PART I.

ITS CUPBOARDS.

Mine house is not an old-fashioned, picturesque one; it boasts of no mullioned windows or deep embrasures. It is like hundreds of others to be found scattered over England--built after the same plan and decorated after the same fashion. It stands in a street, and is reduplicated on every hand like a cardboard expanding toy. It draws a peaked gable roof over its red brick face, and has no originality to awake attention.

In one thing only is mine house unique. Its general architecture it owes to its builder, its cupboards to a certain little old lady who lived therein for many years. Every spot has been utilised, and I rejoice in the most comfortable interior it is possible to imagine. "A place for everything and everything in its place" is a motto easily followed in this mine house.

Nowadays most matrons have wakened to the delights of a well-cupboarded "manio," or abiding-place. The first thing looked for in taking a new house is its capabilities in this direction. The long-headed woman values every recess and corner as a possible press. She knows a few shillings spent in pine-boards, hooks, curtains, and locks, can transform dust-collecting angles into dust-resisting receptacles. With a little forethought and contrivance, our carpenter can be so superintended that such work need not be made into "fixtures"--sliding grooves and panels, a few staples and screws, insure easily taken-down wardrobes, and need not strain the purse of even a frequent flitter.

The first necessary cupboard in mine house is the linen press. This should, if possible, be built over those unseemly hot-water pipes which supply the bath from our kitchen boiler. There should be graduated shelves in it--wide ones to hold sheets, narrow ones for table napkins, d'oyleys, etc. Every shelf should be neatly lined with white paper, and one at least must have linen laps to tie over our least-used napery. Plenty of lavender bags--measuring the length of the press--should be placed everywhere; not tiny satchel-like things, which rumple into corners and get mislaid, but at least a yard in length and just as wide as each shelf.

On the door should be pasted a list of the linen stored in this our press. This list varies much in each house; but I will tell you what I consider absolutely necessary only. First, there should be six Irish linen tablecloths for parlour use and three breakfast cloths; six fine table-napkins for every member of the family. For kitchen wear, three smaller coarser cloths are required, and, if you wish to inculcate habits of nicety in your maids, three napkins apiece must be provided. This allows for one in use, one at the laundry, and one in reserve. Half-a-dozen fringed tea-cloths, half-a-dozen sideboard slips, a couple of dozen oval, round, and square d'oyleys, and the embellishment of the dining-table is secured.

We next come to the sleeping rooms. In our press we must number three pair of sheets for each bed--each upper one frilled and embroidered with our monogram. These sheets may be of twilled cotton, but their accompanying fellow slips must be of linen. Linen wears better, looks better, and feels nicer than cotton. There should be six to each single bed. Cash's hem-stitched frilling gives a dainty finish to these slips, and will wear as long as the linen. Beside the bed-linen should lie chamber-towels; of these it is nice to have several dozen, with different borders, when possible, so that each room may keep to its own set. Cheap towels are most expensive in the long run; those flimsy honeycomb ones requiring incessant laundrying. Buy good huckaback, or satin diaper, and beautify them with marking initials in cross stitch. This is easily done by tacking a small square of coarse canvas into the corner and withdrawing its strands after working. Ingrain cottons of all colours can now be bought for this work; the red wears and washes best.

Our dressing-tables also claim a niche in our linen press. Three sets of covers being necessary for each.

At the very top of our press, it is well to have some very wide shelves fixed. They will be overhead, so may jut out into the room. In this cupboard--lined with brown holland, and scented with camphor balls--we shall do well to store spare blankets in the summer, down quilts when not in use, and any straw pillows. They will always be warm and ready for immediate service, as the hot-water pipes will keep them well aired.

So much about furnishing our linen press. The replenishment of it should be constant. Even when we use our dozens of towels in rotation, they will wear out, and it is necessary to keep up the stock by occasional purchases. Careful mending, too, is necessary. No pillow-slips minus buttons or tapes, no tiny hole in a tablecloth, should be seen in a well-kept linen press. When sheets wear thin, they should be split in half, sides brought to the centre, and the worn edges hemmed. When constant folding brings frays in a tablecloth, the laundress should be directed to fold them across instead of lengthways. This will double the life of our finest diaper. Towels, when ragged, can be doubled and made into bath cloths and chamber rubbers; loops of tape attached will be useful for hanging in place.

The next cupboard claiming attention in mine house is the crockery one. Here are stored cups and saucers, plenty of spare glass, water-jugs and crofts. It is well to keep in this press extra lamp-chimneys and gas-globes. Best dessert dishes, too, should be placed on the top shelf and any ornaments not in daily use.

Hanging presses are a great boon to the tidy housewife. One for spare dresses should be built on any landing large enough. American pegs screwed into the wall over a sheet of well-stretched holland answer the purpose of skirt-hanging. To each of them should be tied a double width of the same material to wrap round our silk and muslin robes. Sometimes bags, forty-six inches long, are preferred to draw over the skirt and to hang with it from a peg. With these bags it is unnecessary to have doors to this cupboard, as their use is a safeguard against dust, even if a curtain only be hung in front of the recess.

A remnant cupboard is not always met with, but what a boon it is in mine house. My old lady had one fixed in a spare room. A top shelf is ready for rolls of wall paper, remnants of curtains, calicoes, and flannels, old square of blanket fit for scouring purposes, old linen for dust-cloths fill its pigeon-holes, whilst a rag-bag of red twill hangs below all, and is stuffed with scraps too small to be rolled or folded.

A medicine cupboard is a necessity in mine house. One hung not higher than one's head is best. This should be divided in half; one partition provided with a well-locked door, the other protected only by a curtain. In this latter portion may be kept narrow and wide bandages, goldbeater's skin, and sticking plaster, cotton-wool, and a pair of scissors, some strong thread and tape, vaseline and powder. In the locked part all the family pharmacopœia must be secluded. "Poisons" should be printed legibly on the door, and the key should never leave our own _chatelaine_. Have in this a bottle of sweet nitre for feverishness, and some pilules of aconite; spirits of camphor for a cold, and a screw of lump sugar; a two-ounce bottle of castor oil with an old teaspoon near it, spongia, Ipecacuanha wine, and syrup of squills ready for croup; a tin of linseed, another of mustard, a flask of sweet oil, a bottle each of eucalyptus, camphorated oil and glycerine; belladonna tincture for sore throats; carron or green oil for a burn; and liquorice powder or Cascara pellets for constipation. In mine house all these things are necessary, and should be found in the medicine cupboard.

A jam press is a nice addition to our housewife's corner. Every pot of marmalade or jelly should have a label on it stating when it was made.

"Raspberry jam, No. 1 boiling, July 20th, 1899."

In a dry situation there is no need to cover each crock. If well boiled and made of fresh sound fruit, it should "jell" enough to keep without excluding air. A sheet of newspaper laid over the rows of pots is all my old lady ever thought necessary for her home-made jam. But then her jam press had air-holes bored in the door. These were masked with finest wire netting, and effectually prevented mouldiness.

A boot cupboard lengthens the lives of all our bottines. Two shelves about two feet apart should be protected in front with a chintz curtain hanging from tiny rings to a brass pole. Every pair of boots should be kept here, protected from dust and ready for wear. Trees fitted into each are really economical, as they double the existence of all outdoor footgear. Damp boots, too, can be filled with oats, and dry slowly in this cupboard, instead of being hardened and shrivelled over the kitchen range.

Of course a store press is a _sine quâ non_ in mine house. I do not keep this locked, for servants should be trusted in a family. Here everything likely to be wanted in an emergency is kept--tins of salmon, herrings and tomatoes, collared head, _pâte de foie gras_, corned beef, pickles and chutnees, potted meats, bottled fruit for pies, capers, peppers, spices, lentils by the stone, and all farinaceous preparations; soap by weight cut up and dried, currents washed and picked ready for use, raisins, sultanas, soda in a sack, etc., etc. In order to keep these things really nice and fresh, stone jars with covers are the best to put them in. But when these prove too expensive, wide-mouthed pickle bottles may be used, labelled clearly so that their contents are recognised at once. Flour should be kept in a tub, apples and sugar in casks. This store cupboard must be cleared out once a month, its shelves swept down, and fresh lining paper put there on them. It is easy then to note where our supply is running short, and to supplement it, easy to see where a bag has burst, or bottle is leaking, and to substitute other ones.

A _multum in parvo_ cupboard is one of the comforts in mine house. Here, under lock and key, are kept spare dozens of cotton, spools, papers of needles, boxes of pins, both hair and dress, tapes and measures, paper and envelopes, pens by the gross, and pencils by the score. These can often be picked up at sales for next to nothing, and a constant supply of such necessities is at hand.

A carpenter's cupboard is a boon to every household. In mine house one is fitted up in a tiny closet under the stairs. So many little things go wrong in the framework of our homes--locks grow stiff, handles come off, window cords break, nails want driving. How well it is when the mistress of a house can wield hammer and gimlet and screwdriver; and yet how often are such tools missing when required. In my carpenter's cupboard there is always a heavy-headed, light-handled little hammer for adjusting carpets or putting in tacks; also a coal-hammer for heavier work. Here a gimlet may be found, and several different-sized screwdrivers, a box of assorted nails; hooks and screws are also found there when wanted. A small sharpening plate and flask of oil for keeping the family couch in easy trim, a smoothing plane and saw, wire nails and coils of thin cord, a pair of pincers, and a good knife. I find a stitch in time in carpentering saves more than the proverbial nine.

And now I think I have told you about most of the cupboards in mine house, and what is found therein. I have not described the housemaid's closet with its hairbroom, its pope's head, its twig, its besom, its dustpan and brush, or its other et ceteras. Every mistress of a family knows what is required therein, only let me suggest that her usual feather-head dusting-brush should be conspicuous by its absence. Never was so senseless a plan devised for flicking particles from one place to another as that same feather whisk. Let the housemaid have plenty of damp dusters at hand, and germ-pregnant dust will be effectually removed.

I have omitted, too, all account of the butler's pantry. Houses nowadays that keep such an official are governed by a housekeeper, and not by the mistress herself. Besides, I am writing about small establishments in which women do the work. For that reason, my next paper will be all about the ingle-nooks in mine house, and how to economise these.

(_To be continued._)

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

MEDICAL.

KATHERINE.--We can tell you all about your complaint, for we can speak from personal experience, having been liable to the condition for many years. The disease is called "herpes labialis." It is one of a large group of affections which consist of small blisters on a red base and occur on various parts of the body. That variety of herpes which occurs on the side of the trunk is called herpes zoster or shingles. Herpes labialis is a very common complaint. It frequently recurs in those liable to it and often occurs on both sides of the mouth at once. It is very erratic and scarcely ever occupies the same site in two or more successive attacks. Of its cause we know but little. It is very common in typhoid fever and other infectious diseases, and is almost constantly present in pneumonia. In some people it occurs after every slight disturbance of digestion, after alterations of diet, or after change of residence from one place to another. It frequently recurs at regular intervals of time. Its origin is unquestionably nervous. It begins with a sharp smarting pain in a limited region of the lips or chin. The smarting increases, the place gets red, and in a few hours vesicles make their appearance. In a day or two the vesicles dry up and a scab forms which eventually drops off, leaving a red mark which persists for a week or more. It is purely superficial and never leaves a scar. To prevent this condition is by no means easy. Find out, if possible, what causes it, and then, if you can remove the cause, the condition will probably cease. During an attack, thickly dust the place over with zinc oxide and cover it with cotton wool. No drug has the slightest effect on the condition, and indeed the same may be said of every form of treatment. Like so many other nervous diseases, it runs its course uninfluenced by treatment. Often the liability to the condition disappears as if by magic and never again returns.

MARGUERITA.--No, there is not any danger in threadworms. An injection of salt and water will remove them. A dose of one grain of santonin followed by a mild purge is sometimes sufficient to get rid of them.

ONE IN TROUBLE.--Of course, if a person next door contracted typhoid fever from bad drains, you do stand a risk of catching the disease from the same source. Typhoid fever is not infectious in the usual sense of the term; that is, it is not caught from one person by another. Washing the soiled linen of typhoid patients may produce the disease unless the clothes have been disinfected. If the vegetables that you grow are cooked before you eat them, they will not produce typhoid, for the organism of typhoid is killed by boiling water. If the men have not yet removed the old pipes from your garden, you should certainly complain to the sanitary inspector of the district about it, and have the pipes removed at once, for they are not only unsightly but positively dangerous, both to yourself and to the whole neighbourhood.

A LOVER OF THE "G.O.P."--Irregular action of the heart may be due to weakness, anæmia, indigestion, or true heart disease. Of course by irregular action of the heart you mean perceptible, irregular thumpings of the heart--what we usually call palpitation, in fact. You yourself cannot tell whether your heart is beating regularly or not, unless you are a physician. By far the commonest cause of palpitation is indigestion, and infinitely the rarest cause is heart disease.

STUDY AND STUDIO.

M. C. F. (Bristol).--Many thanks for your card. We have already corrected the error of our correspondent, A. S. C. D., about B. M.

CRIMSON RAMBLER.--We should advise you to read Mrs. Watson's articles on "What are the County Councils doing for girls?" in THE GIRL'S OWN PAPER for March, July, August, and September, 1887. There is a domestic economy school at Northampton where girls can obtain board, lodging, and thorough practical instruction in cookery. This would perhaps be the nearest to you. Fifteen free studentships are offered for competition, but if you did not gain one, the sum you mention would probably be more than enough. Write for full details to Byron R. Simpson, Esq., County Hall, Northampton. Opportunities simply abound in all directions for the training you require, and space would fail us to enumerate them all, but we may just add that the cost of training at the London National Training School of Cookery, Buckingham Palace Road, S.W., is thirteen guineas for the full course of twenty-four weeks. The papers we mention will supply every detail.

DOROTHY.--We should advise you also to consult Mrs. Watson's articles. The Clerk, Technical Instruction Committee, West Riding Offices, Wakefield, may help you if you write to him. You might also write to the Secretary of Girton College, Miss Kensington, 83, Gloucester Terrace, Hyde Park, London, requesting information.

FOSBURY.--The character of Tom Thurnall appears in _Two Years Ago_, by Charles Kingsley. The book is a charming and beautiful one, and will never be "old-fashioned" in the depreciatory sense.

BETSY TROTWOOD.--1. In the bars of organ music you enclose, the bass notes are played on the pedals. 2. A turn placed over a chord means that the top note of the chord is played as a turn.

BONGIE'S FRIEND.--1. We should advise you to write to the poetess you name through the publishing office of the paper. 2. Your English writing is very good. "Comply" is a better word than "agree" with my desire, and Mr. is always written in the abbreviated form, but you express yourself excellently.

INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE.

MISS M. H. COUPLAND, 12, Crescent Parade, Ripon--a teacher, fond of literature and music--would like a German correspondent, each writing in the language of the other.

GERTRUDE PADFIELD, Birtsmorton Court, near Tewkesbury, Worcestershire, wishes to correspond with a French girl, who is requested to send her name and address.

GÄNSEBLÜMCHEN.--A German girl would like to exchange letters with an Italian girl, a French girl, and an English girl, living in London. Her greatest wish would be to find an Italian correspondent. Would those who like to answer please give their address.

MISS VALENTINE MASSARIA, S. Moisé 2243, Venice, would like to correspond with an English girl of good family of about her own age (16) or a little older; both to write in English.

MISS K. L. A., c/o the Misses Thompson, Orgill House, 15, Goldsmith Road, King's Heath, Birmingham, would like a French lady correspondent between twenty and thirty years of age.

J. A.--Cruet-stands have long been relegated to the side-board, and from thence handed round by the footman or waitress. Pepper, salt and mustard are placed at the corners of the dinner table, together with tablespoons. Ham and chicken patties, and mince-pies, are generally placed on dish papers (with stamped borders) in plated dishes. Eggs (boiled) and hot chestnuts folded in a napkin in a deep pudding dish, or a bowl with a stand, such as is used for fruit.

FLORENCE BENTON.--1. Longfellow's Poems are far preferable to those others to which you refer; which are very rough and sometimes obscure. So you have lost nothing by inability to purchase them.--2. Old red and black English stamps have a certain value, and this depends on the letters on the corners. The water-mark also must be consulted, which may be seen by holding the stamp up to the light. This was sometimes a crown or a star, or a crown surmounting two "C's"; for India, an elephant's head; Jamaica, a pineapple, etc. It is called a "water-mark" as it was produced by very small jets of water projected in the stamp, which washed away minute fragments of paper and thinned it in the outline pattern required. These water-marks and the corner letters were employed to protect the Government from forgery. These letters varied in their selection and combination; and if you had examined a whole sheet of them you would have discovered that no two stamps had a similar arrangement of letters. A little "Handbook for a Collector of Postage Stamps," by W. T. Ogilvie, would help you. Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., Paternoster Row, E.C., would also assist you. We are glad our paper pleases you so much.

I. W. L. inquires what can be done to relieve, or save the flesh from burning through an accidental sprinkling of vitriol. It cannot be too much impressed on those who have occasion to employ so dangerous a liquid, that no application of water should be made. It is that combination of liquids that burns into the flesh. Wipe off the vitriol, or any other such burning liquid, with a perfectly dry cloth at once, and no injury will follow. The application of common chalk on the place will likewise prevent burning. Wipe thoroughly, and then rub in the chalk before venturing to wash it at the time of your next ablutions.

MARGARET.--It is quite true that there are blue, green, yellow or sand-coloured, and red diamonds; for the colour is no absolute guide to the nature of the gem. There are green sapphires, white ones, and some of a yellowish, or grey hue. There are also black or grey pearls, and it is only the composition of the gem that determines its class.

MILDRED MARCHANT.--There is a book on _Orchids for Amateurs_, which is greatly commended by the _Gardener's Chronicle_, and published at 170, Strand, W.C. It is by James Britten, F.L.S., and W. H. Gower. It would be sent carriage free. The illustrations are excellent.

MAORI.--Certainly, you must not touch meat, nor a bone with your fingers when eating. You should clean your teeth both morning and night, at least; three times would be better, and requisite for those who wear false teeth on a plate. Your writing is very neat and legible.

FOUR GIRLS.--See our Extra Christmas Number for what you ask.

WHITE HEATHER.--We do not believe in the so-called science of palmistry.

THE GIRL'S OWN QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS COMPETITION.

_Full details of this Competition, with its prizes and certificates of merit open to all readers of THE GIRL'S OWN PAPER, were given on page 14_.

Questions 37-48.

37. What famous musical composition came to a violinist in a dream?

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38. When did witchcraft cease to be recognised as a crime by the law of England?

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39. What famous book was mislaid when in manuscript and partly written, and was only discovered by the author nine years afterwards in the drawer of an old writing-desk?

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40. What English Cathedral was set on fire and severely damaged by a man who was afterwards found to be insane?

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41. What is the best diet for brain-workers?

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42. What saint was so able a musician that according to tradition an angel descended to earth enraptured with her melodious strains?

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43. What is the origin of the three ostrich feathers as a badge of the Princes of Wales?

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44. When did ignorant people in this country imagine they had been defrauded out of eleven days by those in authority?

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45. Who was the hermit who lived for over thirty years on the top of a pillar?

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46. What famous stone in this country is said to have been Jacob's pillow?

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47. Why is the wedding-ring worn on the fourth finger of the left hand?

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48. How did the forget-me-not get its name?

The answers to the above questions, Nos. 37-48, together with the answers to questions 25-36, which appeared on page 78, must be sent in on or before January 27, 1899.

Address to THE EDITOR, THE GIRL'S OWN PAPER Office, 56, Paternoster Row, London, E.C., and at the left-hand top corner of the envelope or wrapper write the words "QUESTIONS COMPETITION."

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE.

The following changes have been made to the original text:

Page 110: "Ltitle" to "Little".

Page 111: "aad" to "and"--"tapes and measures".