\"\n\n\"Ah! you are so hard-hearted, child. Or is it that you will stay\nwith your father?\"\n\n\"Not altogether that. I've seen no one here I would marry.\"\n\n\"Yet you have met all sorts and conditions of men.\"\n\n\"All sorts and conditions, but not the right one.\"\n\n\"The right one will come.\"\n\n\"He might come--he may have come, and not have found me the right\nwoman.\"\n\nShe looked at him an instant; then she suddenly blushed hotly, and\nher eyes fell and rested on the jewelled fingers in her lap. So full\nwas her attitude of yielding and submission that it might well make\nthe heart of a lover leap.\n\nA sudden, bewildering idea came to the man before her. For an\ninstant he was dazed with the shock of it. Then he stood up and\npaced the room in great agitation.\n\n\"Sylvia,\" he said at last, pausing before her where she still sat, a\nlovely image of submission, \"Pamela was right when she did not marry\nme.\"\n\n\"She was right because she did not love you.\"\n\n\"How could she love me? I might have been her father.\"\n\n\"That is no reason. Love does not take count of such things.\"\n\n\"Ah, Sylvia! What has love to do with grey hairs?\"\n\n\"If there is love, they are better than gold.\"\n\n\"Sylvia, do you know what madness you are putting into my head?\"\n\n\"I cannot know unless you tell me.\"\n\nSylvia's eyes were raised to his with a flash of the old audacity.\n\n\"Perhaps I dare not tell you.\"\n\n\"Ah, do!\"\n\n\"If I were a young man and you would do it, you might turn this\nwork-a-day earth to Paradise for me.\"\n\n\"And why not now?\"\n\n[Illustration: He made a step towards her.--_p. 552._]\n\n\"Ah! child, you do not know what you are saying. What could you, a\nbeauty and an heiress, see in me?\"\n\n\"I am glad I am beautiful to you. But why should that and the other\nthings stand between me and my happiness?\"\n\n\"Your happiness, Sylvia?\"\n\n\"Ah, yes! You wouldn't see it, but I always thought there was no\none in the world like you. You chose Pam before me, and even then I\naccepted your will, but I loved you still.\"\n\n\"I chose Pam because she was unhappy, because there seemed no other\nway. It did not break my heart to give her up, though it was a blow.\nIt does not hurt me now to hear of her as Lady Trevithick. But I\ndare not risk the same thing with you.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because it would be so easy to forget my years, and love you with a\nyoung man's ardour, and more than a young man's faith.\"\n\n\"Then why not love me?\"\n\n\"Ah! Sylvia, it is your kindness, your compassion. I could not\nendure to be thrown over now, even though I am well on in my\nforties.\"\n\n\"I shall not throw you over. Look at me, and you will see.\"\n\nHe looked at her, and made a step towards her.\n\n\"Then you will make the world over again for me?\"\n\n\"And you for me?\"\n\n\"Ah, Sylvia!\"\n\n\"Yes. How hard it was to persuade you. There will be lots of people\nwho will want to marry you once it is known you have come back. You\nmight have liked someone better than me. And I have waited for three\nyears.\"\n\n\"You fairy princess, what do you mean by condescending to a mortal's\ngrey hairs?\"\n\n\"We shall be so happy, you and I and papa. We shall lead the country\nlife, though he'll have to come to London now and again for his\nserious 'frivolities.' And I shall make you care for me. Now you do\nnot care for me nearly so much as I do for you.\"\n\n\"You bewilder me, Sylvia.\"\n\n\"Ah! yes, you will care for me. I shall not let you cheat me.\"\n\n\"You talk as if my youth were not flown, you lovely child.\"\n\n\"It is not flown. You do not mean to say you used up your youth\nduring those hard years that lined your face and sowed grey hairs in\nyour head? Ah! no, you were saving it up for me.\"\n\n\"It is _too_ incredible!\"\n\n\"Take time, then, to think, good gentleman,\" said Sylvia, with\nlaughter dancing bewitchingly about her mouth; but her eyes were\ntender.\n\n\"If I take time, all this will take wings like a dream and fly away.\"\n\n\"Then keep it,\" said Sylvia.\n\n\"My life--what remains of it--will be devoted to you.\"\n\n\"It is time you should say that. You have been going after false\nfires, while I have been true all the time.\"\n\n\"You to me, Sylvia!\"\n\n\"I to you. But if I had not almost asked you, you would have left me\nto single blessedness. Ah! there is papa's ring. He will be glad.\"\n\n\"He will think it folly, Sylvia.\"\n\n\"Ah! no, he won't. Dear, wise papa, he was always anxious for you to\nmarry one of his daughters.\"\n\n[Illustration: THE END]\n\n\n\n\nTIRED.\n\n\n    On the weary waves of the world\n            To and fro\n    This tired life of mine has been whirled!\n            In the flow\n    And ebb of every dangerous tide\n    My thoughts have drifted far and wide,\n    As on a bleak and bare hill-side\n            Drifts the snow.\n\n    I sought for rest afar, afar,\n            But found it not;\n    I dreamed sweet dreams, if such things are\n            Sweet which we wot\n    Are false. I woke again to know\n    The weight of an unceasing woe,\n    And journeyed onward, bending low\n            To a hard lot.\n\n    At length to my weary soul I said,\n            \"Soul of mite,\n    The empty restless life thou hast led,\n            In shade and shine,\n    In winter's cold and angry beat,\n    In summer's languid parching heat--\n    Poor soul!\" I said, \"It is not meet\n            Such fate be thine.\n\n    \"There is a rest, oh! my tired soul,\n            Far away,\n    We soon may reach that happy goal\n            Beyond to-day.\n    Far, far beyond those darkening skies\n    There is a Land which Rest supplies--\n    Peace, endless peace, that never dies.\n            Come away!\"\n\n    H. BROOKE DAVIES.\n\n\n\n\nLIGHT THROUGH DULL PANES.\n\n_A VISIT TO THE EARLSWOOD ASYLUM._\n\n(_Illustrated from Photographs by Cassell and Co., Ltd._)\n\n     [_This is the first of a special series of illustrated articles\n     on representative philanthropic institutions. Each article will\n     describe the scope and work of the institution concerned, and\n     will in addition contain detailed information as to the methods\n     of admission, with special reference to the \"voting\" system._]\n\n\nThe young Queen Victoria had been ten years on the\nthrone of England. In this decade the wheel of philanthropy seemed\nto turn with increased impetus. It had been set in motion before\nthe dawn of the nineteenth century, for then asylums for the\nblind, the deaf and dumb, and lunatic had been established. Now\nvarious institutions and schemes of benevolence were springing into\nexistence in aid of other classes of sufferers. There was still\nsomething wanting, a lady maintained to Dr. Andrew Reed--a powerful\nfriend of the afflicted and needy; she asked him to help the\nfeeble-minded. He demurred; he doubted whether there were sufficient\ncases to call for a special institute. If she could find six in six\ndays, he promised to take up the matter. Six days produced twenty\neligible from their poverty and infirmity, and the well-known\nphilanthropist kept his word. The National Asylum for Idiots\nwas inaugurated at the Mansion House in October, 1847, and was\nestablished at Highgate in January, 1848. Since then it has received\nupwards of 3,000 cases, and the institution now at Earlswood has\nserved as a model for others in different parts of Europe and our\ncolonies.\n\n[Illustration: IN THE PRINTING OFFICE AT EARLSWOOD.]\n\nThe need of such asylums encircles the world; for wherever humanity\nhas spread children may be born with inherent infirmity, or the\n\"heart ache and a thousand natural shocks which flesh is heir to\"\nmay cloud the brightest intelligence. The poor and sick in mind\nmust ever appeal for help to the rich and strong and capable.\nThe mysterious \"something wanting\" in intellect is a grievous\ncalamity, even when good friends and wealth can procure all\npossible compensations. In a family where the necessities of life\ndepend on the power to work, it reduces existence to a miserable\nburden. It was especially for the poor that the National Asylum was\nestablished. The pleasant building standing on the breezy uplands\nabove Redhill can accommodate nearly 700 patients; and twice a\nyear, on the last Thursday in the months of April and October,\nneedy cases, from five years old and upwards, are elected on the\nfoundation by the votes of subscribers. There are generally from 130\nto 150 applicants, though funds only allow the admission of about\none-fifth of the number. Presentations for life may be secured, but\nit is a happiness to know that the term of five years, which is the\nrule in election, is sometimes sufficient to teach a boy a trade,\nor a girl to make herself useful in housework, needlework, or a\nlaundry. Patients entered for five years may be re-elected. Lately\none of them wrote to his friends, \"It will be soon time to get me in\nagain for another five years. I hope that it will be all right; I\nlike Earlswood.\"\n\n[Illustration: A VIEW OF THE DINING HALL.]\n\nWhy should a boy able to write and to take thought for his own\naffairs be in an asylum for imbeciles? A visit to Earlswood would be\nthe most effectual answer to the question. It is hard to know where\nidiocy begins and ends. There are skilled workmen in the printers',\ntailors', carpenters', and other departments, who, to a casual\nobserver, betray nothing wanting.\n\nMany of their exhibits, as well as specimens of the girls' and\nwomen's needlework, were sold at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition at\nLancaster in 1897, where a section was open to institutions for\nimbeciles, and seventeen prizes were awarded to Earlswood. But there\nare other patients whose limited intelligence renders them oblivious\nof their own infirmity or their own names; between the two extremes\nthere is every degree of feebleness of mind. Those who consciously\nsuffer least are likely to call out the greatest compassion. It is\nnatural to turn away and try to forget the sight of a human creature\ngoing on all-fours, or of great helpless babies, without the charm\nor sweetness of infancy, sitting up with bibs on, waiting for the\nmeal for which they cannot ask.\n\n[Illustration: IN HIS OWN WORKSHOP.]\n\n\"It must be sad and painful to a visitor,\" the matron said, \"to have\na passing glance at the worst cases, but to live amongst them, as\nshe had done for eleven years, was full of interest. Nearly all were\ncapable of some improvement.\"\n\nA home where everything is done to promote their health and\nhappiness is, for the weak-minded, a new world. To be taken from\nconditions of continual disadvantage, and placed under the charge of\nguardians whose first duty is to work and watch for the awakening\nof soul and mind, brings hope and comfort into their life. A poor\nconstitution is often added to the disadvantages of the imbecile;\nand in families where their friends cannot constantly protect them\nthey are often exposed to teasing, and driven into fits of fury,\nending in chronic bad temper, by the mischief or malice of their\ncompanions.\n\n[Illustration: A VIEW OF THE ASYLUM.]\n\n\"No one is allowed to tease them here,\" a nurse remarked, in\nspeaking of the patients' affection and their general disposition\nto get on well together. They are classified, so that they\nmeet companions on equal terms. The lowest have not the spirit\nor independence to defy lawful authority; to the highest but\nrefractory, degradation to a class below is the most salutary\npunishment that can be inflicted. They soon try by their conduct to\nrise to their former level. Anyone in charge giving a patient a blow\nwould be liable to criminal prosecution. The vicious or dangerous\ncases are not admitted, and the authorities do not encourage the\nre-election of those who give absolutely no promise of improvement.\nThe vacancies ought to be filled by candidates to whom care and\ntreatment will be of use. In the great busy world outside Earlswood\nare muscular limbs dwindling or growing stiff for want of exercise,\nand hands framed for skill which are only filled with mischief by\nthe active spirit against whom Dr. Watts left an immortal warning.\nThey need not remain idle, for special training can supply much that\nNature has denied.\n\n[Illustration: AT SCHOOL.]\n\nIt requires a great deal of patience to teach this class of pupils\na useful calling, as more than one instructor remarked when the\ndoctor conducted a visitor through the various workshops. Some\nare unwilling to learn; in Earlswood, as in all communities, each\nvariety of disposition is represented, as well as every degree of\nlack of ability.\n\n\"You can't make me work, you know, doctor,\" one patient maintained,\n\"for I am only an imbecile.\"\n\nHappily, in this little world which, in spite of its limitations,\nmanufactures and supplies for itself most of the necessaries of\nlife, all are not ready to make capital out of their infirmity. The\nmaster-carpenter lamented the loss of a former diligent pupil, who\nhad been worth one pound a week to the institution, and he showed\nwith pride the doors and panels of another, who he said might now\nearn his own living anywhere. This clever young carpenter had been\nat Earlswood for three years, and in the workshop for two. He bore a\nhigh character, and was so attached to the asylum that, when he was\nat home for a summer holiday, he came back for a day. Yet before his\nadmission his relations had been unable to manage him.\n\nThe master-tailor called one of his \"best boys\" to show the\nwaistcoat he was making. A good-looking middle-aged man descended\nwith alacrity from the table--where, in the time-honoured custom\nof his trade, he worked in an attitude calculated to cause persons\nof other callings violent cramp in the legs--and shook hands all\nround with great warmth and friendliness. Directly he had displayed\na piece of work, in which his instructor took pardonable pride,\nhe returned with renewed diligence to his needle and thread. This\nman's interest in tailoring is so keen that when he, in his turn,\ndoes duty in the kitchen, he returns to his cloth and his favourite\nattitude for every available moment. Seated together with the\nfirst-class workmen are others, smiling over their attempts to learn\nstitching or to make button-holes. They may possibly never get\nbeyond samplers, but time will show.\n\nIn the shoemakers' shop similar degrees of skill and industry were\nmanifest. One man held in his hand a finished boot that he had made\nfrom the beginning, whilst others could only be trusted to black\nand polish. So it was with the rest of the twenty-five trades and\ncallings in which last year 198 men and boys were employed, each\naccording to his several ability. Perhaps the highest attainments\nare seen in the printing department--the only one that undertakes\noutside work. Besides the necessary printing for Earlswood and the\nLondon office, 232 private orders were sent out last year, and\na profit was made of \u00a3150. On the occasion of my visit, a young\ncompositor was not quite ready to show his proof to the doctor, who\ninquired what he was doing. He had just set up the programme for a\npatients' party, and had made it conclude with \"Musicle Chairs\"; he\nwanted to correct the spelling before it was inspected.\n\nOne elderly man, deaf, with an impediment in his speech and\nafflicted in mind, had his own workshop. All around him were\nevidences of his artistic skill. He looked tenderly at his own\ndrawings, but the objects of his special admiration were the various\nmagnifiers and reflectors he had designed and made to help him in\nfine carving. H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, who is interested in\nEarlswood, has lately presented him with some elephant tusks. It\nwas a pleasure to this artist to display the lightness of an ivory\nlandscape brooch. A piece of tortoise-shell at the back, with a\njudicious arrangement of the golden and dark blotches, made it a\ntransparency. When held up on one side to the light, it was a sunny\nscene; whilst on the other it was dark, with a full moon.\n\n[Illustration: A CORNER OF THE KITCHEN.]\n\nIn spite of gentle manners and artistic skill, this man would\nprobably be unable to live or turn his talents to account outside\nan asylum. He belongs to a class who for practical purposes never\noutgrow mental childhood. Years roll by. Time brings them grey\nhairs and other signs of his flight, but never carries them beyond\nthe need of fatherly care. Many with far less intelligence seem to\nrealise this.\n\nIt is pathetic to hear in some wards the cry of \"Mother!\" and\nsee a smile of fancied recognition when a stranger appears.\nOne middle-aged woman who called out \"Mamma, mamma!\" had some\ninformation, cheerful but incoherent, to impart. Then the name of\n\"George\" suddenly arrested her flow of trivialities, and her face\npuckered into a grotesque expression of distress. She raised her\nhand and pointed upward, saying, \"George up there.\" The sorrowful\nremembrance was, however, transient; the next instant she was all\nsmiles. The eddy on the surface of her smooth life soon caught\nthe sunshine, but its presence was sufficient to call out fresh\ncompassion for the poor souls whose wits may have been lost under a\nweight of trouble heavier than they could bear.\n\nThe sad pages in the life-history of some of the most helpless are,\nhowever, blotted out of their memory, or only dimly recalled by a\nfragmentary remark. The sound of laughter in the recreation-room,\nsitting-rooms, and playground is almost constant. If it shows the\nvacant mind, it also bespeaks content. Pleasure and enjoyment are\ncircumscribed, but so also is the capacity for suffering in mind\nand body. The patients have almost as little temptation to anxious\nthought for the morrow as the ravens or lilies.\n\nIn a narrow sphere a trifling event assumes great dimensions, and\nthe day may be easily filled with pleasures. The delight with which\none middle-aged patient said that she was going to have a new dress\nhad all the innocent glee of childhood. A lad who called out \"Tick,\ntick!\" at the sight of the doctor was immediately made happy by\nbeing allowed to listen to his watch.\n\n[Illustration: THE CHILDREN AT DRILL IN THE RECREATION-ROOM.]\n\nVarious little treats are planned as rewards for good conduct.\nIn the winter, those who do well are invited once a week to join\nin games in the recreation-room. Yet the Head Governess is of\nopinion that the little ones are never happier than when they are\nat lessons. According to their ability, they go through the course\nusually adopted in elementary schools, and have the same physical\nexercises. The elder girls are employed in housework or in the\nlaundry. Many, no doubt, enjoy the new experience of being usefully\nemployed, and industry and willingness are rewarded by an afternoon\nwalk to the town, a small amount of pocket-money, and a reward at\nthe New Year.\n\n[Illustration: MAT-MAKING.]\n\nThe sense of right and wrong, and of responsibility, develops with\nexercise. Of the many letters received last year at Earlswood from\nthe patients or their relations acknowledging the good results\nof training, the Resident Physician looked upon one from a man\ndischarged five years ago as the most satisfactory. But for a course\nof treatment the writer would probably have remained all his life as\na burden on his relations. He is now earning ten shillings a week in\na grocery business. After making this satisfactory announcement, he\ncontinues: \"I belong to a Bible-class. I am also in a club, so, if\nI am ill, my mother gets ten shillings and sixpence per week, and\nmy doctor's bill paid.\" With inquiries after old friends, special\nlove to two, this patient remains a \"loving friend.\" How many men\nwith all their faculties do more? And how many others fall below his\nstandard of duty and gratitude! In days of old, one out of ten to\nwhom the same miracle of mercy brought new life and health returned\nto the great Healer and gave glory to God, and he belonged to a\nclass from whom least might have been expected. A good proportion\nof the strangers to many privileges, as the feeble-minded must\never remain, often live as examples of doing their best. A man is\naccepted according to that he hath.\n\n[Illustration: SOME BASKET-WORKERS.]\n\nThe highest and the only certain principle of good conduct is kept\nbefore all who enter the asylum. Twice a day they meet for prayers,\nand before and after meals grace, sung in the great hall to the\naccompaniment of a fine organ, fills the corridors with music,\nin which many of the patients delight. The resident Religious\nInstructor last year found a note slipped into his hand, addressed,\n\"Mr. Small, from me.\" A patient wrote:\n\n\"DEAR SIR, I wish to ask you, in a nice kind way or other, to have\ntwo of my hymns on the 5th of February, which is Saturday. Please\nhave them in the evening--Nos. 500 and 532--and you may quite expect\na nice pocket-book from me.--Your friend, PERCY.\"\n\nIt is not unusual for boys to ask that their birthdays may be\ncelebrated by singing their favourite hymns.\n\nTheir teacher finds that lessons on the life and miracles of our\nLord always have a charm for the patients. Even those unable to read\nor intelligently follow the prayers can enjoy Sunday; then they\nreceive pictures illustrating Bible incidents, and can, at least,\nhear the hymns at the evening service, which in summer is held\nunder the trees. Methods of teaching must be adapted to the varied\ncapacity, but the lesson of the compassion of our Lord for every\ninfirmity is common to the 600 patients whom Earlswood now shelters,\nwhilst 130 are waiting for admission.\n\nOne class may enter by payment, which varies according to the\ncircumstances and requirements. The lowest payment is sixty-five\nguineas a year, and it includes entire maintenance and clothing\nfor twelve months. There are no vacations, unless the friends\ndesire it. Private patients do not mix with those on the foundation\neither at meals or in the recreation-room. Some have their own\nsitting-rooms and special attendants.\n\nAnother class of patients may enter by part-payment. They are\nelected from a list of candidates whose friends fill a position that\nwould preclude their gaining free admission, but who are unable to\nmake the ordinary payment. The minimum sum of fifteen guineas is\nrequired annually so long as the child remains in the asylum.\n\nA large number of subscribers' votes, 700 at least, are required to\nplace a candidate for ordinary election on the foundation. Before\ncanvassing, a form must be obtained from the office, 36, King\nWilliam Street, London Bridge, E.C., in order to see if the case\nis deemed eligible by the Board, whether for free or part-payment\nelection. For the well-being of the community in general, rules\ncannot be broken. Great disappointment and trouble are sometimes\noccasioned by an attempt to canvass before ascertaining that a\ncandidate will be approved by the Board. The receipt of parish\nrelief at any time disqualifies a candidate. Certain regulations,\nthe result of experience, have been made regarding receiving and\nmaintaining the large family whom the authorities have taken under\ntheir care, and Earlswood is subject to the inspection of the\nCommissioners in Lunacy.\n\nDuring fifty years the supporters of this institution have, in\na very literal sense, obeyed the injunction to \"comfort the\nfeeble-minded.\" In spite of limp limbs and slouching gait, the\nweakest among the imbecile bear the image of their Creator. Can\nit be doubted that they are as precious to Him as the conies who,\nthough \"but a feeble folk,\" find, under His providence, a refuge in\nthe stony rocks? In their helplessness and dependence, the afflicted\nin mind find a place in the heart and affection of their guardians;\nand who can tell how many have learnt, through them, to hide\nthemselves with all their infirmities in the Rock of Ages?\n\n  D. L. WOOLMER.\n\n[Illustration: IN THE SHOEMAKING ROOM.]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: MOTHER-HOOD]\n\nBy Lina Orman Cooper, Author of \"Our Home Rulers,\" Etc.\n\n\n\"There is many an arrow in my quiver, full of speech to\nthe wise, but for the many they need interpreters.\"\n\nSo wrote Pindar long, long ago; and I, having gathered many arrows\nof help and knowledge from the quiver of books around me, would\nfain pass them on. In this paper I string these barbs to the bow of\nmotherhood, and trust they may pierce to the joints of the harness.\n\nPerhaps there is no subject absorbing more attention at the present\ntime than that of motherhood and heredity. Never has the cult of\nmaternity been better formulated--never has the practice of it\nbeen more carefully studied. \"In these days of pressure,\" writes\nLyttleton, \"it is a mother's first duty to her children to secure\nfor them a full seven years of passive life.\" \"The best and first\nservice a mother can do her children,\" says another writer, \"is to\nmaintain the standard of her own life at its highest--\n\n  \"'Allure to brighter worlds, and _lead the way_.'\"\n\n\"It is a mother's first duty to provide for each newborn soul\nan environment which will foster its highest development,\" says\nanother. \"To praise is a part of a mother's first work in the world\non behalf of her children,\" adds a fourth. \"I consider it to be the\nfirst and most important part of the education of childhood to lead\nthem early to think\" is Froebel's opinion.\n\nThe importance of a mother's influence during the first few years of\nexistence is repeated in Lord Macaulay's well-known aphorism, \"Give\nme the first seven years of a child's life, and let who will take\nthe rest\"; and by Froebel, when he says, \"The most important period\nof human education is before the child is seven years old.\"\n\nWe mothers, who are God's special servants--His instruments, as it\nwere, for the particular purpose of carrying out His will for the\nwee individuals confided to us--are apt to think too little about\nthose first years of a child's life. Our children, from two to five,\nare often left to self-education. Very little scientific care is\nexpended on them. Yet beauty of body and soul would not be so seldom\nmet with, or so transient as it is apt to be with us, if we truly\neducated persons took our children in hand from their _babyhood_,\ninstead of leaving them to the most ignorant class of the community.\n\n\"It is usual to speak of the Greeks,\" writes Peabody in his \"Primary\nSchool,\" \"as if they were of exceptional organisation. Their\norganisation was only exceptional because it was more carefully\ntreated in _infancy_ than ours is apt to be.\"\n\n\"The laws which govern the growth of the human mind are as definite\nand as general in their application as those which apply to the\nmaterial universe,\" and we know the basis of all development is\na _good foundation_. This must be laid in early youth, both as\nregards the body and as regards the mind. \"It is so fatally easy\nto do mischief\" in those first seven years. The limbs of a sapling\nare not more easily bent than the budding desires of the infant.\n\"The soul instinctively expects love\" from the first, and only a\nmother's exclusively cherishing tenderness ought to be the rule in a\nnursery. \"The true educational instinct is but the mother's instinct\nand method clearly understood in all its bearings and carried out\nintelligently.\"\n\nThis last word opens out a wonderful vista. \"Parents should make\nthe care of their children an object to study physiology and\npsychology,\" says Peabody; and thus we find education is always\nmutual. According to Goethe, \"the child teaches the parent what the\nparents omit to teach him\"; and, as Plato adds, \"man cannot propose\n(or woman either) a higher or loftier object for his study than\neducation and all that pertains thereto.\"\n\nBefore leaving this branch of the subject, it is well for all\nmothers clearly to understand the difference between education and\ninstruction. The former (training of the heart) belongs exclusively\nto the parent. The latter (training of the intellect) to the\ngoverness. As Renan puts it, \"Instruction is given in the school.\nEducation takes place in the father's house; the masters are the\nmothers and sisters.\"\n\nWell for us if we remember that education is always going on,\nwhether we will it or not. Our life, our morals, are affecting our\nchildren for weal or woe, whether we realise or shirk the fact.\n\"Every human life is lifted or lowered by the home it is born\ninto.\" That magic and omnipotent gift of a mother's influence \"is\nan hourly, unconscious, emanating force\" exercised on those around.\n\"We always know when we are instructing. We do not always know when\nwe are educating.\" The realisation of this amazing power is enough\nto stagger the bravest heart. \"A mother has to be convinced that\nthe great function of motherhood is not only to guard her child, to\nexhort him, to train him, but to live her life in the presence of\nthat child as a pattern of what the child should aspire to become.\"\n\nA mother's influence should certainly be at its strongest during\nthe early years of life. It \"depends on what she is, and only in a\nsubordinate way on what she does.\" Therefore, she can carry altruism\ntoo far. A mother is of as much value in the sight of God as is\nher child, and \"the path in which she has to walk is plainly that\nof self-sanctification for the sake of\" that child. This implies\nseasons for culture, rest, prayer, and the preservation of her body\nin health. To quote Miss Mason on this point, \"Health is a duty, and\nany trifling with health, either vicious or careless, is really in\nthe nature of suicide, because life is held in trust from a supreme\nAuthority.\"\n\nWill the years be wasted if we spend them mastering the science of\neducation in our nurseries? Nay! even our personal charms will be\namplified by the most entrancing study in the world. \"The perfect\nloveliness of a woman's countenance can only consist in that\nmajestic peace which is founded in memory of happy and useful years\nfull of sweet records\" (Ruskin). Verily we shall have our reward.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Remembrance.\n\n\n               _Words by_ JAMES MONTGOMERY.\n         _Music by_ GORDON SAUNDERS, Mus.D. Oxon.\n\n    1. According to Thy gracious Word, In meek humility\n    This will I do, my dying Lord--I will remember Thee.\n\n    2. When to the cross I turn mine eyes, And rest on Calvary,\n    O Lamb of God, my sacrifice, I must remember Thee.\n\n    Amen\n]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: THE TEN LITTLE INDIANS]\n\nA FAIRY PARABLE.\n\nBy Howard Angus Kennedy.\n\n\nOnce upon a time there were ten little Red Indians,\nand they lived in a school-house built of logs on the banks of the\nRiver Saskatchewan; and, if you cannot pronounce the river's name,\njust try till you can. The reason they lived in a school-house was\nthat their fathers had gone hunting in the woods, and their mothers\nwere dead, so the wigwams were very lonely; but the children were as\nhappy as they could be, and enjoyed their schooling as much as any\nwhite children enjoy their holidays. The teacher was a sweet white\nlady from down beyond, who mothered them all so well that they never\neven thought of being bad. At least, only two of them did; and they\nnever got beyond thinking about it, as long as the teacher was with\nthem.\n\nDown at the bottom of the river, in a deep, deep hole, there\nlived a wicked wizard; and one morning very early he was prowling\nalong by the shore, with just the tip of his nose above water,\nsniff-sniff-sniffing for the scent of anyone good to eat. Now it\nhappened that that morning the teacher had got up very early, and\nwas sitting on a stone by the riverside, trying to think of new\nstory-lessons to tell the children; and the wizard put up his long\nsnaky arm out of the water and caught her by the neck and dragged\nher down to his cave. Then he tied her hands and feet, and waited\nfor her to drown; but drown she would not. So he thought she must\nhave a Testament in her pocket to act as a charm. The Testament was\nreally in her heart, which was a great deal better. So when he saw\nshe would not drown, he was a little frightened, and offered to let\nher go if she would give him one of the children instead.\n\n\"You wicked wizard,\" said she, \"not one of them shall you have!\"\n\n\"We shall see about that,\" said the wizard; and out he went, leaving\nthe teacher tied fast at the bottom of the hole.\n\nNow, when the children came down, they were very much surprised\nto find no teacher; but they took their morning dip in the river,\nas she had taught them to do. Just as they were coming out to dry\nthemselves, a great grey fish put his head out of the water and\nsaid--\"Children, the wizard that lives in the hole has caught your\nteacher, and he's coming to catch you.\"\n\nThe children jumped out of the water in a great fright. \"What shall\nwe do? What _shall_ we do?\" they all began to cry.\n\n\"Put on your clothes,\" said the fish, after he had gone down for a\nmoment to breathe.\n\nThat was soon done, for they had very few clothes to put on.\n\n\"Now get on our backs,\" said the great grey fish, who had come up\nthis time with nine others as like him as could be. Then the ten\nfishes humped up their great grey backs, just keeping their heads\nunder water to breathe with and their tails to swim with; and the\nten children got on, and the fishes carried them across the big\nriver in a twinkling.\n\n\"Now, children,\" said the chief of the fishes, \"strike into the\nwood as straight as you can go till you come to the old brown bear,\nand he'll tell you the way to Fruity Hollow, where you'll get your\ndinner; but don't speak to the grizzly bear, for he's the wizard's\nson. Then go on till you come to the old grey wolf, and she'll tell\nyou the way to the otters' cave; but don't say a word to the red\nwolf with the squint, for she's the wizard's daughter.\"\n\nThe fish was quite out of breath when he got to the end of this\nspeech, and disappeared in a hurry.\n\nThen the ten little Indians marched off into the woods, Indian file;\nand they all kept close together, one behind the other, except the\ntwo little boys that sometimes wished they did not have to do what\nthey ought; and they dawdled behind. Pretty soon the children got to\nwhere the poplars end and the pinewoods begin, and there they saw\nthe grizzly bear sitting on his haunches beside the path, with his\narms folded smugly across his chest and his cruel face trying to\nsmile.\n\n\"Welcome, little darlings!\" the grizzly bear said, in a voice as\nsweet as honey. \"Would you like me to take you to Fruity Hollow?\"\n\nThe children shut their mouths tightly, and went straight on, and\nthe grizzly gritted his teeth in disappointment; but when the two\nbad little Indians came straggling along he sat up again and put on\nhis smirkiest smile and said--\n\n\"You poor little dears! What a shame it was for the others to leave\nyou behind! How hungry you must be! Would you like me to show you\nthe way to Fruity Hollow?\"\n\n\"That I should, indeed!\" said one of the boys. And the grizzly bear\nsprang upon him, and caught him up, and hugged him till the breath\nwas nearly out of his body, and strode off with him; and the other\nboy ran on as fast as he could to catch up his companions.\n\nMeanwhile the eight little Indians marched steadily on till they\ncame to the old brown bear; and he was so fast asleep they could\nonly wake him by pulling his fur, but they took care to pull it\nrespectfully.\n\n\"All right,\" said the old brown bear in a mumbly voice, \"I know what\nyou want. First turning on the right, over the big tree that blew\ndown last winter.\" Then he went to sleep again before they could say\n\"Thank you, sir.\"\n\nWhen they came to a big tree lying with its roots in the air, but\nwith its needles still green, they scrambled over it and followed a\nwinding path down into a narrow valley just full of wild raspberry-\nand gooseberry- and currant-bushes, and they picked and ate and\npicked and ate till they could eat no more. Then they made baskets\nof big leaves and twigs, and filled them with berries for supper,\nand climbed back over the big tree and trudged along up the path.\n\nSoon afterwards they came upon the squinting red wolf, straddling\nright across the track.\n\n\"Here we are, you sweet little redskins,\" said she, with a grin two\nfeet long. \"The otters have asked me to show you the way to their\ncave.\"\n\nThe little redskins turned almost white with fear, but they shut\ntheir mouths tightly and pushed right on, and the wicked red wolf\nhad to jump out of the way in a hurry, for she did not dare to touch\nchildren who remembered and obeyed. Presently the dawdler came up,\nvery hungry and tired--for the brown bear had been much too fast\nasleep to tell him about Fruity Hollow--and burst out at once,\nwithout thinking, \"Please can you tell me the way to the otters'\ncave?\" Then the red wolf leapt upon him, and knocked him down, and\npicked him up by the back of his clothes and carried him off at a\ntrot through the scratching brambles.\n\nJust where the pinewoods end and the poplars begin again, the eight\nlittle Indians came upon the old grey wolf, curled up with her nose\non her tail; and she put up her head for the children to scratch her\nneck. \"Across the meadow and round the slough,\" she said when she\nhad been scratched enough; \"and down the stony creek.\"\n\nSo when they got to the edge of the wood they struck right across\nthe meadow, wading knee-deep in the long rich grass; and then they\nfound a path leading through another patch of poplar wood to a wide\ngreen slough--or \"sloo,\" as they call it in Canada--half-lake and\nhalf-swamp; and they trod lightly round the narrow edge till they\nfound the place where the water oozed out into the creek. Down the\ncreek they went, with the stream purring beside their feet like a\nkitten in the sun, and the mosquitoes humming over their heads, and\nthe silly loose-leaved poplars rustling all around them, wind or no\nwind.\n\n\"Listen!\" said the biggest little Indian. And through all the\npurring and humming and rustling came the long low swishing sound of\na big river. Then the eight little pairs of feet climbed out of the\ncreek-bed, and crossed a corner of land till they stood almost on\nthe edge of the river's earthen-cut bank.\n\nThere was a bustling and a scurrying under foot, and then a row of\nfurry brown little heads popped up from the edge of the bank. \"Come\nin!\" barked all the otters in chorus; and, scrambling down the bank,\nthe children followed the otters into their cave. There was plenty\nof room, though the door was rather small, and a big bed of prairie\nhay was spread on the floor.\n\n\"We've been expecting you, you see,\" said the mother otter, when\nthe eight little Indians were squatting on their hunkers and eating\nberries. \"The fishes told us to look out for you about this time.\"\n\n\"Have you made friends with the fishes, then?\" asked the biggest boy.\n\n\"No, we're not exactly friends, only allies. We hate the wizard more\nthan we hate each other, so we've joined to fight him. But I wish\nit was all over, so that we could go fishing again. Gophers are\ndreadfully dry food, and they do burrow in such dusty holes.\"\n\nAfter supper the eight little Indians lay down in a row, and all\nthe little otters spread themselves out into a big fur counterpane\nto keep the children warm. But the big otters sharpened their teeth\nas soon as it was dark, and swam down and down and down, with fiery\neyes, till they came into the River Saskatchewan; and then they swam\nup and up and up till they came near the wizard's pit; and there\nthey climbed out and hid just under the edge of the bank.\n\nPresently they felt a heavy silent somebody tramping over the grass\nfrom the wood, and they knew that the grizzly bear was coming, and\none of them slipped down to the water's edge to tell the great grey\nfishes, who were lying just inside the river.\n\n\"Well,\" said the greatest of the fishes, \"what do you want us to\ndo?\" For he knew that the otters must take the lead when fighting\nhad to be done.\n\n\"You must pretend to be the wizard,\" said the otter, \"and tell the\ngrizzly to come into the river up to his waist. We can fight much\nbetter in the water, you know.\"\n\nSo the fish put up his head, and called out, imitating the wizard's\nvoice as well as he could, \"Is that you, my son?\"\n\n\"Of course it's me,\" grumbled the bear; \"and a precious hard run\nI've had with this little wretch. I'd a good mind to stop on the way\nand eat him myself.\"\n\n\"Never mind, my dear,\" said the sham wizard. \"I'll pay you well.\nJust bring him in, will you? The water won't come above your middle.\"\n\nThe grizzly grumbled something about the water being cold, and he\nthought his father might as well have come ashore; but he waded in,\nall the same, and the otters dived and swam after him. And when the\nwater was up to his middle the fishes swam in between his legs and\nnibbled his toes, and hit him hard on the legs with their great\ntails, and toppled him right over; but still he held on to the boy\nwith one arm, while he clawed savagely at the fishes with the other.\nThen the otters sprang at his shoulders, and bit right through the\nfur and the flesh, so that he dropped the boy in the water; and\nthe fishes and otters kept up such a splashing and a jumping and a\nbiting that the bear could not see a foot in front of him, and the\nboy dashed back to the shore and huddled shivering under the bank.\n\n\"Help, help, help!\" yelled the grizzly. \"They've stolen the boy!\nThey're cutting off my toes! They're tearing off my ears! They're\nflaying me alive!\"\n\n[Illustration: \"Help, help, help!\" yelled the grizzly.]\n\nThen the wizard awoke, and leapt out of his hole, and came flying to\nthe rescue, raking the water and the air with his long snaky arms,\nand screeching horribly. But before he got to where the grizzly was\nrolling over and over in a whirlpool of mad otters and fishes and\nfoam, he heard the voice of his daughter, the red wolf, who had just\narrived and was calling out (as well as she could with a little\nIndian's clothes in her mouth) to ask what was the matter.\n\n\"If I've lost one, I'll make sure of the other,\" the wizard thought;\nand he seized the boy from his daughter's mouth and plunged down\ninto the pit, leaving his grizzly son to look after himself.\n\n\"We must save the boy!\" cried the head otter.\n\n\"He's not worth saving,\" said the fishes; \"haven't we done enough\nfor one night?\"\n\nThe otters did not condescend to answer, but swam hotly after the\nwizard, and the fishes followed without another word, leaving the\ngrizzly to hobble ashore and lick his wounds.\n\nNone of the otters had ever dared to descend the wizard's pit\nbefore, and none of the fishes had ever ventured within a hundred\nfeet of its mouth; but now the otters' blood was up, and they dived\nlike a flash, and caught up the wizard before he got to the bottom,\nand fastened on his heels, and dug their teeth into his calves. The\nwizard flung himself round and gripped an otter in each hand; but\nthey gnawed his wrists till their teeth met in the sinews, and the\nrest of the otters swarmed round his neck and cut his head right off.\n\n\"The boy is drowned, all the same,\" said the head fish, who swam\nbravely down into the pit when he heard the otters' scream of\nvictory.\n\n\"Not a bit of it,\" said the head otter; \"it's only his badness\nthat's drowned; the boy will be righter than ever if you hurry\nashore with him.\"\n\nSo the fishes pushed him up to the air and rolled him ashore; though\nit was rather difficult, as he had not the sense to hold on, and\nthey had no arms to hold him by.\n\nMeanwhile the otters had gone down to the very bottom of the pit,\nand bitten through the teacher's cords; and she kissed their wet\nforeheads and left her dark prison, and the rising sun flung her\na rosy welcome as she stepped out on to dry ground. The squinting\nwolf shut her eyes and howled, and fled into the wood with her tail\nbetween her legs.\n\nThe eight little Indians were having a fine romp with the little\notters when the big otters came back, tired and wounded, but proud\nwith glorious news. As soon as the story was told, the head otter\nsaid--\"Now, children, it's time to go home, and the fishes are\nwaiting. No going through the woods this time!\"\n\nAs he spoke, the fishes humped up their great grey backs, and the\nchildren took their seats, and the procession never stopped till\nit came to the little school-house, where the best of all teachers\nstood smiling welcomes at the door and two shamefaced little Indians\npretended to be very busy at their sums inside.\n\n[Illustration: The procession never stopped till it came to the\nschool-house.]\n\nThen there was a great hugging and kissing and laughing and crying\nfor joy, while the little otters turned flying somersaults over the\ndesks and played catch on the grass outside, and the fishes looked\non through their water-window, till the children were tired of play\nand begged for lessons to begin.\n\n\n\n\nTEMPERANCE NOTES AND NEWS.\n\nBy a Leading Temperance Advocate.\n\n\nA MODEL TOWN.\n\n\"Could we but do away with intemperance, the conditions\nof living would become so changed that we should hardly know\nourselves,\" said John Bright on a memorable occasion. What would\nthe country be like without public-houses? We can form some idea of\nthe altered state of affairs by taking a trip to the model town of\nBessbrook in the county of Armagh. Here we shall find a thriving,\npopulous community without any public-house or place for the sale\nof intoxicating liquor. It owes its origin to the philanthropic\nprescience of the late John Grubb Richardson, a wealthy member of\nthe Society of Friends. In the early 'sixties he purchased an estate\nof some sixty thousand acres, and there erected the factory which is\nnow world-famed as the Bessbrook Flax Spinning Mills. Approaching\nthe town from Newry, the spinning mills form the most prominent\nfeature in the view. The immense range of lofty buildings is of\nnoble proportions, and for massive elegance compares very favourably\nwith similar erections in the Lancashire and Yorkshire factory\ndistricts. When the mills are in full work, occupation is afforded\nfor about five thousand hands. The chief feature of the model town\nis a handsome square. There are several shops in addition to the\nco-operative stores, and the houses are well built, varying in size,\nevery family being accommodated with three to six rooms, according\nto the number of its members. There is an institute with a capital\nlibrary, a recreation room, a dispensary, excellent schools under\nthe supervision of the National Board of Education, a savings bank,\nand half-a-dozen places of worship, the respective congregations\nsupporting the current expenses. The sale of intoxicating liquors\nis entirely prohibited, and, as a consequence, there is not only an\nabsence of drunkenness, but a general freedom from the legion of\nevils which seem inseparable from the liquor traffic. There is no\nresident police officer, and it is only quite recently that there\nhas been any police perambulation of the model town, this latter\nbeing due more to political disturbances in the near neighbourhood\nthan to any outbreak of crime on the part of the inhabitants of\nBessbrook itself. The North of Ireland thus furnishes an excellent\nexample of how to make the working classes thrifty, sober,\nindustrious, happy and prosperous.\n\n[Illustration: THE TOWN HALL, BESSBROOK.]\n\n[Illustration: (_Photo: Cuwell and Co., Ltd._)\n\nA VIEW OF BESSBROOK.]\n\n\nA VILLAGE EXPERIMENT.\n\nThe Rev. W. E. Bolland, M.A., vicar of Embleton, Northumberland,\nhas, in conjunction with some friends, launched a scheme for a\nmodel club and hall for the village. The plan contains some novel\nfeatures, inasmuch as it embraces a working men's club, a public\nhall available for meetings, entertainments, etc.; a caf\u00e9 and\nrefreshment rooms, specially catering for cyclists and visitors;\nbedrooms for summer visitors, and also a public laundry. The\ncatering will exclude the provision of intoxicants, and it will\nbe seen from the illustration that the architect has planned a\nvery attractive looking house. This village scheme will be closely\nwatched, and, if it should succeed, there can be no doubt that the\nenterprising vicar of Embleton will have many followers.\n\n[Illustration: THE PROPOSED TEMPERANCE CLUB FOR EMBLETON.]\n\n\nTHE BLUECOAT BOYS.\n\nIn a very short time London will be deprived of one of its most\npicturesque sights--namely, the tramp of its seven hundred or more\nBluecoat boys to the Mansion House on Easter Tuesday to pay their\nrespects to the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, and receive a monetary\ngift, and a bun and a glass of wine. The Grecians are given a\nsovereign and a shilling each; the junior Grecians a half-sovereign\nand a sixpence; the monitors half-a-crown; and the other boys a\nshilling each. The removal of this famous school to the country will\npossibly put an end to the function. The glass of wine has become a\ndiminishing quantity in recent years; for, thanks to the activity of\na friend at court, lemonade was introduced as an alternative a few\nyears back, and now the teetotal boys have no hesitation in availing\nthemselves of this beverage. The preacher of the Spital sermon this\nyear is to be a life-long abstainer, the Bishop of Carlisle.\n\n\nCOMING EVENTS.\n\nThe programmes for the May meetings are now nearing completion.\nThe Church of England Temperance Society announces as speakers the\nArchbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Chichester, the Bishop of\nThetford, and the Rev. Dr. Ridgeway; the National Temperance League\nrelies upon the Archbishop of Canterbury, Mr. T. W. Russell, M.P.,\nMr. John Colville, M.P., the Rev. George Hanson, B.D., and Miss\nAgnes Weston; while Sir George Williams will preside for the United\nKingdom Band of Hope Union. The annual meetings of the Scottish\nTemperance League will be held in Glasgow on April 17th; the annual\nmeeting of the Sussex Band of Hope Union will take place at Lewes\non April 26th; a social meeting of the Young Men's Auxiliary of the\nNational Temperance League will be held in Sion College on April\n21st; the Hackney and East Middlesex Band of Hope Union will give\na reception in honour of its new President, the Dowager Countess\nof Errol, on April 20th. The usual open-air demonstrations in the\nLondon parks, promoted by the United Temperance Council will take\nplace on Saturday, June 17th. The Rev. F. B. Meyer will preach the\nannual sermon of the Congregational Total Abstinence Society. The\nArchbishop of Canterbury and Mrs. Temple will give a Garden Party\nat Lambeth Palace on July 1st to meet the official advocates of the\ntemperance movement. The Norwich Diocesan temperance anniversary\nwill be held at Norwich from October 17th to October 24th inclusive.\n\n[Illustration: (_Photo: Russell and Sons, Baker Street, W._)\n\nTHE BISHOP OF LLANDAFF.]\n\n\nTOTAL ABSTAINING BISHOPS.\n\nA few weeks ago the Lord Bishop of Llandaff agreeably surprised the\ntemperance workers of Cardiff by announcing that he had definitely\ndecided to try total abstinence. It may not be generally known that\nthe Right Rev. H. J. Foss, who has recently been consecrated Bishop\nof Osaka, is an abstainer, and has been an active temperance worker\nduring the whole of his twenty years' residence in Japan. The Bishop\nof Islington and the Bishop of Southampton are also total abstainers.\n\n[Illustration: (_Photo: Cassell and Co., ltd._)\n\nTHE BRADFORD TEMPERANCE HALL.]\n\n\nTHE FIRST TEMPERANCE HALL IN THE WORLD.\n\nThe city of Bradford claims to possess the first Temperance Hall\nin the world. The foundation stone was laid on Monday, March 13th,\n1837, and the building was opened on February 27th, 1838, by the\nBishop of Ripon, Dr. Longley (who in succession became Bishop of\nDurham, Archbishop of York, and Archbishop of Canterbury). This\nfamous building is still in regular use, the Bradford Temperance\nSociety being one of the most vigorous associations in the country.\nA unique feature of the hall is a very handsome painted window\nin memory of the late John Priestman. It is a four-light window,\nand contains four female figures robed in medi\u00e6val costumes, and\nrepresenting \"Religion,\" \"Temperance,\" \"Health,\" and \"Prosperity.\"\nAbove the central light is an effective portrait of Mr. Priestman.\nMr. George Field in his interesting \"Historical Survey of the\nBradford Temperance Society,\" says:--\n\n\"The hall of this, the first temperance society in England, has\nbeen a battle-field for many conflicts with drink, and some of the\ngreatest orators have made its walls re-echo with their oratory.\nIt has had amongst its friends and workers some of the best men\nand women of Bradford. By its agency many a degraded sot has been\nrescued and restored to respectability in society, but while the\ncurse of drink remains the work will have to go on.\"\n\n\n\n\nSCRIPTURE LESSONS FOR SCHOOL & HOME INTERNATIONAL SERIES\n\nWith Illustrative Anecdotes and References.\n\n\nAPRIL 16TH.--=Jesus Teaching Humility.=\n\n_To read--St. John xiii. 1-17. Golden Text--Ver. 15._\n\nSo far have had Christ's _active_ life coupled with His\nteachings. Come now to His _passive_ life just before the close.\nTo-day's lesson--a sort of active parable--teaching His giving up\nHimself for man.\n\n=I. The Washing= (1-11). _The time._ Just before Christ's last\nPassover. Supper being \"at hand\" (Revised Version); washing taking\nplace before a meal (St. Mark vii. 3). Always known as the \"Last\nSupper\" or Passover Feast. His \"hour\" for showing Himself fully as\nthe Saviour was now come.\n\n_The cause_ (ver. 1). Love passing all knowledge (Eph. iii.\n19). Shown by its _greatness_--loved to the uttermost; its\n_comprehensiveness_--including even Judas; its _lowliness_--doing a\nservant's work.\n\n_The act._ Disciples began to dispute which should be the greatest\n(St. Luke xxii. 24). Christ shows by His action what His opinion is.\nThe greatest in His kingdom are they who serve most. Takes towel,\nwater, basin; washes feet of each in turn. Who declines to accept\nthe act of service? But unless Peter submits to Christ, can have no\npart with Him. He dreads separation from Him, therefore is eager now\nto be wholly washed. Christ tells him two things--\n\n(_a_) He cannot understand meaning of this act but will\nhereafter--will add to his faith, virtue (or valour), and knowledge\n(2 Pet. i. 3).\n\n(_b_) He who is washed, _i.e._ bathed (Greek), in Christ's atoning\nblood (Zech. xiii. 1) needs only to \"wash\" or be washed from daily\nsin to be kept clean and holy.\n\n=II. The Meaning= (12-17). _Equality_ in Christ's service. He is\ntheir Master, but delights to serve them. Followers must copy His\nexample.\n\n_Service._ The spirit of His example to be followed--feeding hungry,\nteaching ignorant, visiting the sick and sad (St. Matt. xxv. 35, 36).\n\n_Knowledge._ Life's mysteries to be cleared up hereafter. Duties\nnow, rewards future.\n\n=Lesson.= Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?\n\n\nKindness to the Poor.\n\n     The great general, Sir William Napier, once met a little girl\n     in a country lane sobbing over a broken bowl. She had dropped\n     it after taking her father's dinner, and expected to be beaten\n     for her carelessness. Suddenly a gleam of hope seemed to\n     cheer her. \"You can mend it, sir,\" she said, \"can't you?\" Sir\n     William explained that he could not mend it, but could give\n     her sixpence to buy another. It chanced, however, that he had\n     no money with him, so he promised to meet her at the same time\n     and place the next day with a sixpence. On his return home, he\n     found an invitation to dinner the next day to meet someone whom\n     he specially wished to see. What was he to do? He could not do\n     both; but the child had trusted him. He must do his duty to the\n     poor before thinking of his own pleasure. So he declined the\n     invitation and helped, as he had promised, Christ's little one.\n\n\nAPRIL 23RD.--=Jesus the Way, Truth, and Life.=\n\n_To read--St. John xiv. 1-14. Golden Text--Ver. 6._\n\nDiscourse with disciples at Last Supper continued. Peter, boasting\nof his steadfastness, been warned of his coming fall, that very\nnight (xiii. 38), but comforted by thought of heaven to all who come\nto God by Him for pardon.\n\n=I. The Many Mansions.= What they are? Abiding places (Greek). This\nworld passes away--heaven endures. They are many in number--room\nfor all. Also prepared by Christ for all who believe in Him. Christ\nby His death opened heaven to man, and waits there to receive His\npeople.\n\n=II. The Way to Heaven= (4-7). _Christ the Way._ Came to reveal\nthis. None else could make atonement. God's holy Son alone could, by\ndying for sin, open way to heaven for sinners. He alone lifted up,\ngives eternal life (iii. 14, 15).\n\n_Christ the Truth._ Yet charged that night with blasphemy, worst of\nall falsehoods, making Himself God (xix. 7). Yet was the perfect\ntruth. Exposed hypocrisy of chief priests, hollowness of Scribes\nand Pharisees (St. Luke xi. 39, 44). Taught the spirit of the\ncommandments in Sermon on Mount (St. Matt. v. 21, 22, 28, 39, etc.).\nActed truth in His own perfect life. Taught God's truth to men.\n\n_Christ the Life_, though put to death day following. Author of\nlife; the world made by Him. Gave natural life once more to three\ndead persons. Gave spiritual life to Nicodemus, who became disciple;\nSamaritan who accepted His teaching (iv. 42). Raised Himself from\nthe dead, and gives eternal life to as many as believe.\n\n=Lesson.= He that believeth in Me shall not die.\n\n=III. The Father Revealed= (8-14). Cannot be seen by mortal eye (i.\n18), but is seen in person of His Son. Christ reveals the person of\nthe Father full of love and pity to those in need; full of anger\nagainst hypocrites, liars, etc. (viii. 44). Christ also reveals\nworks of God, miracles of mercy. Same, and even greater, power of\nworking miracles promised to His disciples after His departure. Also\nanswers to prayer made to the Father in His name.\n\nSo the revelation of the Father shows Him as a loving Person, a\nGiver of power, a Hearer of prayer. What more can Philip need?\n\n    =Lesson.= \"Thou art coming to a King,\n    Large petitions with thee bring.\"\n\n\n\"Is that All?\"\n\n     A wounded soldier in a hospital was visited by a clergyman,\n     who saw that his life was fast ebbing out. \"Young man,\" said\n     he, \"you are soon to die; are you saved from sin?\" \"No, sir,\"\n     was the reply; \"what must I do?\" \"'Believe on the Lord Jesus\n     Christ, and thou shalt be saved.'\" \"Say that again,\" said the\n     soldier. It was repeated. Steadily looking at the minister, the\n     soldier said, \"Is that all?\" \"Yes, that is all. No man goeth to\n     the Father but by Him.\" Closing his eyes for a few moments, the\n     young soldier opened them again and, raising his right hand,\n     exclaimed, \"Lord Jesus, I surrender.\" Instantly his face shone\n     with brightness, and in a few days the new-born soul went home\n     to God.\n\n\nAPRIL 30TH.--=The Comforter Promised.=\n\n_To read--St. John xiv. 15-27. Golden Text--Ver. 16._\n\nChrist continues to comfort and teach His disciples ready for the\ntime when He must leave them.\n\n=I. The Comforter= (15-17). See the order in the spiritual life.\nFirst faith to believe in Him (ver. 1), then love to cling to Him,\nthen obedience to work for Him. He will help them. He must leave\nthem, but will not forget them. Will send Another to be with them\nalways--the Comforter.\n\n_His person._ Divine in nature; equal to the Father and Son (Acts v.\n3, 4).\n\n_His name._ Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit of God.\n\n_His work._ To aid Christ's people. How does He do so? By helping\ntheir prayers (Rom. viii. 26). By giving counsel, _e.g._ showing how\nto speak to adversaries (St. Matt. x. 19, 20), of which Stephen is\nan example (Acts vi. 10). By strengthening their souls to do right;\nhence called the Comforter or Strengthener. Also by revealing the\nthings of God.\n\n=11. The Result= (18-27). Consolations of Christ's people. _Comfort_\nby His continual presence. _Life_ present and future because of\nunion with Him.\n\n=Lessons.= 1. Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace.\n\n2. If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His.\n\n\nMAY 7TH.--=The Vine and the Branches.=\n\n_To read--St. John xv. 1-16. Golden Text--Ver. 5._\n\nThis parable one of two only in this Gospel. Spoken in court of\nTemple after leaving Passover Feast.\n\n=I. The Parable= (1-8). _The Vine_ itself must be good and true,\nplanted in soil prepared for it. Husbandman places, cares for, and\nwatches over it. Unfruitful branches must be cut off, fruitful ones\npurged--to produce more fruit--dead ones burned. Much fruit redounds\nto glory of husbandman.\n\n_The meaning._ Christ Himself is the true ideal Vine, doing always\nsuch things as please God. The husbandman is God, who placed Him in\nthe world (iii. 16) and watched over Him (St. Matt. iii. 17). The\nbranches are believers joined to Him by living faith. Fruit--the\ngraces of a Christian life.\n\nWhat are results of union with Christ the Vine? _Life_ to the\nsoul from life of Christ. _Fruit_ outward result of inward life.\n_Answers_ to prayer. Christ and His people alike heard. _Glory_ to\nGod the Father.\n\n=II. Results of Union= (9-16). Metaphor dropped. Christ urges\ndisciples to continue in His love. Then they will have _full joy_;\n_love_ to all arising from love to Him; _friendship_ of Christ as\nevidenced by His death for them; _knowledge_ because of revelation\nof Father. _Permanence_ of results.\n\n=Lesson.= Are we truly joined to Christ? What fruit is seen in our\nlives?\n\n\nJoy through Faith.\n\n     Bunyan, in \"The Pilgrim's Progress,\" pictures Christiana as\n     saying to Mercy, \"What was the matter that you did laugh in your\n     sleep last night?\" And Mercy said, \"But are you sure I laughed?\"\n     When she told her dream, Christiana said, \"Laugh, ay, well you\n     might to see yourself so well.\" She laughed because she dreamed\n     that she had been welcomed into glory. To faith this is no\n     dream. Saved by grace, adopted by the Father, united to the Son,\n     taught by the Spirit, we have joy in the soul now and a good\n     hope of glory hereafter.\n\n\nMAY 14TH.--=Christ Betrayed and Arrested.=\n\n_To read--St. John xviii. 1-14. Golden Text--Is. liii. 3._\n\nChrist's hour now come--has finished teachings--must go forth to\ndie. Path of sorrow to be trod--He does not shrink.\n\n=I. Christ Betrayed= (1-11). _The place._ The garden or olive\norchard of Gethsemane. Note that Christ went forth of His own will,\nknowing all before Him. Also He went not for concealment, but for\nprayer.\n\n_The band._ Judas, His disciple, their leader. A band of Roman\nsoldiers to prevent a tumult, and officers of the Temple police\nsupplied by chief priests. Also chief priests and elders, and a\nmixed rabble (St. Luke xxii. 52). All had common hatred of Jesus of\nNazareth.\n\n_The incidents._ Jesus comes forth with His three disciples,\nPeter, James, John. He asks, \"Whom seek ye?\" Soldiers fall back in\nsurprise. He asks again--they answer. He asks that disciples may\ngo their way. Request granted; He lost none. St. Peter with sword\nwounds Malchus. Christ heals his ear (St. Luke xxii. 51) and rebukes\nPeter. Note the forbearance and majesty of Christ; the loving\nimpetuosity of St. Peter; the malice of Judas and the gratified\nhatred of chief priests.\n\n=II. Christ a Prisoner= (12-14). The soldiers close in. Prisoner\nbound because of attempt to rescue. The captain secures Christ,\nleads Him to Annas, chief of priests and president of Jewish\nSanhedrim.\n\n=Lessons.= _From Judas._ Beware of covetousness.\n\n_From St. Peter._ The weapons of our warfare are not carnal.\n\n_From Christ._ He loved me and gave Himself for me. What have I\ngiven Him?\n\n\nChrist Loved Best.\n\n     A martyr was going to be burned for Christ's sake. His friends\n     brought out his wife and young children, and made them kneel in\n     a long row and ask their father, for their sakes, to deny the\n     faith and live. But as he kissed them one by one he said, \"I\n     would do anything for your sakes that I might live with you, but\n     since it is for Christ my Lord's sake, I must tear myself away\n     even from you.\" So he went to the stake.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: SHORT ARROWS]\n\nNOTES OF CHRISTIAN LIFE AND WORK.\n\n\nA Remarkable Church Doorway.\n\nClonfert Cathedral, in County Galway, can boast a very remarkable\nand ancient doorway, which is regarded as one of the finest\nspecimens of Hiberno-Romanesque work now in existence. The shafts\nand piers present an astonishing variety of decoration; every inch\nof its surface has been worked by the sculptor's tool. Above the\nrounded archway rises a triangular space filled with many carvings,\nwhile the archway itself consists of several decorated semicircles,\none within the other. Norman and Romanesque porches may be found of\ngrander proportions; but Brash, in his \"Ecclesiastical Architecture\nof Ireland,\" declares that \"in point of design and execution\" he\nhad not seen this beautiful porch \"excelled by any similar features\nin these islands,\" and specially mentions its beauty of design and\nfertility of invention. The Cathedral itself has had a long and\ninteresting history. It was founded by St. Brendan in the year\n558, and suffered greatly from the Danes. It was burnt six times\nbetween 744 and 1179, and was plundered thrice between 949 and\n1065. In 1541 it was almost destroyed. Repaired by Bishop Wolley\nin 1664, it was subsequently altered and improved to some extent,\nbut no general work of restoration was done, and consequently it is\nin great need of repair. To this work Canon McLarney, the present\nrector of Clonfert, has set his hand. Though small, the building is\nvery beautiful, and is now used as the parish church, the parish of\nClonfert being very large and measuring twenty-seven Irish miles in\ncircumference. The work of restoration is proceeding in sections\nas funds are provided by the public. The chancel has already been\nrestored, and Canon McLarney hopes to collect a thousand pounds to\ncomplete the work on the nave. One need not leave the British Isles\nto see very ancient and interesting structures, and a writer lately\nsaid it would be worth a pilgrimage to Connaught to see Clonfert\ndoorway alone.\n\n[Illustration: (_Photo: Mr. A. C. White, Clonskea, Dublin._)\n\nA TWELFTH-CENTURY DOORWAY.]\n\n\nThe Westminster Choir Boys.\n\nNowhere in England do the trained voices of a choir seem to\nharmonise more perfectly with the surroundings than in Westminster\nAbbey. Architecture, as an old German philosopher once described\nit, is but \"frozen music\" after all. The noble anthems that rise\nsoaring upwards amongst the fluted columns and giant arches, the\nhymns of praise that roll through the long aisles seem, as we listen\nto the sacred music, not only to give thanks to Him who \"made the\nearth so bright,\" but to Him who gave England such men as lie\nin the sculptured tombs around us. Not far from the Abbey--some\nthree minutes' walk, in fact, through Dean's Yard--stands a\ntall, red-brick building. It is the choir school, where live the\ntwenty-four boys of the choir under the headmastership of Mr.\nArthur Hore. To gain admission, a boy must be at least eight years\nof age, possessing a good voice and the knowledge of the rudiments\nof music; he will also be expected to read and write fairly. His\nexamination on these points will be conducted by the master of the\nchoristers, Sir J. Frederick Bridge, or someone appointed by him. If\nhe passes satisfactorily, he will become a probationer, paying \u00a310\na year towards his expenses; at the end of three years, however, he\nwill become a recognised member of the Abbey choir, and no further\ncharge will be made. The internal arrangements of the choir house\nare excellent. On the ground floor are the big class-room and the\ndining-room. To see the youngsters attacking a joint of roast beef\nis a conclusive proof that the boy who sings like a young seraph\nis, nevertheless, far from being the wishy-washy individual that he\nis often represented to be in some poems and sentimental novels. On\nthe second floor is another big class-room containing the school\nlibrary. Walter Scott is there, and rows of well-thumbed volumes\nof Henty. Many years ago Princess Alice gave a present of books to\nthe school. For some time they were kept ceremoniously shut up in a\nglass case. The present headmaster, however, recognising that the\nkind donor would have strongly objected to such a foolish use being\nmade of the volumes, placed them in the library for general use. On\nthe third floor are the plain, clean dormitories with their rows of\nlittle iron beds and the regulation striped rugs over all.\n\n[Illustration: (_Photo: Russell and Sons, Baker Street, W._)\n\nDR. BRIDGE AND THE WESTMINSTER CHOIR BOYS.]\n\n\nA Chinese Y.M.C.A.\n\nAmid the discouragements which the recent revolution in Pekin\nhas occasioned to those concerned in China's welfare--for the\nmovement in question is manifestly anti-reform, anti-foreign,\nand consequently anti-Christian--there are many signs that such\nopposition cannot radically hinder this country's enlightenment.\nSuch a sign is the progress of the Y.M.C.A. movement among Chinese\nyouths, which is assuming considerable importance, especially in\nconnection with mission schools. It was found desirable to invite\nfrom America an experienced worker in this department; and though\nit will be some time before this gentleman can speak Chinese,\nthere is no difficulty in the matter of interpreters, native or\nforeign. Yesterday in our large Shanghai mission church--says a\ncorrespondent--there were gathered 200 Chinese boy-scholars from\nvarious mission stations in and near Shanghai, all of whom were\neither members of the local Y.M.C.A. or willing to join it. Earnest\naddresses were given and prayers offered, both in English and\nChinese, the English addresses being admirably translated by a\nChristian Chinaman; while the bright hymn-singing of these strong\nyoung voices was a delightful sound. At the close of the morning\nmeeting papers were distributed to the boys containing questions to\nbe answered in writing, and a form, of Christian engagement to be\nsigned. At the afternoon service many of these were returned most\nsatisfactorily and intelligently filled in. Such assemblies have\nrecently been held with much interest and zeal, and apparently solid\nresults, at Nanking and other centres of missionary work.\n\n\nThe \"Metal Man.\"\n\nAt Tramore, near Waterford, a place where the Atlantic breakers\ndash with sublime fury against the rocks, there are on one of the\nheadlands three towers, and on the middle one stands what is called\n\"The Metal Man.\" This is a figure made of metal, and painted to\nresemble a sailor. With his finger he points to some very dangerous\nrocks that are to be shunned. There are rocks in life's troublesome\nsea that are ready to shipwreck the bodies and souls of the young.\nThese we should point out to them with as much diligence as does the\nmetal man when God has saved us from being shipwrecked upon them.\n\n[Illustration: (_Photo: A. H. Poole and Co., Waterford._)\n\nTHE \"METAL MAN,\" TRAMORE.]\n\n\nA Saint's Rest.\n\nRichard Baxter was all his long life physically weak, and for\nfourteen years had scarcely a waking hour free from pain. He felt\nhimself continually \"at the door of eternity.\" At the close of his\nlife he said, \"Weakness and pain helped me to study how to die; I am\ngoing now to see that for which I have lived and studied.\" His death\nwas a fitting end to a life of pain and patience--a fulfilment of\nhis own words: \"After the rough and tempestuous day we shall at last\nhave the quiet, silent night--light and rest together; the quietness\nof the night without its gloom.\"\n\n\nThe Quiver Pictures.\n\nThe six beautiful plates which the readers of THE QUIVER have the\nopportunity of acquiring, and the last coupon for which is contained\nin this number, are representative examples of the work of some\nof the most notable exponents of sacred art among modern British\npainters. The names of Leighton and Millais are now familiar in\nevery household, and great interest attaches to the works from\ntheir hands included in this series of pictures. \"The Star of\nBethlehem,\" by Lord Leighton, was painted in 1862, when the artist\nwas thirty-two years of age, and four years before his election\nas Associate of the Royal Academy. The main figure represents one\nof the magi on the terrace of his house, gazing at the miraculous\nlight which led him and his fellows to search out Him, \"who was\nborn King of the Jews.\" \"Christ in the House of His Parents\" is one\nof the most wonderful pictures painted by Sir John Millais. It was\nexhibited at the Royal Academy in 1850, when the artist was but\ntwenty years of age, and, as related in the article on \"Pictorial\nSermons\" in our last number, aroused a storm of discussion among\nthe critics. The work is a veritable parable in paint, and, as its\nallegories are all fully explained in the article referred to, we\nneed not repeat them here. The picture has great interest, apart\nfrom this, as being one of the best specimens of the work of the\nartist's Pre-Raphaelite period. \"Christ Washing Peter's Feet,\" by\nFord Madox Brown, which was presented to the nation by a body of\nsubscribers; and now hangs in the Tate Gallery at Millbank, is a\ntypical painting, and one of the most beautiful examples of this\nartist's work. Exquisite in colour, it is a perfect specimen of what\na picture dealing with a sacred subject should be. Full of reverence\nand piety, it yet illustrates the subject fully; the rugged figure\nof the apostle, expressing withal the penitence produced by the\nrebuking words, \"If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me,\"\ncontrasts strongly with the humility of the Master kneeling to\nHis self-imposed task. \"The Remorse of Judas,\" by the late Edward\nArmitage, R.A., is another picture to be seen at Millbank, and is,\nperhaps, one of the strongest works produced by this artist. The\nterror of remorse is expressed in every line of the face of the\nbetrayer, while the cold indifference of the priests, now that their\nwork is accomplished, is admirably portrayed. \"The Raising of the\nWidow's Son of Nain,\" by W. C. T. Dobson, R.A., was shown at the\nAcademy in 1868, and fully explains itself. The joy of the mother\nand the surprise of the beholders of the miracle are well rendered;\nbut the main interest of the picture, of course, centres in the\nboy. His gaze is fixed upon Him whose voice has recalled him from\nthe \"valley of the shadow.\" The last picture of the series, by W.\nDyce, R.A., was recently added to the national collection, and was\nremoved from Trafalgar Square to Millbank when the new gallery was\ncompleted. It represents the Apostle John taking Mary to his own\nhome after the death of their Lord. Mary carries on her arm the\ncrown of thorns, and in the background may be seen Nicodemus and\nJoseph of Arimathea, who are just leaving the garden which contains\nthe sepulchre. Mary Magdalene and the \"other Mary\" are seen seated\nat the mouth of the grave. The picture was painted in 1860.\n\n\nPublic Charity.\n\nAccording to a recent calculation, the amount given during\nthe previous year by Churchmen towards Christian work of all\nkinds, such as Church Building, Home Missions, Foreign Missions,\nEducation, etc., was over \u00a35,750,000. The various Presbyterian\nChurches contributed during the same time for similar work a sum of\n\u00a31,600,000, and the Wesleyans gave over \u00a3500,000; the Calvinistic\nMethodists about \u00a3228,500; the Baptists over \u00a3200,000; and the\nPrimitive Methodists over \u00a3100,000. Of the Congregationalists and\nthe \"Friends\" no such statistics are available, and it is estimated\nthat other branches of the Christian Church in England gave an\naggregate of not less than \u00a3150,000 towards the same work. Generally\nspeaking, all the different bodies contribute in a fairly equal\nproportion, directly or indirectly, to the different kinds of\nChristian work--at any rate, sufficiently so for the comparison we\nwish to make here. So, taking the Church of England's returns as\nour standard, we find that these proportions are nearly as follows,\n1 being our unit:--Church Building and Repairs, 35; Home Missions,\n7; Foreign Missions, 10; Educational Work of all kinds, 20; various\nCharitable Works of other kinds, 6.\n\n[Illustration: DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATING PUBLIC CHARITY.]\n\n  _The church_       (1) _represents the money spent in building\n        places of worship._\n  _The mission room_ (2)     \"         \"       \"       _home mission work._\n  _The native hut_   (3)     \"         \"       \"       _foreign\n        mission work._\n  _The school_       (4)     \"         \"       \"       _educational work._\n  _The hall_         (5)     \"         \"       \"       _other general\n        charitable work._\n\n\nA New Quiver Heroine.\n\nThe latest recipient of the Bronze Medal of THE QUIVER Heroes Fund\nis Annie Healand, a servant in the employ of Mr. Frederick Latham,\nof Sledmere. On the afternoon of January 28th last, two little boys\nand a girl were suddenly immersed beneath the ice whilst sliding\non a pond. On hearing of this, Annie Healand, who is herself but\nfifteen years of age, immediately rushed to the rescue, and,\nplunging in, succeeded in bringing the little girl to the bank. She\nthen endeavoured to find the two boys, who were still under the ice,\nbut was at last reluctantly compelled to give up the search, through\nbeing overcome by the intense cold. The bodies of the lads were\nafterwards found, and the coroner congratulated the brave girl for\nthe very plucky manner in which she had rescued one of the party and\nattempted to save the others.\n\n\nInternational League of Peace.\n\nWe are still daily receiving the names of numbers of new members,\nand one roll of signatures which has just come to hand measures\nthirty feet in length. Any number of blank forms will be gladly\nsent, post free, to those requiring them. We may take this\nopportunity of announcing that the first member to send in a\nthousand signatures is Mr. John N. Munro, of 50, Park Road, Glasgow,\nto whom a cheque for Ten Pounds has been sent, in accordance with\nour offer.\n\n\n\n\nROLL OF HONOUR FOR SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORKERS.\n\nThe =Special Silver Medal= and =Presentation Bible= offered for the\nlongest known Sunday-school service in the county of =Devonshire=\n(for which applications were invited up to February 28th, 1899) have\nbeen gained by\n\n  LOUISA JANE LARGE,\n  Cross Street, Northam, Bideford,\n\nwho has distinguished herself by =sixty-two= complete years' service\nin Northam Church Sunday School.\n\nAs already announced, the next territorial county for which claims\nare invited for the Silver Medal is\n\n  KENT,\n\nand applications, on the special form, must be received on or before\nMarch 30th, 1899. We may add that =Cheshire= is the following county\nselected, the date-limit for claims in that case being April 30th,\n1899. This county, in its turn, will be followed by the territorial\ncounty of =Somersetshire=, for which the date will be one month\nlater--viz. May 31st, 1899.\n\n\nAN INTERESTING LETTER.\n\nThe following letter, received from the Devonshire Silver Medallist,\nof whom particulars are given above, will doubtless be interesting\nto all our readers, and especially to Sunday school workers:--\n\n     \"In sending the enclosed certificates I should like to add that\n     I began my career as a Sunday school teacher at the age of ten,\n     with a class of four little girls, and proud enough I was. That\n     was some time in the year 1836. From that date to the present\n     (1899), I have been teaching continuously in the same school,\n     except when occasional illness or absence from home for a few\n     Sundays made a break. I am now teaching the grandchildren of\n     former scholars. Many changes have I seen; such a difference\n     in the teaching and general management of Sunday schools since\n     1836! Only two or three individuals are now living who were with\n     us when I began my work.\"\n\n\nTHE QUIVER FUNDS.\n\nThe following is a list of contributions received from February\n1st, 1899, up to and including February 28th, 1899. Subscriptions\nreceived after this date will be acknowledged next month:--\n\n     For _\"The Quiver\" Waifs' Fund_: J. J. E. (135th donation),\n     5s.; Anglo-Indian, 5s.; M. R. B., Ipswich, 4s. 2d.; C. E. H.,\n     3s. 6d.; A Glasgow Mother (105th donation), 1s.; E. A. W.,\n     Petersfield, 2s. 6d.\n\n     For _Dr. Barnardo's Homes_: An Irish Girl, \u00a31; E. J. L.,\n     Glenageary, 10s.; X. J., 10s. 6d. The following amounts have\n     been sent direct:--A Well-Wisher, \u00a32; Lila Noel, \u00a31; G. C., 8s.;\n     P. P. O., 5s.; Ruth L., \u00a31.\n\n     For _The Hospital for Women_: A Thank-Offering, 1s.\n\n     For _The Leper's Mission Fund_: Two Jersey QUIVER Readers, 4s.\n     6d.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\nTHE QUIVER BIBLE CLASS.\n\n(BASED ON THE INTERNATIONAL SCRIPTURE LESSONS.)\n\n\nQUESTIONS.\n\n61. What did our Lord do as a rebuke to His Apostles when they\ndisputed among themselves as to who should be the greatest?\n\n62. In the discourse at the Last Supper, what did our Lord say is to\nbe the distinctive mark of all His disciples? Quote passage.\n\n63. In what words did Jesus warn St. Peter of the temptation which\nawaited him?\n\n64. By what promise did our Lord seek to comfort His Apostles on the\neve of His crucifixion?\n\n65. Which of the Apostles seems to have been very slow in\ncomprehending the divinity of our Lord?\n\n66. Quote some words from our Lord's answer to St. Philip in which\nHe clearly declares His Godhead?\n\n67. What does our Lord say is the true test of our love to Him?\n\n68. What is the great blessing Christ gives as the result of the\ninfluence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts?\n\n69. What is the general purport of our Lord's parable of the Vine?\n\n70. What does our Lord give as the greatest proof of true love?\n\n71. What was the position of the garden of Gethsemane?\n\n72. From what circumstances do we gather that the Jews expected\ngreat difficulty in arresting our blessed Lord?\n\n\nANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON PAGE 480.\n\n49. In the parable of the Sheepfold our Lord speaks of a porter who\nhad charge of the door, and of a thief climbing over a fence (St.\nJohn x. 1-3).\n\n50. St. John x. 9.\n\n51. Our Lord speaks of Himself as the Good Shepherd, who giveth His\nlife for the sheep, while the Jewish teachers, as hirelings, cared\nnot for them (St. John x. 11-14).\n\n52. St. John vii. 15.\n\n53. St. John v. 39.\n\n54. Turning the water into wine and healing the nobleman's son (St.\nJohn ii. 1-11 and iv. 46-54).\n\n55. The fact that the body had been buried three days.\n\n56. That it was done to increase the faith of the Apostles by\nshowing them that there was no limitation to the power of Christ\n(St. John xi. 15).\n\n57. So many Jews believed in Christ that the chief priests thought\nof killing Lazarus as well as Jesus (St. John xi. 47-53 and xii. 10,\n11).\n\n58. Because it would seem that Martha was hostess at the house of\nSimon the Leper, where Mary, her sister, anointed our Lord with the\nprecious ointment of spikenard (compare St. John xii. 1-3 with St.\nMark xiv. 3).\n\n59. St. John tells us that Judas Iscariot acted as treasurer for our\nLord and His disciples, but that he was a thief (St. John xii. 6 and\nxiii. 29).\n\n60. Caiaphas prophesied that Jesus should die (St. John xi. 39).\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\nText enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).\n\nText enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).\n\nSmall capital text has been replaced with all capitals.\n\nMinor typographical errors have been corrected without note.\nIrregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as\nprinted.\n\nMissing page numbers are page numbers that were not shown in the\noriginal text.\n\nMismatched quotes are not fixed if it\u2019s not sufficiently clear where\nthe missing quote should be placed.\n\nThe cover for the eBook version of this book was created by the\ntranscriber and is placed in the public domain.\n\nThe hymns are handwritten on pages 483, 534, 535 and 536. There are\nhandwritten signatures by Arthur H. Brown on page 536, and John\nStainer on page 538.\n\nPage 508 and following: The chapter titles in the section \"For the\nSake of the Child\" are in handwritten script.\n\nPage 559: \"in the evening--Nos. 500 and 532--and\"--the number 500 is\nunclear.\n\nPage 560: \"must be obtained from the office, 36,\"--the number 36 is\nunclear.","title":"The Quiver 3/1900","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":50934}